Ten years ago we launched a new, revamped Best of Aquatics program.

Originally, the award was meant to celebrate aquatics facilities that stood out in remarkable ways. However, over time it became nearly indistinguishable from Dream Designs, our annual design award program. The winning Best of Aquatics profiles often were just a general overview of the venue, and did not offer useful takeaways for other facilities to emulate.

In addition, facilities that were great in one area and weaker in another were automatically disqualified, even if they were performing noteworthy work in that one field.

With all that in mind, the program was redesigned to honor excellence in specific, competitive and interesting categories that are highly relevant to every aquatics facility. Those categories included Overall Programming, Targeted Programming, Community Outreach, Lifeguard Training, Lifeguard Management, Marketing, Energy Efficiency and Theming.

Over the years, we fine-tuned the program. While the majority of the categories were key to facility operations, we found that Energy Efficiency and Theming were both more appropriate as design considerations, so they were removed and replaced with other categories as the need arose. For example, in 2020, we added COVID Response to highlight how aquatics facilities had quickly pivoted to serve their communities in new ways never before imagined due to the pandemic.

Now, I see Best of Aquatics as a way to celebrate operations, management and programming excellence — everything that makes a facility great minus the actual pool and building, or the “soft skills,” so to speak. In recognition of how far the program has come, this special 10th anniversary issue features 10 standouts from the past decade.

In the resulting profiles, you’ll read why these facilities were selected in their winning year, why we consider them the best of the Best, and an update of where they are now and the impact their program has had.

I also invite you to come and celebrate these 10 facilities at the annual Association of Aquatic Professionals Conference and Expo, held Feb. 1-8 at St. Pete Beach, Fla. We will host a special General Session and Award Ceremony on Wednesday, Feb. 5 from 8-9 a.m. I look forward to seeing you there!