Mary Humble founded her pool service business in 1976 with the idea of treating every pool as if it were her own.  She launched her dream with nothing more than a beat-up ’62 green pickup truck and a tremendous work ethic.  The company grew steadily with an all-woman workforce for over 20 years.

I remember in 1998, her son Stoni and I were in business school together and in need of summer employment.  We went to work for Mary and were eager to “help” her with all we had been learning from our professors at Wichita State.  We noticed she was doing a lot of work that wasn’t part of the services she was charging for, such as cleaning grass clipping left by landscapers or getting on her hands and knees to scrub the underside of equipment around the pool area.  We pointed out if she would cut out those activities she could complete more jobs in a day.  After all, none of her competitors were doing it, and her customers had no idea she was doing it either.