I have talked to so many veteran pumpers over the years, often with 30, 40 or more years running a septic service business. Pretty universally, they find it remarkable how far they have carried the hoses, how many miles they’ve traveled in their service rigs, how they have been able to continually put food on the table for their families by doing a tough job they love.
Counting their blessings? Sure enough, they are. When they reach the end of the road serving their valued customers, many of these pumpers feel gratified passing a successful business down to a son or daughter. Others support a retirement by selling the good name, the equipment and the customer list to an enthusiastic entrepreneur to carry on.
It happens every day, pumpers passing the torch to the younger generation and preparing to enjoy the fruits of their hard labor. And, in turn, the next generation puts their own stamp on these local small businesses, hopefully taking the wastewater industry further and higher for the benefit of their families and customers.
So it goes with me. Though I have not carried the hoses like you do, I have tried to be a strong advocate for septic service contractors for the past 19 years as editor of Pumper. I have viewed it as a privilege to work with so many of you over the years to accentuate the positive aspects of an important — but sometimes maligned — service industry.
As a group, you often haven’t received the respect you deserve. You are equated with what you haul away in your vacuum tanks, not with the professional environmental service you provide to your communities. What would the world be like without qualified technicians to properly dispose of human waste? It would be chaos, plain and simple.
When this month’s issue is published, I will take leave as editor of Pumper. I am turning the magazine over to a capable new editor, Tim Dobbins, who I am confident will continue in the best traditions of COLE Publishing trade magazines as your tireless supporter. He will put together editorial content aimed at helping pumpers, including contractor profiles, industry expert columns and do his level best to keep up with the fast-paced changes in the wastewater industry.
But before I put down the pen (or more accurately stop tapping on the keyboard), I would like to reflect on the aspects of this job I have grown to love over the years:
The rich history of Pumper
The first and flagship title COLE Publishing magazines was born in June 1979 when two young friends from northern Wisconsin, Bob Kendall and Pete Lawonn, were brainstorming ways to sell a vacuum truck owned by Lawonn. Following a suggestion from John DiVall, who owned Jay’s Waste Equipment, the pair published the first edition of the Midwest Pumper to sell trucks and equipment.
Over 45 years, Pumper grew from a small newspaper-style publication into a glossy trade magazine that helps contractors network with each other, advance their education and skills and connect to vendors who provide the products and service they need to succeed. Beyond the print publication, Pumper helped spawn the wildly successful Pumper & Cleaner Environmental Expo International, now known as the WWETT Show, which supercharged networking efforts in the septic service industry.
The featured pumpers
I’m convinced you won’t find a nicer, more caring group of folks than pumpers. Over the years, I have cold-called hundreds of you and asked if we could bring readers into your world. I don’t recall any of you hanging up on me. Rather, I have typically been greeted by thankful, loyal readers of this magazine, most more than happy to pause in their busy work schedule to share their stories.
Many of our featured contractors have told me they are happy to explain how they do business because they had received so much good advice from our profile stories over the years. While a few have said they didn’t want to share their secrets with “the competition,” almost all the pumpers I’ve met want to pay it forward for the good of the industry. Am I surprised with that response? No way.
A trip to the WWETT Show will quickly show you that most pumpers believe they are part of a team rather than wary competitors with each other. Maybe you can relate to this. I can’t count the number of discussions I’ve had with groups of pumpers at trade shows, where they openly exchange notes on the best equipment for a given job or how they handle specific customer service challenges. These business people become lifelong friends.
On a local or regional level, I have also seen pumpers coordinate with their competitors and share equipment and workload for the benefit of the customer or during a disaster. Does this spirit of cooperation exist in other types of service businesses? I’m not sure. But I do know this is the way pumpers roll — and you should be proud of that. As you often tell me, there’s enough work out there for everybody.
The great advertising partners
Pumper is brought to you by many fine equipment vendors serving the wastewater industry. These companies continue to support our efforts to inform and educate and I thank them. They also continue to innovate and help bring the industry forward, lending their engineering, technology and fabrication skills to improve how septic service is performed.
Think about the rudimentary tools your forefathers had to pump septic tanks and handle the waste. Do you recall the stories of rigs that built vacuum off the truck engine or the rigs that could barely hold one septic tankful of waste before heading to the dump site? Fast-forward to today and see all the advancements that make your job easier and more effective, such as more reliable, higher-CFM pumps and blowers. In this regard, we’re certainly not yearning for the “good-old days.”
The Classy Trucks
Shortly after I took over Pumper, we expanded the popular Classy Truck feature to choose a Classy Truck of the Year from those that appeared each month. This gave our contractors and their truck builders a higher honor to aspire to, bringing the top rig to the cover of the WWETT Show issue of the magazine. You responded in a big way!
We have consistently promoted your trucks as rolling billboards to advertise the professionalism of your service. Just because you haul waste doesn’t mean your vehicles shouldn’t be top-notch. When it comes to rockin’ rigs, you don’t have to take a backseat to anyone — plumbers, milk haulers, fuel carriers, anyone who drives a work truck for a living. We have fought against the poop joke slogans and graphics that used to be common in our industry and eroded your value in the marketplace.
Less frequently we see something like “Yesterday’s Meals on Wheels” emblazoned across the tank of a $200,000 truck. Rather the trucks we see typically carry high quality components, fine finishing touches, beautiful paint, graphics and wraps, and ergonomic and safety features that make the workday go smoother for our drivers. Thank you for bringing the eye candy on wheels!
The experts in the field
I have been fortunate to work with a group of noted septic service experts over the years through what was formerly called the Septic System Answer Man column and now called Septic Detective. When I started out and had much to learn about wastewater treatment, I learned so much from Roger Machmeier, Ph.D., the original Answer Man. He was followed by University of Minnesota colleagues Jim Anderson, Ph.D., Dave Gustafson, and most recently the U of M’s Sara Heger, Ph.D.
These industry educators have been a valued backstop whenever I had a question for a story and wanted to get the information right. And they have contributed so much to continuing education in our industry. This is both through these columns as well as their travel across the country to present seminars. I’m sure most of you have met these educators in person at one time or another.
The Pumper & Cleaner Expo
What can I say about the expos of the past and the WWETT Show of today? To me and many pumpers, these shows have provided many great opportunities. Pumpers have told me they view these trade shows as a way to get a leg up on the competition, to gain a service advantage that can’t be reproduced in any other way. For me, these events have proven a catalyst to my understanding of the inner workings of the equipment and service aspects of the business. They also helped me build out a better editorial calendar for the magazine every year. Where else can you see all the new products the industry has to offer and be able to network with thousands of contractors from across the country and the world? Nowhere that I have found.
The Industry Pioneers
I have had the distinct privilege of meeting and working with the folks who have shaped the decentralized wastewater industry over the last 50-plus years. There are too many names to list, but a few that come to mind are Ralph Macchio, Tom Ferrero, Hank Vanderveen, Bruce Fox, Tim and Tom Frank. It goes on and on, and also includes the aforementioned Kendall, the COLE Publishing visionary and driving force behind the creation of the Ralph Macchio Lifetime Achievement Award presented at the WWETT Show every year.
No matter how much time passes, we must never forget the contributions of the pioneers who brought this industry through its infancy and paved the way for the successes of today.
GOODBYE AND GOOD LUCK
If there is one message I would like to leave with the community of pumpers, it would be to commend you for being not only waste haulers, but environmentalists. More than a quarter of U.S. households rely on decentralized wastewater treatment and they need you to continue to protect their sensitive septic systems and freshwater supplies. You play a key role in keeping disease from their doorstep and that cannot and should not be downplayed or dismissed. Keep on pumping!
