Jersey girl: by age 22, this lifeguard had started her first pool company. Now Cheryl Mujica is working on a whole new chapter

Pool & Spa News, Jan 31, 2005 by Joshua Keim

She's a certified lifeguard and CPO instructor, the president of a pool management/service/construction firm, and founder of a manufacturer specializing in tools for the pool and spa industry.

As of last November, she's also president of the APSP Metro Chapter of New York and New Jersey--the association's largest chapter at more than 250 members. All things considered, Cheryl Mujica just might be one of the most qualified, yet underestimated, professionals in the biz.

"I just really enjoy what I do for a living," she said. "It's not like a job; it's a hobby. If you enjoy what you're doing, you'll be better at it."

Mujica's career in the pool industry began 20 years ago. In high school, she spent her summers working as a lifeguard in Long Branch, along the New Jersey shore. Later, she paid her way through the Fashion Institute the same way: working as a lifeguard for a real estate/property management firm and eventually as an aquatics supervisor at Iowa Sports.

"It was a great experience because the companies I worked for let you develop your management skills," she said. "It was an opportunity to grow as a person."

In May 1990, she graduated with a degree in textile marketing. But at the time, the tile industry had packed up shop and left town.

"There was no job opening in the field because the whole market was being shipped overseas or down South," she recalled. "I didn't think of getting back into lifeguarding because after college, everyone expects you to get a 'real job.'"

Four months later, Mujica discovered lifeguarding could be a "real job" when one of her former clients asked her to manage the pool at his new apartment complex.

At the ripe age of 22, the enterprising Mujica consolidated her resources and $5,000 in life savings to start up Perfect Pool & Spa Management Inc. in Norwood, N.J. "I realized that I always enjoyed lifeguarding," she said. "Then to find out that I could make money at it, I thought, 'Why not?'"

At first, she struggled daily to overcome her clients' prejudices against her youth and gender. "I had to work twice as hard to prove myself because of those two factors," Mujica recalled.

Eventually, she built a reputation that transcended those boundaries. What began as a pool management firm providing lifeguards to commercial facilities blossomed into a full-service company, with repair and construction departments. Today, the thriving firm has a year-round staff of 50 and clients throughout the Tri-State area.

Like all of her successes, Wingmaster Inc., which makes pool-specific tools, was born from her same talent for recognizing and exploiting untapped needs in the marketplace. After a few seasons of butting heads with typical service-side dilemmas, she had realized that her troubles were the result of a lack of industry-specific tools. With the design assistance of a neighbor, Wingmaster was launched in 2000, offering its cover anchor extractor.

Mujica only attributes its success to chance and a little "luck."

"People in this business just land here," she said. "No one goes to school saying, 'I want to be in the pool industry.' But when they realize the financial dynamics of this industry and see how successful you can be, that's when you find more people coming into it."

Armed now with a resume that runs the gamut of the industry, Mujica said her greatest asset to her Metro Chapter role is her ability to understand the issues from every perspective.

"I can associate with each level of the industry," she said. "I can see where the manufacturers are coming from because I understand their dilemmas.... I know what it's like to try to maintain a reliable labor force for your lifeguard and service departments [and] I sit on the board to benefit the industry, not myself."