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Welcome to Palo Alto

Waatea is an alternative spelling of the Maori word wātea which means free, clean, open, empty, shiny, accessible. It reflects the feeling after taking a refreshing cold bath.

The creators of Waatea are Marie Hasselbom and Hjalmar Fries – a team for over 22 years within product development, manufacturing, and sales of water tubs for horse paddocks in the company ThermoBar. All their knowledge and experience from ThermoBar and combined with the passion for cold baths, the result is a product that, even before launch, has created great interest and sales – Waatea Cold Tub.

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Marie Hasselbom is an entrepreneur who likes to turn an everyday problem into a practical solution to make life easier. A heated water tank for the horse paddock resulted in the company ThermoBar. In recent years, Marie’s passion for yoga, meditation, and cold baths in the Nordic river Indalsälven she realized a new product was required to make cold baths accessible all year round.

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Hjalmar Fries is a retired civil engineer with extensive experience in research and product development of, among other things, submersible pumps, agitators, and purification technology – an excellent combination when it comes to clean water in tubs and barrels outdoors all year round. Hjalmar is also Marie’s father-in-law and the adventurer who enjoys being in the kayak on a journey of discovery far from home. In 2018, he was named The Adventurer of the Year. Cold baths for Hjalmar have been a part of his long-time adventures.