In 1952 Clayton Williams began to think that pumping septic tanks might be a more lucrative line of work than his current occupation, painting barns.
In those days it was mainly the rich who had septic tanks in rural Kentucky. He put a 500-gallon tank and a sludge pump on a 1952 1-ton single-axle truck and started going door to door to drum up business.
And then it occurred to him that going south for the winter sounded like a better idea than driving around on Kentucky’s icy rural roads. So for the first few winters, he took the business to Florida and Alabama.
His company, C.G. Williams Inc. in Owensboro, Kentucky, grew and today it’s in the capable hands of the next three generations. They provide pumping services for residential, commercial and industrial customers including septic tanks, grease traps, car wash pits and lift stations in a four-county area.
ALL IN THE FAMILY
Second generation – Clark Williams
Clayton’s son, Clark, now 83, was 11 when he started helping out. “I’ve been here since day one,” he says. “We incorporated the business as C.G. Williams Inc. because my father and I had the same initials.”
They eventually traded in their sludge system and got a vacuum truck. Clark recalls that every time they bought a new truck, it was something a little better than the one before.
When his father passed away in 1964, Clark continued operating the company along with a helper and his daughter Cherie who answered phones and handled office work.
The business really took off with Clark at the helm. “There wasn’t anybody better with people than Clark,” his son-in-law Jack Hayden says. “He could talk to anybody. Every job he went to, he treated every one like they were the best customer on planet earth.”
By 1987 Williams knew he needed help. “That’s when I went to Jack [Hayden}, my daughter Nikki’s husband, and asked if he’d be willing to come into the business,” Williams says. Hayden had a full-time job with UPS but worked for Williams on the side.
Third generation – Jack and Nikki Hayden
Seven years later, Williams talked to Hayden about taking over management of the company.
“My wife Nikki had an excellent job as an ophthalmic assistant and I had a full-time job at UPS,” Hayden says. “But we talked it out and figured we could make it if I quit. And Nikki would also be able to quit her job. Our kids were just starting first grade so they would have a stay-home mom who could volunteer at the school.”
Hayden left UPS Jan. 1, 1996, and took over the reins of the company. Williams continued working full time for another 19 years and now mainly handles one account. “I tell everybody I’m going to retire at 90, if the good Lord’s willing,” he says.
Nikki handles bookwork including billing, insurance and taxes. Her sister Denise Howard answers phones and makes appointments. And for the first time in nearly 10 years, in July 2024 they hired someone from outside the family, Dwight McDaniel. “It’s been all owner-operated since 2015, but we just needed an extra hand,” Hayden says.
It was during this time that the company expanded its industrial and commercial work.
Fourth generation – the Hayden kids
No one’s in a hurry to retire but plans are in the works for the future. Hayden is training their sons, Johnny (33) and Jeremy (32) to do pumping, and Nikki is training their daughter Melissa Bickett on the office work.
“I didn’t force this on them,” Hayden says. “I wanted them to make their own decisions. The boys went to college for two years at the University of Kentucky, then decided they wanted to be part of the business.”
THE SERVICE FLEET
The company has five vacuum trucks — a 1998 Ford built out by Cusco (Hi-Vac Corporation) with a 3,300-gallon steel tank, a Hibon 3,800 cfm blower, a hydraulic hoist and a full-opening rear door; a 2002 Sterling built out by Imperial Industries with a 2,400-gallon stainless steel tank and two Fruitland 350 cfm pumps; a 2010 Kenworth with a 4,200-gallon steel tank and National Vacuum Equipment pump; a 2016 International built out by Imperial with a 2,400-gallon steel tank and NVE 4310 blower; and their latest addition — and Pumper’s November 2024 Classy Truck of the Month — a 2025 Kenworth T880 built out by Presvac Systems with a 3,500-gallon stainless steel tank, a 3,800 cfm Hibon blower, a 4307 NVE blower for small work, a hydraulic hoist and full-opening rear door.
Waste is taken to the municipal treatment plant. The plant also takes grease, says Hayden.
“It mixes in with their sludge and gets run through a press system. The water will come out and they run that back to the treatment plant. The rest of it goes to the landfill where they make compost out of it.”
RESIDENTIAL WORK
Residential work, which had accounted for 90% of their business, shrank to 20% as sewer systems expanded.
“The early 2000s is when it started to affect us,” Hayden says. “They used to have little-bitty sewer treatment plants [package plants] all over the place for trailer parks, restaurants, subdivisions, which discharged into ditches. The state wanted those out of there and to have the city take over. So as the city would get one of those package plants, they would take every neighborhood between there and the sewer plant. There’s still plenty of residential work, we just have to go further to get it.”
On the positive side, most of the septic tanks the company does pump these days are new ones and have risers on them, making their job a lot easier. No digging or locating equipment required.
In the past they sent out reminder cards to residential customers for pumping but didn’t have much luck with it, Hayden says. “It started being a whole lot of work for not a lot of reward.”
INDUSTRIAL WORK
The company usually puts at least two workers on industrial projects, sometimes three. This also helps Hayden’s sons learn that part of the business.
One of their biggest industrial accounts is the city of Owensboro Regional Water Resource Agency. “We work two or three days a week taking care of their 70 or more lift stations,” Hayden says. “We recently did a job on one that was 55 feet deep. By the time it got to the top of the truck, we were pumping 67 feet in depth. We used a 6-inch hose.”
Hayden says they never know what they’ll find when they pump out lift stations — rocks, boards, grit. “We’ve actually pulled up an inflatable swimming pool, also a bowling ball. A lot of it is combined sewers with stormwater sewers. You get a 4-inch rain, and whatever’s in the streets comes down through there.”
The company was called out on an emergency when a contractor doing a boring job for a grain company hit a soybean oil line that ran across the city from one plant to another, and 20,000 gallons leaked out. “We had to get out there at midnight and start getting the stuff out before it got to the sewer plant,” Hayden says. “That stuff floats. It was 18 inches thick floating on top of the sewer. When we got done it was an 1/8-inch thick. We ran two trucks. We left one pumping the whole time and used another to offload the material and take it to the treatment plant. It took about eight hours.”
Other customers include an aluminum plant with about 15 lift stations and a treatment facility. They also do work for a plant that makes Styrofoam cups and plates.
IT’S BEEN FUN
Hayden says they don’t do much in the way of social media and marketing — their customers do that for them. “Our best advertisement is when we go to somebody’s house and they put it on Facebook,” Hayden says. “If we take care of the customers, that stuff comes around.”
And with his sons taking on more of the work, it’s getting easier on him — “Which makes me smile a whole lot more,” he says. “They understand how to treat people, and that’s what keeps us afloat. And we all learned that from Clark.”
Hayden has no regrets about getting into the business. He says he loves the flexibility, working outside, and no two days are the same.
“I’ve worked for the man and now I guess I am the man,” he says. If I had it to do all over again, I would have done it earlier. I’ve enjoyed it. We make it fun. And working with Clark, he’s not just my father-in-law, he’s my best friend, so it’s been a blessing all the way around.”
