Power Women: Angela Moss

After college, Angela Moss designed homes for a few years before beginning to question her career choice. 

 “I found myself sitting in a cubicle hating my job,” she says. 

Angela’s advice for women in the industry: “Get out of your comfort zone. You have to speak up and step up to what challenges you. You need to be results-driven and bring value to every situation.”

Angela Moss

At this point, she made one very wise decision — she called her mom, who suggested she come home and work at the family’s pool and spa retail store while deciding what to do. Years earlier, Moss’ mother, a bookkeeper for multiple businesses, and her stepfather, an excavator by trade, quit their jobs, opening Nelson’s HomeTowne Recreation in Janesville, Wisconsin. 

“We learned the pool and spa business one pool, one part, one piece and one installation at a time,” Moss says. 

The business boomed, and a temporary stopover turned into a career for Moss. She spent 10 years with the family company, gaining experience in retail, purchasing, service and more. 

In 2013, Moss’ career was once again set in a new direction.  

“It was -40 degrees one day, and we were shoveling snow,” she recalls. “[My husband’s] parents had retired and moved to Corpus Christi, Texas. We said to each other, ‘What are we doing in Wisconsin? It’s 70 degrees, and they’re at the beach.’ ”

After moving to Texas, Moss worked for a Blue Haven Pools builder that sold Sundance and Hot Spring Spas, which was new territory after selling Caldera and MAAX Spas in Wisconsin.

“I got pretty good at walking a customer down the sales path to choose the right hot tub for them — closing the sale and having them feel good about it,” she says.

In 2016, Moss came across an open hot tub product manager position with POOLCORP, a company she had spent 12 years buying from. 

“I read the job description and was like — that is my job,” she says.

She applied, and within a week, boarded a plane to the corporate office and secured the job, working her way up to senior product manager over the last eight years. 

Moss remains passionate about the industry, quipping that she might even “bleed chlorine.” She spends her days solving problems, creating and refining processes and acting as a liaison between manufacturers and dealers. But her favorite part of the job is training dealers for success, especially after spending years in retail herself. 

“I have my boots on the ground,” she says. “I have sold hundreds of hot tubs to homeowners — sat in backyards and made the sale myself. I’ve done the deal, written the contracts. I know exactly what they need to be successful because I’ve been in their shoes.”

Moss credits much of her success to her mother, Nancy Nelson. 

“She’s one of the hardest working women on the entire planet, and her work ethic and her passion for helping customers helped me on my path to excel in this industry,” she says.

She also hopes to pass those values down to her 9-year-old and 3-year-old daughters, even creating a family chant to help empower them — “When we fall down, we get back up because we are champions.”

“I want them to grow up to be their own power women,” Moss says. “I want my girls to know it’s not about being perfect. It’s not about always winning. It’s about always trying your hardest and never giving up. So that’s what I instill in my daughters because that’s what was instilled in me.”