Jason Spangle was working as a third-grade elementary school teacher when he was unexpectedly laid off. But the savvy entrepreneur found his footing by turning a part-time job as an occasional portable restroom pumping technician into a career as the owner of Esch’s Septic Service in Mio, Michigan. Today, he’s driving continued growth for the company with strategic new service offerings.

Bill and Beth Esch launched the company in 1976 with an old pickup trunk and tank they’d purchased used. In 2006 Spangle moved to Mio — a town of 1,600 located a 90-minute drive due north of Saginaw. He began working for the company during summer holidays from school that same year.

Laid off from his teaching job in 2015, he applied for other teaching positions, even as he continued to work for Esch’s. That work soon became full time.

“When Bill started talking about selling the business, it piqued my interest,” Spangle recalls. “I told him I was interested in buying and the idea took hold. I got my Class B driver’s license so I could drive the big pump truck as well as doing port-a-pots and other small service work. Bill would bring me into the office and show me the ropes — how to schedule and do different things.”

A FRESH START

Spangle soon began to knock on the doors of local banks to finance a potential purchase of the business, but it wasn’t a slam dunk. “I can write, but I had no experience creating business plans,” he says. “Many of the banks wanted to see a detailed business plan.” 

Spangle finally received approval on application number six, with a loans manager who was interested in his family, his ambition, the business inventory and a promise to never miss a payment.

The purchase by Spangle and his wife Heidi in 2017 included two septic service trucks, two portable restroom service trucks, 80 portable restrooms from Satellite Industries, a pair of drain snakes from Spartan Tool and Esch’s customer contact list. The business mix at the time was 75% septic pumping and 25% portable sanitation service, largely for residential customers in a 35-mile radius from Mio.

“I started the business working alone,” Spangle says. “But later that year, I hired my first technician, who was also my father-in-law (Brian Layman), to pump septic tanks while I was running around doing port-a-pots.”

In 2018, Esch’s began to add more portable restrooms.

“We were breaking out of the residential and vacation home market,” Spangle says. “We added a number of rentals from government entities, including townships and parks. We also began to add contracts from construction clients and serving oil wells.”

That growth never stopped.

A FINE FLEET

Today, Esch’s runs four vacuum trucks. The first two were original to the business and feature Battioni Pagani MEC pumps — a 2005 International, with a 2,500-gallon stainless steel tank, built by Marsh Industrial, and a 2007 Freightliner with a 2,500-gallon aluminum tank built by Mid-State Tank Co. portable restroom service trucks both feature Best Enterprises slide-in stainless steel tanks and two-restroom delivery racks — a 2016 Chevy Duramax 3500 with 350-gallon waste/300-gallon freshwater capacities and a Conde pump (Westmoor Ltd.), and a 2023 Chevy Duramax 5500 with 800-gallon waste/400-gallon freshwater tank and Masport pump, both from Best Enterprises.

Esch’s offers 250 Axxis portable restrooms and 15 Liberty ADA models from Satellite Industries.

The restrooms are hauled on two custom-built trailers, 14 and six units. that came with the purchase of the business. The company uses sanitizers and deodorants from Walex Products. Esch’s also offers 10 Satellite Tag 4 hand-wash stations.

The company now employs five people, including Layman, who still works with him. The area offers plenty of employment opportunities at local sawmills, wood processing plants and in trucking. Spangle believes concentrating on keeping the workers he has is a better strategy than competing with other employers in the area for new workers.

“Obviously, we need to pay a competitive wage,” Spangle says. “But keeping them means they need to have a personal stake in the success of the business. They need to know they can critique the way we’re doing things. If they can think of a way to make their job easier, even if that means investing some money in new tools or equipment, they know I’m willing to try it.”

HELP WANTED

Esch’s is also looking to hire from a recent influx of older, semi-retired workers who are moving to the area from Detroit and Grand Rapids.

“On the pumping side, I can use people who are happy to work from mid-May to October,” Spangle says. “They can have the winter off and go to Florida or Arizona and I don’t have to lay anyone off.”

As part of Spangle’s willingness to expand, the company’s new ventures include drain cleaning, which was added in 2023. One employee is assigned to the task full-time. The service is supported by a 2011 GMC service van outfitted with a series of drain cleaning machines: a Milwaukee Tool Switch Pack, two from RIDGID and two from Spartan Tool. QYTeco supplied the sewer drain camera.

That same year, Esch’s also launched Up North Excavating, a joint venture company established to install septic systems. For that business, he runs Caterpillar 304E2 and CASE CX 60 mini-excavators and a Gehl skid-steer.

“When we were just pumping, I had quite a few people telling us that we were the first people to recognize a problem with their septic system,” Spangle says. “So I had to ask myself why we weren’t installing them as well.”

The opportunity arrived in the form of a Michigan septic company that was dropping excavation service. Spangle and another septic company with excavating experience joined forces to buy the excavating equipment and establish the new company. It employs one person who also works occasionally for Esch’s.

ACTIVE IN THE INDUSTRY

With sandy soil and large lots, traditional septic systems with concrete tanks are the most popular, although Up North also installs mound systems. The company sources concrete tanks from nearby American Concrete Products and products supplied by Infiltrator Water Technologies and Polylok. 

Michigan’s regulatory system authorizes county health department to license contractors to design septic systems, which are then approved by local sanitarians. Up North is licensed in four counties.

Up North Excavating has already experienced year-over-year growth of about 35%.

Spangle has been a member of the Michigan Septic Tank Association since 2016 and now serves as its vice president. He’s a frequent speaker at MSTA events.

Esch’s continues to advertise its presence heavily through social media, utilizing Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and TikTok. This year, Spangle plans to launch his own educational and business leadership-focused podcast, Stall Talk.

ALWAYS GROWING

He’s counting on measured growth for the company in the coming years.

“We pumped 1.7 million gallons of septage in 2023 and we’d like to be at 2.2 million gallons by the end of 2024,” Spangle says. “Even with the growth in septic system installation and portable restrooms, this year we’ll be focusing on expanding the drain cleaning service, which is also performing well. “We’ll continue to pursue growth, wherever it emerges from our areas of expertise.”