ABOVE WATER

How one woman’s unexpected path created a ripple effect of safety, business sustainability, and lasting social impact

By Kacie Brown & Yulia Strokova

Photo by Greg Clark

As a teenager, Miren Oca thought she would become a doctor. More than three decades later, she hasn't set foot in medical school, but she's still saving lives every day.

“My son turned 33 years old last week, and I still haven’t gone to medical school. The business has grown and grown and grown,” Miren says, smiling. “An unexpected detour put me on a better path to something far more fulfilling and satisfying. But I had to own it.”

Born to a Cuban mother and a Spanish father, Miren spent her early years near the water in 1970s Louisiana, where her parents ran a restaurant close to the bayou. She swam competitively in high school and started teaching children swimming at 14. With her sights on a career as an orthopedic surgeon, she studied biochemistry on a scholarship at Tulane University, continuing to teach to cover leftover expenses. College life was as busy as it was fulfilling..

But her path was completely upended when, at 19, she discovered she was pregnant.

Forced to shift gears, she decided to move closer to family in Miami and lean on her background in swimming. “I thought, let me open this little business until he's older, and I'll go to medical school later. And so I opened Ocaquatics and just started teaching swimming lessons,” she recalls. 

“I had to take advantage of this opportunity and do something with it, because it was hard. It was really hard when I found out I was pregnant.”

Since then, Miren has built her company Ocaquatics into a team focused on more than just swimming, however. The idea of responsibility – for water safety, for community contribution, and for environmental change – guides its operations.

“We have a two-fold mission statement. The first part is to teach families to love swimming and to become safer, more comfortable, and more responsible around the water. But the second part of that mission is to our team members. We want to grow them under this framework of social and environmental responsibility so that we can grow the business in a sustainable way and make a bigger impact in the world.” 

Photo by Greg Clark

Ocaquatics began as a one-woman business in backyard and rented pools. Now, it’s an employee-owned, certified B Corporation that runs five indoor, warm-water pools in Miami. The company teaches swimming and water safety starting at six months old and became the first private swimming instruction provider to join the Miami-Dade County Zero Drownings initiative in fall 2024.

“Drowning can happen to good families. It’s not about bad parenting. It can happen to anyone,” she says. “A lot of people love the water, but they never learn respect for the water.”

Florida leads the country in drownings, which are the number-one cause of death in Florida children ages 1 to 4, according to the state’s Department of Health. This statistic is at the forefront of Ocaquatics’ advocacy work. The company’s in-house nonprofit, Ripples of Impact, provides children with up to $500 in swimming lesson scholarships and hosts community water and environmental education events with a portable, repurposed shipping container from the Rockefeller Foundation.

Ocaquatics’ partnerships with organizations like Every Child a Swimmer and Stop Drowning Now also increase access to lessons and provide kids and families with water safety education essential for everyone, especially those who live in Florida’s water-filled communities.

Photo by Greg Clark

In Miren’s view, all families need to be prepared for the risk of drowning, and swimming lessons are the best way to prepare for the inherent risks of life near the water.

“Swimming lessons should be as important as kindergarten,” she says. 

“They don’t drown-proof children, but they add a layer of protection and they buy you time if a child were to end up in the water. We just had a parent write us a letter. They’d been in lessons for quite some time, and they said ‘We were working in the yard, and our child ended up in the pool. And when we looked at him, he had turned around and swam back to the wall. He knew what to do because he had taken swimming lessons.’”

Photo by Greg Clark

Beyond the water, Ocaquatics has also invested in its surrounding communities. The company regularly hosts food and school supply drives along with beach and community cleanups. Miren has also cultivated a supportive workplace: Ocaquatics employees receive mental health care, English and Spanish classes, legal services, and other benefits.

Going further, the company has also recognized the need for a solution to Miami’s high cost of living as frontline team members struggle to make ends meet. Ocaquatics began providing personal financial literacy education, moved to open-book management, and in 2024, Miren completed the company’s transition to an employee ownership model, welcoming her staff members as fellow owners. 

Miren says the shift to 100% employee ownership has strengthened what the company calls its “ownership culture.” The business has thrived as team members have invested in their peers and their students. “We are growing people, not just running a business,” she says. “Involving our team, especially with social issues, has made them much happier to work at Ocaquatics. So they stay longer. That means our customers stay longer. And then when our customers stay longer, our bottom line is much happier and healthier because our profit is better. So it's a win, win, win.”

She applies the same sense of responsibility to the environment. Maintaining five indoor pools requires a heavy environmental footprint. With tech like solar power, UV sanitation, LED lighting, low-flow water, variable frequency drives, and more, Ocaquatics has lessened its environmental impact and saved money.

“Doing the right thing for the environment and the community isn't a sacrifice. It makes your business stronger,” Miren says. “Now, I want to focus on helping other businesses realize that this is the better way to do it. This wasn't a trade off. I've done very well in my life, but there's a better way to do business.”

Photo by Greg Clark

In 2016, Ocaquatics decided to take its sustainability and social responsibility efforts a step further by beginning work towards a B Corporation certification, earned by proving rigorous standards of social and environmental responsibility and business transparency.

“Some people think that the work you’re doing is just greenwashing or marketing. We wanted to show the world (that) no, we really mean this,” Miren says. The company achieved its goal in 2022, becoming the first swim school in the world to earn B Corp status.

From starting a business as a young mother to building five indoor pools in an oceanside city, Miren hasn’t backed away from risks.

But her advice to others is simple:

“Always choose what's right over what's easy.”

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