Before pioneering the Katch a Kid net pool cover, the Esson family was running a successful sporting supply and manufacturing company. From 1959 to 1968, the company produced goods such as tennis rackets, soccer nets, and footballs for well-known household brands.

After their close-knit community suffered a terrible tragedy, everything changed. At a family get-together, good friends lost their little boy in a drowning incident. Though everyone was poolside, nobody noticed the small child fall in, and soon it was too late. Blair Esson, President of Katchakid, Inc., was shocked to think that such a horrifyingly silent and easily preventable tragedy could have occurred. In light of the accident, and as a father of his own young children, Blair was motivated to create a solution that would prevent other families from suffering this devastating blow. The Katchakid net was born.