John Colton established Kingcombe Aquacare originally in 1987 as a sole trader, but quickly grew the business, specialising in offering a trustworthy and professional service of water maintenance and management for a wide portfolio of prestigious private and corporate clients. The company was incorporated in 2001, and has continued to grow over the last decade. This growth has been fuelled by John's insatiable appetite to respond to the aquatic challenges that are presented to the company. In the process he has built a team around him of similarly motivated and professional staff who all demonstrate that same special blend of commercial integrity and total enthusiasm for their work.
Originally educated at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, and the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, John initially spent 12 years in the Army, serving with 3rd Royal Tank Regiment, latterly as a Squadron Leader, before being posted back to Sandhurst as an instructor. An earlier serious rugby injury had led him to take up fishing, and it was at Sandhurst he developed this passion by managing the lakes within the grounds. Rather than go on to Staff College, John elected to hand in his notice, and took a position as a trainee labourer on a restocking trout farm. Two years later he was managing the farm, and six years later he set up Kingcombe Aquacare. The rest, as they say, is history.
John is regularly invited to lecture on water management and fisheries subjects both in the UK and abroad. He is a visiting lecturer at Sparsholt College, Hampshire and a BASIS qualified trainer in aquatic weed control, in which guise the company acts as national framework contractors to the Environment Agency to train all their own consenting staff on appropriate aquatic weed control measures.
John's wide experience has seen him working as a consultant in Ireland, Spain, Turkey and Saudi Arabia as well as throughout the UK. He has provided expert witness in the High Court and offers advice to architects and developers, wanting to maximise the impact and minimise the cost of their water landscapes. His very first commanding officer taught him that "problems are only solutions in disguise", an adage that has stayed with him throughout his career.
John's wife, Theresa, has worked alongside him in the business from its inception.