Some stories stay with you for years before you fully understand why.
Miren Oca's story is one of those for me.
I first met Miren in 2017, when I visited Ocaquatics Swim School in Miami, Florida. I had heard about what she was growing.
A swimming school, yes, but more than that, a living example of what it looks like when a business genuinely chooses people over profit. Not as a statement, but as a daily practice. And then in 2025, 8 years later, I went back.
What I found was the same warmth, the same deep sense of purpose and something even more remarkable layered on top of it. A business that had continued to grow, continued to evolve and had arrived at a place that very few businesses ever reach.
And now, I am seeing the thread that’s so powerful.
And to understand where Ocaquatics is now and where it is heading, it’s best to understand where it began.
Unexpected Beginnings
Miren started Ocaquatics in 1994. It wasn’t because she had a grand entrepreneurial vision. But it was because life asked something unexpected of her.
She was a student, heading to attain a medical degree. She became a single mother suddenly. She needed to find a way forward in that unexpected situation.
So, she began teaching swimming lessons at the University of Miami outdoor pool. And with the support of mentors she found there, she turned those lessons into something more. First in clients' home pools. Then in hotel pools and country clubs. Then, eventually, in five purpose-built indoor warm water pools of her own.
I also became an entrepreneur when I became a mum with my first child in 2001. It wasn’t because I planned to, but because becoming a mum made me feel that it was almost necessary to do something. Eventually, that led to the formation of B1G1 in 2007.
I hear many stories of people starting their businesses for very personal reasons. So, many people become entrepreneurs, unplanned, and out of sheer necessity or urge to do something for what they deeply care about. And sometimes (and more commonly than we might imagine), that reason is linked to their personal origin story, parenthood or something to do with their families.
Miren has never lost her deep care for people and families throughout her 30+ years of business development. For her, business is something far more than a vehicle to create financial outcomes.
Even as Ocaquatics Swimschool became one of the largest, most established and most-loved providers of swim lessons in Miami, even as it grew to a team of 165 people and five locations, the reason for doing it never drifted from where it started.
Miren wanted people to be safer around water. She wanted to build something that made a difference. And she wanted to grow people to grow the business; not just swimmers, but leaders.
The Pebble That Started It All
In 2017, when we first met, Miren told me something that I have thought about many times since.
She talked about how her reason for waking up every morning had shifted during the first decade of running Ocaquatics. In the early years, she was focused on the day-to-day: teaching, hiring, keeping things running.
But as the business grew, her attention moved toward something she hadn't expected to love as deeply as she did: developing people.
"We hire ordinary people with great attitudes," she told me, "and help them become extraordinary leaders."
That is not a marketing line. At Ocaquatics, it is a genuine operating principle.
For example, they invest in financial literacy education for their team with a belief that when people understand their own finances, they can pay off debt and start saving and imagine a different future for themselves. And then they bring that sense of agency into everything they do at work. They share their business numbers openly, teaching team members to read financial statements, spot opportunities and think like owners.
The results speak for themselves in the human stories they produce. Stories like Miguel's.
Miguel was a young man who came for an interview struggling to speak English, who moved from pool cleaner to lifeguard to swim teacher to supervisor to manager to operations leader. He used the financial literacy program to unwind years of debt and eventually buy a home, then two rental properties, and who today works remotely from Spain, leading a department and mentoring others.
These are not coincidences. They are the result of a thousand small, intentional choices. Miren describes them in her TEDx speech as “pebbles”. When those pebbles are dropped consistently over decades, the ripples spread far and wide.
What We Found at Ocaquatics
Ocaquatics joined B1G1 a decade ago in 2016. And what they’ve done since is a beautiful illustration of what we have always hoped businesses would discover: the real spirit of giving. The real joy you feel when it becomes part of how you operate rather than something you do on the side. It takes on a life of its own.
Through their swim lessons and other initiatives, Ocaquatics has created over 1.5 million measurable impacts through B1G1. And every lesson they teach spreads the ripple of good.
What moved me even more was learning how they extended giving to their team. Every team member's birthday at Ocaquatics is also a day of impact. They receive a gift of giving equal to their age. A 24-year-old gets $24 worth of impact to direct through B1G1, a 40-year-old gets $40, and so on.
What this means is that giving is not something the company does as a ‘CSR activity’. It is something the whole team does together. Each person gets to choose. Each person gets to see their own name attached to something that matters in the world.
Collectively, those birthday gifts have spread Ocaquatics' impact across causes and communities well beyond what any single line item in a corporate initiative could reach.
When I visited last year, I walked along with some of the team members while Miren was not around. I asked them what it meant to work there. What they said was simple and sincere.
“Ocaquatics is the best swim school in the world, because the people who lead it genuinely care about the people who work here.”
And because of that, they want to care just as deeply for every child and family who comes through the door.
They didn't talk about impact reports. They talked about feeling part of something bigger that matters deeply.
A Business for Good — The Full Picture
Since that first conversation in 2017, Ocaquatics has continued to layer its commitments in ways that make the whole picture extraordinary.
After joining B1G1 and seeing us become a certified B Corp, Miren looked into it for Ocaquatics and became a certified B Corp too. In fact, they were the first certified B Corp swim school on the planet. They also joined 1% for the Planet after that, pledging one percent of revenue toward sustainability and environmental programs. And they became part of Conscious Capitalism. They have been consistently recognized as one of the top workplaces in South Florida and a best place to work in Miami.
Of course, it could have stopped there. But it didn’t.
In 2024, Miren made a decision that is one of the most powerful things a founder can ever do.
She chose not to sell to private equity firms who’d been ‘chasing’ her..
Instead, she sold 100% of Ocaquatics to its employees. And she did that through a unique Employee Ownership Trust. The people who had built the culture, who had shown up every day, who had grown into leaders through the investment Miren made in them became the co-owners.
The mission didn't just continue. It was handed to the people most likely to protect it.
What This Story Really Shows Us
At B1G1, we often talk about Ocaquatics as one of the most meaningful examples of what a Business for Good looks like in practice.
This is because they followed three simple beliefs. They genuinely care for people, they are clear about their purpose and they let everything else grow from there.
Ocaquatics’ story shows that you don't have to begin with a grand strategy.
Miren began with swimming lessons in backyard pools because of necessity. She began by showing up for a child and for herself in a moment of uncertainty.
And what she’s built over thirty-two years, through thousands of small and consistent choices, and through more than 3 million lessons taught at Ocaquatics, is a business where the mission will outlast her, where the people she believed in now believe in themselves, and where every swim lesson connects to something much larger than learning to float.
This is what Ripples of Impact actually looks like. Yes, it’s also the ‘normal’ Return on Investment (ROI) re-defined.
And all that comes from a pebble. And then another. And then another.
The current keeps moving long after the first drop.
So, the question is: “What is your first pebble today?”
Looking forward to hearing about your pebbles and their ripples..
