Our Pool History

Part I

1st Generation swimming pool tiler

My grandfather Leonardo Rodriguez was born in Argentina in 1927
When he was just 6 years old, he had started to work in a farm, because his father passed away he had to work with his brothers in order to help the family survive.

His passion was singing and theatre, he was a very talented singer and actor, even as a child he would sing in bars to get coins to take home to his mother.
As he got older he continued to sing and perform, he made connections in the enterntainment business and in his teenage years he started working in the construction industry in Argentina where he also learnt how to tile, as the only way to make real money was to work hard during hard times.

He arrived in Australia after the government had an assisted migration  policy in the early 70s that included and invited people from Argentina, he didn't need to give it much thought and he came to Australia with his wife Carmen & their 3 children named, Leo, Alejandra & Veronica.

Leonardo Rodriguez arrived in NSW and immediatly started working wherever he could get any work, he was given many jobs in the construction industry and they used him for whatever talents he had and the builders could develope out of him.

Leonardo was asked if it were possible for him to tile a swimming pool and he said he could, so he was given a project to tile the waterline tiles of a new swimming pool, he said he enjoyed the work so much, he wanted to do it again & so he did, he felt there was an art to tiling swimming pools like no other in the construction industry.
Because of his background in the arts and entertainment, he naturally gravitated to this type of work and never looked back, he also started doing the pebblecrete render coping around the top of swimming pools.

Leonardo met another pool builder in NSW that had a swimming pool business in Melbourne, he was offered permanent work in Melbourne doing swimming pools and he moved with his family to the South Eastern suburbs of Melbourne.

Part II

2nd Generation swimming pool tiler & renovator.

My father Eugene Galban was born in Spain in 1955, he grew up in a small town by the sea where many of the residents worked in the fishing industry.

At just 16 years old, he was a sailor & worked on the ships that would send containers from one country to another, he did many trips around the world from Europe to Africa & South America, when he final arrived in Australia in 1974 in the port of Melbourne.

Spain at the time was ruled by General Franco, Dictator of Spain, so when Eugene arrived in Melbourne he was offered work and accomodation and so it was an easy decision for him to decide to stay, knowing that he could help his family overseas with earnings from Australia.

Part III

During a weekend in 1977 my father Eugene decided to go out into Melbourne with friends to the Spanish Club in Johnson Street Fitzroy.

On this night he met a young woman by the name of Alexandra, she is the daughter of the original pool tiler Leonardo Rodriguez, once they had a dance and got to know eachother over the course of roughly a year she introduced Eugene to her parents and they shared the news that they intended on getting married.

My grandfather Leonardo, had no problem with this, but expressed that he wanted Eugene to work for him so that Eugene could learn how to tile swimming pools and be able to provide for Alexandra and their potential future family.

Eugene was working fulltime at a factory and would work weekends learning how to tile swimming pools with Leonardo. In 1979 Eugene married Alexandra.

Eugene worked with Leonardo for just over 4 years, Eugene managed to work night shifts at a plastics factory at the same time!

After the 4 years my father Eugene decided to go into swimming pool tiling on his own, he became a self-employed swimming pool tiler during the 80's he mainly did tiling work for Atlantis Pools in Melbourne, Atlantis Pools was located in Springvale Road, Springvale.

Part IV

3rd Generation 
Swimming pool tiler, renovator & pool resurfacing.

When I was a kid in the 80's I remember my father coming home in his truck, it was a Toyota Dyna, I was always so excited to see dad and the truck, I remember I was taken to work with him on a couple of Saturdays to watch him working, I also remember going with him to the Atlantis Pools head office in Springvale.

In my teenage years while I was at school, I worked with my father on weekends, I would always be asking questions and he would also tell me watch how he does it so that I would learn.

I remember the first renovation I helped in, he had to build up the floor of the swimming pool because the customers didn't want the pool to be so deep.

My father always appreciated art of all kinds & he was always so proud of the jobs he would do, he would talk about swimming pool tiling as if it were a form of art, he would mention all the mosaic tiling that there is throughout the streets of Spain and talk about how art comes naturally to the Spanish people, he would show me his work with photos he had taken & many times he would boast about his work when we were at the jobs.

The advice my father always gave me was, there are many tradies that get into trouble, many tradesmen that get sued, if you don't want to be one of them, then do every job as if it were for yourself, if you give your jobs the love and attention to detail you'd give to your own swimming pool, then your customers will always be happy.

In my 20's I continued to work with him until eventually I was offered a job oportunity to tile a swimming pool on my own, once that job was complete my confidence was soaring & I felt so proud, I knew I had to continue doing jobs on my own as I was just starting a new family with my wife Irene.

Irene was always very supportive, she encouraged me and helped me have the confidence that was needed to start a business for myself.

I have always been an enthusiastic person, If i did something I needed it to be big! No matter what I did, I wanted to be the best at it and when i started planning the business, my first priority was to have good customer relation skills, I didn't want to be a rough tradie, I wanted to be a professional, I wanted to be able to communicate with customers respectfully and give them a great renovation as well as a good friendly experience.

When thinking about what to name the business I was starting,  It didn't make sense to me to name the business a fancy name, like Andrew pools or tropical pools etc... I wanted to be approachable, I wanted customers to feel like I was always available, I remember once when i needed a plumber i was hoping to find someone local so they could help me quickly, when in that moment I realized I should name the business Local Pool Renovations as a reminder that I want to always be available to customers and hoped my customers could always count on me to be around the corner if they ever needed me.