Rising From the Ashes

How has your company worked through the economic ups and downs of the past few years?

You can scarcely have a conversation these days without mentioning the economy. Reverberations of the Wall Street meltdown and natural and man-made disasters are doing their part to create a difficult business environment.

And yet all is not doom and gloom. These pumpers bear witness to the intelligence of long-term planning, conservative management techniques and keeping your nose to the grindstone.

Russ Ayers keeps a close eye on where the market is headed and stays away from too much debt load.

“Since 1978, our company’s been debt-free,” he says. “We’ve made smart decisions on where we invest our money, and lately, we’ve been investing in the maintenance area. Maintenance is where our business hasn’t decreased.

“We’ve steered away in the last two years from construction, not buying excavators, backhoes and dump trucks. Instead, we’ve put our money more into equipment like pump trucks, cameras, jetting equipment — stuff that’s been contributing to positive cash flow.”

Through this strategy, he hasn’t had to raise cash or make decisions he otherwise wouldn’t have made due to worsening economic conditions.

“The big thing we do is live below our means. We don’t take all the money out of our business. We leave it to reinvest. A lot of business owners have second or third homes and a lot of big toys, but we don’t do that. We stay conservative, so when you run into a downtime, you can still make payroll, people are keeping their jobs; you can still buy groceries.”

Ayers had planned on investing in construction equipment, but when the recession hit, a conservative, wait-and-see attitude paid off. Having held off on those purchases allowed him to respond to new wastewater-focused business spurred by an unusually heavy rainfall where he operates in North Carolina. With an abundance of rain, there were calls about residential septic system failures. And emergency jetting work came from small, overloaded wastewater treatment plants. Ayers believes his careful planning allowed his company to take advantage of this sudden market shift and be there with the right kind of equipment.

“Normally, we’d be trying to expand and push out business, but in today’s market, commercial and residential customers are cutting back on expenditures,” says Ed McIntyre. “They want to push it to the limit, to the point of fines and environmental violations before they’re willing to pump.” The end result is fewer jobs, and when he does get called, he’s usually dealing with a mess. For example, he describes what’s going on with his restaurant grease trap pumping customers.

“Typically, a restaurant with us would be a six-week automatic recall. We’re finding that now they’re pushing that back to eight weeks, trying to push the limit on the tanks to get the most they can for their money and not have to raise their prices.”

He says this results in more challenging jobs that take more time, and he’s been eating the extra charges. “It’s hard to explain to the customer that you have to spend the extra time.”

He feels fortunate there haven’t been layoffs. “But we haven’t expanded, either, in three years, between fuel prices and the recession. Still, I think it’s looking up,’’ he says, noting that he’s been purchasing equipment as needed. “Not anything big like trucks, but we’re finally replacing worn equipment we’d been holding off on buying,” he says.

Jerry Thompson says the four related companies he co-owns with his son are enjoying something of a boom. They picked up a new truck at the 2010 Pumper & Cleaner Environmental Expo International, and bought two new rigs in 2009. Based on his experience, Thompson says you wouldn’t be able to tell there was a recession. He attributes this to having made good decisions throughout the years.

“We’ve been in the same building since 1955 and we’ve diversified,” he says. He believes offering a multitude of services has been a benefit, since what one division doesn’t offer, it can refer to a sister company. “I think service is the big thing. We have the equipment and personnel to do the job.”



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