Yankee Ingenuity

Old-fashioned common sense drives practical diversification and 30 years of quality service for Vermont’s P & P Septic

In just two words, Derek Pratt can explain how P & P Septic in Williston, Vt., grew from virtually nothing into a thriving sanitary waste disposal company: business diversification.

Since its inception in 1978 as a septic pumping business, P & P has expanded its scope of services to include portable restrooms, drain cleaning and excavating. As a result, a company that began with an old, 1,100-gallon converted fuel oil truck, an old “mud sucker” diaphragm pump and a 50-foot hand snake now owns a fleet of modern trucks and employs 18 people.

That’s a far cry from the days when Derek, his brother Darin and their father, Gary, could barely get a $2,000 loan to buy an existing small pumping business.

The Pratts were firmly established and on their way to success in the industry when they were profiled in Pumper in February 1994. In the years since that story ran, the company matured into a thriving and secure enterprise. But Derek Pratt still looks back in amazement at P & P’s shoestring beginnings.

MODEST BEGINNINGS

“At one bank, the loan officer looked at us and said, ‘I don’t think this business is going to work,’ and shooed us out of his office,” he says with a laugh. “So we went to another local bank, which loaned us $3,000 – $2,000 to buy the business and $1,000 for working capital. Within a year, we bought our first vacuum truck, which was a used Chevy with a 2,000-gallon tank.”

P & P slowly developed into a full-service company that serves all of northwestern Vermont. Its business mix is approximately 50 percent septic pumping, 30 percent portable restrooms and 20 percent drain cleaning and excavating.

Pratt says the company’s diversification came naturally when they’d get out on a jobsite and see another service was required to get the job done.

“You go out to pump a septic tank, and then you find the line is clogged, so then you need an auger or a jetter,” he explains. “Then you run across a failed leachfield, so you buy a backhoe for excavating. Then you can’t find a buried tank, so you need locating equipment. Everything is just an offshoot from pumping.

“If you only pump, it’s hard to make a go of it,” he adds. “Pumping opens the door to other services, and they all go hand-in-hand. It’s difficult to do one without the other — unless you want to turn down a lot of work.”

NO MASTER PLAN

By most conventional measures, P & P shouldn’t be as successful as it is. The company never had a business plan, does little marketing outside the Yellow Pages and spot ads in local newspapers, and belongs to no professional organizations. In addition, Pratt admits he’s computer illiterate.

What the company does have going for it, however, is a lot of good, old-fashioned New England common sense and pragmatism, combined with a strong work ethic.

“I was always told a business plan was the secret to a successful business,” Pratt says. “But we never had one, and our business has thrived. It’s all about nothing more than meeting customer demands and providing great service.”

Personal communication doesn’t hurt, either, Pratt says.

“I think it’s important to have a real person answering the phone,” he says. “When customers call a business and get voicemail or an answering machine, it kills a business. Communication with customers is key.”

That’s not to say that P & P operates completely in the technological Dark Ages.

“We’re not that old school,” Pratt says. “We have computers, but we don’t rely on them completely. We hand-bill customers for pumping service calls, but our portable restroom billing and route list are computerized. We e-mail proposals for new septic systems to customers … We’ve always invested in the most up-to-date equipment.”

Pratt’s main concern about over-reliance on computers revolves around equipment failure.

“Some companies can’t do business if their computers go down,” he points out. “If ours crash, we can keep on going and conduct business, which is real important when a customer with a backed-up septic tank calls and needs help quickly.

“If companies can’t bill a customer or keep cash coming in without a computer, then there’s a problem. Someone might hear me say that and think I’m an idiot, but it’s worked for us.”

CRITICAL EQUIPMENT

P & P entered the portable restroom market in 1982 when the U.S. Army called to see if the company could supply two restrooms for a cold-weather research team.

“They asked us to do it and we said yes, even though I’m not sure I had even seen a portable restroom before that,” Pratt says. “My dad ran down to Rhode Island and bought two restrooms. Every year since then, we’ve added more units.”

The company typically has anywhere from 400 to 600 restrooms out at construction sites and monthly rentals, plus another 30 to 100 out on weekends for special events that range from concerts to marathons to air shows.

PolyPortables Inc., PolyJohn Enterprises Corp. and Synergy World Inc./Satellite Industries Inc. manufacture the bulk of the company’s 1,100 standard restrooms. The company also owns 25 handicapped-accessible units and two 20-foot restroom trailers made by Olympia Fiberglass Industries.

Equipment for the portable restroom business segment includes a 2000 GMC service truck built by Abernethy Welding with a 1,500-gallon, two-compartment tank and a Masport Inc. pump; a 2003 Kenworth T300 truck with a 1,500-gallon, two-compartment tank, 2006 Kenworth T300 truck with a 2,000-gallon, three-compartment tank and a 2005 Hino truck with a 1,500-gallon, two-compartment tank, all built by Transway Systems Inc.; a 1999 Mitsubishi 16-foot flatbed truck that carries 10 standard restrooms; 2004 and 2006 Isuzu 16-foot flatbed trucks that carry 10 standard units; and two Explorer Sanitation and Recycling trailers from McKee Technologies Inc. that can carry 12 standard units.

On the septic pumping end of the business, P & P relies on a 1998 Mack truck with a 4,000-gallon dump unit, and four Kenworth T800s (model years 1999, 2002, 2005 and 2006) outfitted with 4,000-gallon dump units. All the trucks were built by Transway Systems and feature Transway TSI 1200 pumps. The three newer Kenworths also carry jetters that deliver 6 gpm at 3,000 psi.

Drain-cleaning equipment includes two Landa Cleaning Systems jetters; a waterjetter from US Jetting; a DTW 4016 trailer jetter made by Harben Inc.; drain-cleaning equipment from RIDGID and General Pipe Cleaners; a Pearpoint lateral push camera made by Radiodetection; and various locators made by Prototek Corp. and General Pipe.

Pratt says he’s amazed at the changes in truck technology during the last 30 years.

“Basically, we can do more in an hour now than we did in a day 25 years ago,” he says. “The pumps are more powerful, and the 4-inch hoses really decrease our pumping time compared to 3-inchers.

“Plus, it used to be that a big truck held 2,000 gallons, now they’re 4,000 gallons, which means we can pump four tanks in half the time it used to take to pump two tanks,” he continues. “Better yet, we don’t need to run to the disposal site as often.”

Pratt loves the trend toward jetters that now come with many trucks.

“If you don’t have it, and you go to pump out a tank and find the line is clogged, it takes a lot of time to call in another truck,’’ Pratt says. “But with the jetter on the truck, you can unclog the line and get paid for that, too … you can jet a line at full price without calling in another service truck.”

LAND APPLICATION IS KEY

P & P pumps about 3.6 million gallons of septage a year. From April through November, the company land-applies 2.8 million gallons on a state-certified farm. The remaining 800,000 gallons go to local waste treatment plants.

Land application offers a competitive edge because it costs about 3 cents per gallon, as opposed to 5 to 7 cents a gallon at treatment plants, Pratt says.

To apply the septage, P & P uses five four-wheel-drive John Deere tractors, two 4,500-gallon liquid-manure spreaders and various plows and harrows.

Unlike many areas, there is more septage treatment capacity in northwestern Vermont now than there was a decade ago, thanks to federal grants that allowed existing treatment plants to expand their services. Surprisingly, Pratt feels that is detrimental to his business.

That may seem counter-intuitive. But consider that 10 years ago, it cost 9 1/2 cents a gallon to take septage to a treatment facility. Now, in an effort to attract more customers and increase revenues, the new septage treatment facilities engage in price wars that have dropped the per-gallon rate.

“A lot of pumpers would give anything to have more convenient disposal,” Pratt acknowledges. “But here, the additional capacity has encouraged more pumpers to go into business,” he says, noting the number of competitors has roughly doubled in recent years.

“If we had our way, it would be harder and more expensive to dispose of septage … the lower treatment plant rates have narrowed the gap in what used to be a huge competitive advantage for us (because of cheaper land-application rates).”

WHERE TO NEXT?

Even with in-creased competition, however, Pratt says P & P sales still increase about 10 percent a year.

“Our business is like a well-oiled machine,” he says. “We have a lot of skilled employees who’ve been with us a long time and know what they’re doing.”

In the long run, Pratt remains grateful that a bank officer approved the loan 30 years ago that vaulted his family into the industry.

“This has been a great business for us,” he says. “It’s basically been recession-proof over the years. The one thing about the pumping business is that there’s always a need.”

And that’s something Pratt and his father and brother can bank on.



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