“May I have your attention please? The time is now 10:45. Our lap swim is now over. Thank you.”

Nothing says summer quite like park district pools. Swim lessons, birthday parties and meeting friends for a day at the pool are essential summertime activities. Any kid lucky enough to live where there’s a park district with an aquatic center can thank people like Randy Braun and his team for keeping them running safely all summer long.  

Randy Braun has dedicated much of his career as Facilities Manager for the St. Charles Park District in St. Charles, Illinois. Randy oversees building maintenance, repairs and inspections for the park district’s buildings including swimming facilities. During the summer, Randy’s primary focus is Otter Cove Aquatic Park, which covers roughly 10 acres and contains three pools, a lazy river and three splash pads. 

“The key features of Otter Cove Aquatic Park are the activity pool, the slides, and a wonderful lazy river,” Randy says. “If you just want to float all day, there's something for everybody here.”

Working Together

Randy is quick to recognize that it requires a team effort to manage a park this size. His facilities management team includes three full-time staff members, including a facility supervisor and two facilities technicians. At one time, he would jump in and personally tackle jobs that weren't done. But once he became a leader, he realized the importance of delegating specific responsibilities. He now believes the workers enjoy their job more, and the approach also makes things much easier for him. “Working as a team makes for a better day," he said. “We can't manage this facility without any one of them. They're all essential.”

Managing Water Chemistry

The water features Randy and his team manage require more than 650,000 gallons of water. To ensure the health and safety of the 80,000 people of all ages who visit the aquatic facility each year, there’s a lot of attention and maintenance to ensure the cleanliness and safety of all of that water.

Maintaining water chemistry and temperature are critical safety measures. “We have a chemical controller connected to an alert system that immediately contacts us if there’s a problem," Randy said.

To add another level of safety, Randy said his team conducts poolside checks every two hours. He can also check the water remotely by computer either in his office or at home on his laptop. “We maintain the chlorine and pH levels required by the state health department, which are generally between 7.3 and 7.5," he said. “We treat our pools with chlorine, and once you add chlorine, you have to adjust your pH. So, we do that with hydrochloric acid.”

In addition to the proper pH levels, keeping the pools at safe, comfortable and constant temperatures is also important. Randy said they start out the day at 80 degrees because it makes swim lessons in the morning more comfortable for younger participants. If the temperature goes up to 82 degrees, the state health department will require raising the chlorine residual.

Keeping Everything Working

The biggest challenge at Otter Cove, Randy said, is making sure everything works correctly and safely, and that they never have to shut down a pool for any mechanical reason. “We don't want anybody to get here and not be able to use one of our pools because of a mechanical or chemical problem," he said. “So, those are real concerns we monitor very closely.”

The Best Part

Randy enjoys the regular challenges that come with the job each day because that’s what keeps it interesting. But what he likes most is that people come to the park to enjoy themselves, so they are usually happy and having a great time.

“It's wonderful to see people laying by the pool and swimming and playing in the pool," he said. “Wherever I am in the park district, it's where people come to enjoy themselves and that's the best part of this job. There’s always something new and it never gets boring. It keeps my interest and makes me want to get out of bed every day.”