When Miren Oca asked her son whether he wanted to take over Ocaquatics, he said no. Ian had worked at the swim school for fourteen years, knew the business, and seemed the natural person to carry it forward, but he wanted to do something different with his life.
The company existed because she had needed to support him when he was a baby. Now she had to find another way for it to continue, one that would also look after the people who had worked beside her for years.
Miren recalls that decision on The Conscious Capitalists, the podcast hosted by Raj Sisodia and Timothy Henry. Reaching it took a journey that began long before she thought about succession, when she still expected to become a doctor and was certain she would never own a business.
A job while her son grew up
Her parents had opened a restaurant after immigrating to the United States. They worked every day and, on some nights, Miren and her siblings fell asleep under a desk, covered with tablecloths, while their parents kept serving customers. She grew up seeing how hard they worked to keep it going and wanted a more secure life.
She earned a scholarship to Tulane and was studying biochemistry when she became pregnant at 19. With no money and worried about the future, she moved to Miami to be near her family. She had taught swimming since high school, so she began offering lessons in backyard pools to cover her son's expenses and her own.
Ocaquatics began in February 1994 as a way to get by. Miren finished her degree, although by then Ian was eighteen months old and medical school with a toddler seemed impossible. She decided to wait until he was older.
In the meantime, she found a hotel pool and hired someone to help. Then another person joined, and the work began to change: alongside teaching children, she was teaching other people how to do it. She needed their help to keep the school running and discovered how much she enjoyed watching them learn.
The pool that made her stay
The business grew in borrowed facilities; she had to leave several times. About fourteen years after starting, the possibility of building her own pool brought her back to the decision she had postponed. If she wanted to return to medicine, she needed to do it; if she was going to continue with the school, she needed a place of her own.
She chose to build the pool and began spending more time developing her team. She had learned to lead by looking for books in libraries and making mistakes she still remembers when one of her young employees gets something wrong. She knew they could improve because she, too, had needed to learn.
She organized workshops and a leadership book club. They learned to listen, to talk through problems, and to take on responsibilities beyond teaching a swimming stroke. As some began building careers at Ocaquatics, Miren needed new locations where they could keep growing.
On a trip to collect supplies, she saw a warehouse that was about to be vacated and thought it could become another school. By then, she had people ready to help her open it. Over the years, they reached five locations and about 6,500 lessons a week, as she described in the interview.
Who would carry it forward?
Growth attracted private equity investors. Miren remembers meeting three men barefoot beside a pool after they arrived ahead of their appointment; at that first meeting, she did not even know the initials they used for their industry.
The conversations that followed made her think about the company's future. That was when she approached Ian and heard that he wanted a different path. As she explored selling to her employees, she thought about the executive team but also about the people who had spent fifteen or seventeen years doing the cleaning.
She wanted those people to participate even if they could not afford to buy a stake. After studying different models, she chose an employee ownership trust, which holds the company for the benefit of its employees.
Under the arrangement she describes, people can become beneficiaries after accumulating 2,500 working hours. Profits are distributed among eligible participants after funds are set aside for capital investment and reserves. The entire custodial staff could participate from the transition, along with part-time employees who had already completed the hours.
A phone call about a house
Miren remained at the head of Ocaquatics. Preparations for sharing the business had begun years earlier, when personal financial literacy courses helped the team understand the school's finances, too. Talking about revenue and costs allowed them to take a more informed part in decisions affecting their work.
One of those lessons came back to her in a phone call. The day before the interview, an employee called to say she had found a house and was about to make an offer. She had taken the courses and saved for a down payment.
Miren recalls the call and says it gives her chills. The savings that employee had learned to build were beginning to turn into a home.
She had opened the school to support her son while he grew up. Ian grew up and chose his own path; she stayed at Ocaquatics, where others could now make plans with what they had built together. One of those people had just called to tell her about hers.
Source: interview with Miren Oca on The Conscious Capitalists, hosted by Raj Sisodia and Timothy Henry.