Well-known sanitation and cleaning companies Mr. John and Russell Reid, Keasbey, N.J., are always working to heighten consumer brand awareness through clean, new equipment and presentable, professional, well-trained employees.
Mr. John and Russell Reid are family-owned companies with a 16-member management team, 265 employees, and seven locations in three states (New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania). They keep hundreds of pieces of equipment busy while maintaining high training, safety, and service standards — and profitability.
The family’s involvement began in 1964 when Morton Weiner founded Mr. John, a portable restroom service company. In 1981, he acquired Russell Reid, a non-hazardous liquid waste company.
Before Weiner died in 1989, he established a management team to take control of both companies. In subsequent years, Mr. John/Russell Reid acquired 24 other portable-restroom and septic tank-pumping companies. The two companies operate as separate entities with separate client lists, although one company’s clients can request a service provided by the other.
Heading the current management team are Morton Weiner’s sons, Gary Weiner, president, and Mitchell Weiner, chief executive officer, and their long-time colleague David Dam, executive vice president.
“We pride ourselves on providing the wastewater services our clients want,” says Gary Weiner. “When a client needs a wastewater-related service, Russell Reid will find a way to provide it. Our service capabilities include wastewater transportation and disposal, grease trap pumping, septic tank services, temporary restroom rental and service, and roll-off container rentals.”
Steady growth
For 17 years, Mr. John operated as a portable restroom company in the New York-New Jersey metropolitan area. “When my dad purchased Russell Reid, he received two vacuum trucks, two boxes of index cards, and three employees,” says Weiner. “My brother and I and David brought to my father’s companies the drive and ambition to grow them.
“For the time, our Mr. John business was very sophisticated and already had standard business practices and operations in place. We knew how to manage accounts, get jobs done, send out bills and collect money. We had the facilities and desire to grow.”
In 1981 Mr. John had about 30 employees, two operating sites (New York and Pittsburgh), and about 1,500 portable restrooms. When the elder Weiner died, the two companies had $6 million to $7 million in gross annual sales, 80 to 90 employees, and 50 trucks. Today, the two companies have $40 million in gross sales.
Mr. John owns 8,000 portable restrooms and generates about half of the companies’ combined revenues. Cleaning and pumping services yield another 50 percent, of which 15 percent is commercial, 10 percent food services, 10 percent industrial, five percent municipal, five percent residential, and five percent miscellaneous.
“Mr. John provided portable restrooms,” Weiner says. “Russell Reid’s original services included pumping septic tanks, sewer sludge cleanup, cleaning grease traps and holding tanks, and other non-hazardous industrial wastewater services.
A new focus
In the mid-1980s to early 1990s, the Mr. John/Russell Reid management team rethought its business plan and tweaked its service area. “We saw where the industry was going,” Weiner says, “and we recognized the spectrum of services and specialties we could offer, from a simple home residential drain requiring hand-held power snakes and mini-jetters to extreme or more difficult applications, such as industrial vacuum, sewer cleaning, and grouting. We elected to occupy the space in the middle — mostly light commercial, municipal storm sewers and drains in our service area, and industrial waste transportation.”
Mr. John/Russell Reid doesn’t install septic tanks or make major repairs to any systems. “We only clean and maintain systems, and occasionally make minor repairs, such as baffle and lid replacements,” Weiner says. The firm also doesn’t offer excavation or “yellow iron services” that require the use of yellow-painted, heavy construction equipment.
“As we grew our companies, their structure changed,” Weiner says. “We always paid attention to finance, marketing, operations, and sales to prepare for a secure future. We knew that every decision we made could have an impact, and we were very careful to analyze the situation before we jumped into new markets or offered new services.”
The Mr. John/Russell Reid service area includes both urban and rural locales. Although New Jersey’s border with New York City is heavily populated and highly industrial, the state still has some remote areas and about 450,000 septic tanks.
“As we grew, we saw our clients’ changing needs and demands for cleaning equipment,” Weiner says. “In the early 1980s we hired a subcontractor with a jetter to help us because Russell Reid came with only a couple of hand-held snakes. While wastewater was familiar to us, power snakes and hand-held cables were new. Soon we were pumping wastewater from a variety of industries, and we recognized the need and demand for other equipment to service our customers properly. We started by acquiring high-pressure, low-volume jetters when we realized we needed something to clean, scour, and wash the jobs right.”
The right equipment
Russell Reid’s first two jetters were manufactured by Harben Inc. More recently, the firm bought new truck-mounted 4014 jetters (400 psi, 14 gpm) from US Jetting LLC.
“Our clients offered us more cleaning work, and ever larger scale and variety — catch basins, lift stations, storms sewers, and ejector pits demanding a combination of sewer jetters and vacuum equipment,” Weiner says. Initially, Russell Reid purchased used equipment made by Aquatech International Corp., from a variety of resellers in the mid-1980s to early 1990s. These machines have all been replaced.
“Sixteen of our trucks are used specifically for cleaning, and 140 others for many applications. Our oldest vehicles currently are about 5 years old. There is always equipment that needs to be replaced,” Weiner says.
Most of the firm’s heavier fleet trucks are Peterbilt or International. Some lighter vehicles have Ford or Mitsubishi chassis. Vehicles are assigned to specific service centers, and are shifted between service centers as demand warrants within about 2 1/2 hours.
Tanks of all sizes, made of aluminum, carbon steel, and stainless steel were acquired from multiple sources, including Presvac Systems Burlington Ltd. and New Progress LLC of Arthur, Ill. Vacuum Sales Inc. built many of the bodies.
“We have a video inspection truck manufactured by Pierce Equipment, equipped with an Aries camera from Aries Industries, and a hand-held SeeSnake push camera manufactured by Ridge Tool Co. The Aries is good for pipes up to 36 inches,” Weiner says.
Russell Reid’s video inspection crews are trained to do multiple types of work. “We don’t actively seek bids for large video inspection contracts,” he says. “We’re set up to provide the service for smaller jobs as a courtesy for Mr. John’s business customers and our client builders and developers. They ask us to inspect pipelines so they can obtain final certificates of occupancy before they turn their sewer projects over to towns and municipalities.”
Building the brand
Over the years, Mr. John and Russell Reid have pursued an intensive marketing and sales program, promoting their brand by participating in local and industry trade shows, and by offering customers value.
“We try to be innovative, and that has always helped us grow,’’ Weiner says. “We know it’s always difficult to differentiate yourself from other people in a crowded industry, so we maintain close working relationships with our customers. Everyone has the same business challenges — sources of capital, insurance, fuel costs, hiring and retaining good qualified technicians — so each organization has to work hard to set itself apart and be a more effective competitor.
“Our brands present a professional look in the field. We train our employees to always appear in clean uniforms and drive clean trucks,” Weiner says.
A portable fleet truck-washing service comes to each of the firm’s branches at least once a week to professionally wash the exterior of each truck. Technicians are responsible for the interior of their truck.
In dirty situations, techs wear inexpensive, disposable overwear made by DuPont. These garments are part of every employee’s personal protection gear. Project managers oversee difficult projects and verify that technicians have all the protective and confined-space gear they need to clean manholes and perform other dirty tasks.
Appearance counts
“Our clients don’t see me,” says Weiner. “They see our employees and vehicles. That, to them, represents our brand and company. “Mr. John/Russell Reid drivers are always in clean uniforms. They are well-dressed, clean, and polite.’’
