The inception of Millennium Pools & Spas, a multi-service pool company, took place in a family living room. A teenage Kirk Lavery, intent on carving his own path from large commercial part-time jobs, announced he would clean neighborhood pools on his own. His mother offered the name Millennium, a nod to the name of the pool company his father owned. A bicycle, a handwritten sign, and a handful of clients formed the earliest footprint of the brand that now manages high-end aquatic facilities, water parks, civil facilities, complex commercial buildings, and residential projects across Virginia, Washington, D.C., and Maryland.
“I was only 15 years old, and I only had a few customers. I could go as far as my bike would take me,” Lavery recalls. That origin, for him, remains relevant because it reveals the company’s operating instinct of championing independence guided by experience. Six months after running the shop, his father, Hank Lavery, and his business partner, Chris Wilson, left established careers to formalize Millennium, bringing decades of aquatic experience into a modest setup.
As Lavery became preoccupied with his academic studies, he entrusted the small business to his father. “I went to college, and I couldn’t work full-time to grow the company to its full potential at the time,” Lavery recalls. “My father and his business partner gave the company its initial momentum.” As they ventured into residential work, they were exposed to pool automation. “There was very little automation in commercial pools at the time. Home pools have been around for a long time. So, we figured it out as we went,” he says.
The commercial relationships established by his father later opened doors to municipal and county projects. Each new environment, Lavery notes, surfaced different operational challenges and informed the company’s structure. He recognized that managing projects by region created friction across very different job types. “You have to manage this business by the scope of work. A guy who cleans backyard pools can’t go fix a water park, or a guy who builds a pool from plans to perfection cannot think the same way as a guy who walks into a renovation site and has to make something work on the fly,” Lavery explains.
To address this, three distinct companies formed under the Millennium umbrella: Millennium Pool Service, Millennium Pool Renovation, and Millennium Pool Construction. Each division maintains its overall management and technical culture. The service teams handle the maintenance and daily operations. Renovation teams support clients with anything from a facelift all the way to completely restructuring an existing design. Lastly, the construction teams execute new builds, whether that is commercial pools, spray parks, or premium fountains.
“Enforcing this distinction reflects the differences in their professional mindsets,” Lavery notes. Lavery takes the utmost care in aligning teams with the cognitive demands of each project to deliver quick and consistent results.
“Breaking the big puzzle into smaller pieces lets each piece work to perfection,” Lavery says. “Such structural clarity depends on the strength of the people inside it.” He emphasizes how Millennium’s growth has been inseparable from how it identifies and develops talent. Lavery hires for ability even before a role exists. “A talented person will succeed if you let them,” he says. “You have to foster it and never hold anyone back.”
Lavery offers an example of an employee who arrived from the construction side and gradually realized he no longer enjoyed that environment. “Instead of losing him, we moved him into service diagnostics, where his technical curiosity and mobility suited the work. His performance and engagement improved almost immediately,” he recalls.
Millennium accommodates employees who prefer long-term stability in one role alongside those eager to expand their scope. The managers encourage team members to learn through mistakes and experience. “The only difference between them and me is that my mistakes are more expensive,” he says.
According to Lavery, this approach has powered incremental growth for more than two decades. Now, after 20 years, the company is intent on improving current capabilities and extending its reach carefully into new territories. “I’m a big believer in always getting better in what we currently do; there’s always room for improvement,” he says. “And that way, we can see everyone on our team grow as well.”
Lavery emphasizes that his father, Hank Lavery, and Chris Wilson remain central to the company’s leadership, working alongside him in daily operations.
Today, the company operates on a singular principle of matching the right people to the right work, supporting their development, and scaling through disciplined structure.
“We’re either moving forward or moving backward,” Lavery says. “So we choose to grow, and we bring everyone with us.”
