Friends and family had a hard time understanding John Mitchell’s career move when he announced he was leaving his job as a commercial airline district manager to pump septic tanks. There was the inevitable snickering, and the wondering why someone would abandon a white-collar career path in favor of backbreaking and messy labor.

But Mitchell, who wasn’t feeling fulfilled in the airline job, knew something the skeptics in his circle didn’t. Or, better put, he knew someone. Mitchell had watched as his friend, Dave Barnhart, owner of Evergreen Septic in Evergreen, Colo., build a successful pumping business. And he took note that Barnhart was happy with his work.

With Barnhart’s guidance, Mitchell, then 33, opened Kingman Septic in Kingman, Ariz., in 1987. Within three years, his one-man, one-truck operation grew into a large septic pumping business in northwestern Arizona, averaging up to 250,000 gallons of wastewater pumped per month.

Through the years, Mitchell fostered a deep love for the Mojave Desert, compelling him to join industry-related environmental efforts and fight to crack down on illegal dumping by unscrupulous operators. Mitchell joined the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality, the Arizona Onsite Waste Water Recycling Association and other clean-water initiatives to help rewrite the onsite code.

Along the way, Mitchell turned his skeptical friends and family into firm believers in his career instincts and his cause.

GETTING STARTED

The greater Kingman area has about 38,000 residents and Mohave County has 175,000. About 90 percent of existing and new homes have conventional septic tanks with shallow trench chambered drainfields. The county has few alternative systems.

“My wife, Vivian, and I did a lot of research before selecting this area,” Mitchell says. “The other pumping companies around here had 1,000-gallon tankers. However, the capacity of most septic tanks is 1,250 gallons, forcing the pumpers to make two trips per service call.”

Barnhart found Mitchell’s first truck, a 1980 Chevrolet C-70 with a 2,000-gallon steel tank, and set out to teach him the tricks of the trade. At that time, the vehicle’s larger tank enabled Mitchell to operate more efficiently, charging lower pumping fees and accumulating market share.

He kept himself and the equipment immaculate, and offered 24/7 service. Mitchell still spends tens of thousands of dollars in advertising, but he says he’s built the company’s reputation and customer loyalty on honest business dealings and getting the job done without callbacks. “We guarantee the septic tank will be empty or we don’t charge the customer,” Mitchell says.

Residential customers account for 60 percent of the company’s revenue, with industrial work the remainder.

BRANCHING OUT

Kingman Septic branched into industrial work almost by accident. The owner of the new Petro Truck Stop in Kingman had seen Mitchell’s truck and called when the facility’s wastewater treatment plant overflowed. The plant has a clarifier, aerobic digester, chlorination unit, and aeration tanks, but the digester produced more sludge than could be handled without dewatering.

“We were there once or twice a week and pumped tens of thousands of gallons a month,” Mitchell says. “The plant dewaters now, but we still pump the digester when the drying beds are too wet during the monsoon season.” Vivian Mitchell, a former banker, often helped pump when not running the office.

Before long, Mitchell was servicing the sewage treatment plants at Kingman’s four truck stops and pumping their grease traps. Steel mills, power plants and companies with oil-water separators followed.

“Besides pumping their septic tanks, we vacuumed large quantities of shale from the power plants’ cooling towers,” Mitchell says. “We dumped the shale on-site in their own lakes where they treat it. The steel mills have a continuous electrical problem with the grinder pumps in their combined 14 lift stations. When they go down, we pump nonstop for 24 to 36 hours.”

To keep up with the workload, Mitchell hired four technicians and bought a 1994 Freightliner from Indiana Vacuum Tank Trucks Inc. and a 1996 International from United Truck and Equipment in Phoenix. Both have 2,400-gallon tanks. He sold the C-70, but not before it gave him the fright of his life.

WHAT JUST HAPPENED?

Every week for more than five years, Mitchell pumped the Beacon Truck Stop in Kingman. “My truck tracks were visible because I always drove in the same way and parked,” he says. “The facility was having leachfield problems due to shale in the soils.”

During the pump-out, Mitchell suddenly heard a horrific noise, turned around, and saw a huge cloud of dust — but no truck. It had dropped 15 feet into an abandoned, unfilled 20,000-gallon cinder block septic tank when its lid collapsed. “I couldn’t believe what just happened,” Mitchell says. “Remarkably, three tow trucks were there and, after many hours, extracted my pumper. It didn’t have a scratch on it.” The tank was one-quarter full.

Mitchell used his connections with the airlines to secure another industrial account, pumping the toilets of jets flown to Kingman Airport. New ones arrive every month for outdoor storage in the state’s arid climate. Mitchell also does a tremendous amount of work for the City of Kingman, pumping the lift stations when the grinder pumps go down. “It’s a regular occurrence,” he says.

Mitchell learned the hard way that the biggest revenue makers are not always the best jobs. In the late 1990s, Bullhead City, Ariz., was connecting several thousand homes to the sanitary sewer, and Kingman Septic was a subcontractor to the contractor abandoning the septic tanks. After Mitchell’s technicians pumped a tank, the contractor rinsed it, then they pumped it again.

“They told us that the homes had 1,000-gallon tanks, but they were actually 1,250 gallons,” Mitchell says. “Our trucks were way overweight, the contractor sent us out illegal, and the Department of Transportation was all over the place. We knew we’d be busted, and the first occurrence carries a $2,500 fine. Even the Bullhead City Police Department brought us into the station for questioning a few times. It was probably the worst job of my life and bad for the company’s image, so I got out.”

BUILDING PROFESSIONALISM

As the business continued to expand, Mitchell bought backhoes and excavators to install and inspect onsite systems, then added a new 2004 Peterbilt vacuum truck with 3,600-gallon tank built by Transway Systems Inc.

“Four of my five technicians are NAWT (National Association of Wastewater Transporters Inc.) -certified inspectors, and we do (a majority) of the inspections in the area,” Mitchell says. “Before the economy crashed, we were installing three to four systems a week. Now it’s maybe two or three a month.” Kingman has 500 new houses that were never occupied.

Today, most of Mitchell’s pumping is maintenance for repeat customers and servicing his commercial/industrial accounts. He pumps about 200,000 gallons a month, generating $750,000 in revenue.

Mitchell sees a huge division between professional pumpers and those with a make-a-buck attitude. “Illegal dumping increased again in 2007,” he says. “It’s so easy because the area is large and mostly unpopulated. Just pull off the road, dump your load, and drive away.”

There has never been a temptation to pump and dump for Mitchell. “Pumpers should protect the environment and the public’s health, and I become very angry when I see stupid people doing stupid things,” he says.

In the 1990s, the local Board of Realtors invited him to become a member because of his knowledge about the septic industry. Ten years later, the ADEQ was rewriting the onsite inspection rules and the Board of Realtors objected to the changes. At a public hearing, Mitchell suggested that the agency have someone on its committee besides engineers, arguing regulators read books and were not out in the field.

“I was kind of snotty,” Mitchell says. “The next week, ADEQ asked me to become a member of its Presale Committee. I did. ADEQ then wanted me on its Onsite Wastewater Advisory Committee. I served on it for six years.” Mitchell was the only pumper on those committees and the sole person representing the Arizona Contractors Association.

PRACTICAL KNOW-HOW

“I provided cause-and-effect answers,” Mitchell says. “You do such and such; x-y-z will happen. I made a big impact on the way the rules were written, and everything our committees approved became law in 2001.”

Mitchell is rarely in the office now, preferring to focus on legislation activities and managing the electrocoagulation wastewater treatment system he is building. His second cousin Francine Miens runs the office and Ed Greene manages field operations.

Mitchell’s transition from a white-collar job to the hands-on management of a septic service business helped achieve his goals of monetary gains and happiness. Best of all, Mitchell proved to the world and to himself that he could be a successful, satisfied pumper.

“I like to sleep at night, and knowing that the job, no matter how difficult, is finished to the customer’s satisfaction enables me to do so,” Mitchell says. “If we get a complaint, it’s usually because the homeowner can’t see where we uncovered the tank and assumes we haven’t pumped it. I send a tech to show the person where it is. I never worry about my guys taking short cuts. They like to sleep, too.”