Episode 136: The LaMotte Company - A Century of Innovation with Richard LaMotte
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Soundcloud, Google Podcasts, Youtube, or on your favorite Podcast platform
Episode Summary
Today’s guest takes us way back to 1919 when his company was started by his grandfather just after the Great War. He walks us through the many innovative ideas and products that the LaMotte Company has had over that time, what sparked those ideas, and the amount of work that it took to make it all happen.
We go through LaMotte’s pretty incredible list of accolades, including everything from blood kits, soil kits, phenol red, DPD, colorimeters, test strips, to their WaterLink® Spin Touch®.
Richard LaMotte became involved in the family business in 1984—another LaMotte on the long list of 15 family members who have been actively involved so far—and today he serves as the V.P. of Sales and Marketing.
Topics Discussed
01:31 - How The LaMotte Company began
08:37 - Introducing the first portable pool test kits in the U.S.
10:58 - Steven Seagal using LaMotte test kits
15:56 - The original use for soil tests after the Dust Bowl
19:30 - Phenol red and why LaMotte began producing it
22:31 - Making the switch to DPD for drinking water and swimming pools
27:33 - Dealing with competitors such as Taylor Technologies
29:23 - The launch of DPD and phenol red tableting operation
33:16 - The launch of Insta-Test test strips in 1996
43:43 - The introduction of WaterLink and the WaterLink® Spin Touch®
54:12 - How LaMotte has handled the challenges of COVID-19
58:14 - How many LaMotte’s have worked for the LaMotte Company?
1:04:24 - LaMotte’s upcoming projects
Sponsors
Key Quotes from Episode
Most people who managed pools before knew that you had a yellow, orange, or red color in phenol red, and that’s telling you that the pH is on the high side, causing problems such as clogging the pipes.
The precision you can get in a professionally-done titration with a large burette is always going to be better on hardness and alkalinity than on color metric.
The whole idea behind the WaterLink® Spin Touch® is to give people in the swimming pool industry a really fast way to test water because they have been asking for this forever. We have to find a way to make it reliable enough that they get the answers they need.
When you’re working in a small company, anybody can make a difference.