Name and title or job description: Stanley Stoltzfus, owner
Business name and location: Green Shore Excavating, Barnett, Missouri
Services we offer: We do septic installations and routine maintenance on systems.
Age: 48
Years in the industry: From 2002 through the first half of 2010, I worked for two different septic companies installing systems. Then I decided to go out on my own.
Association involvement: I’ve been a member of the Missouri Smallflows Organization since I started my business in 2010.
Benefits of belonging to the association: The education MSO offers is a big thing. They’re the main educators in Missouri. I also get a lot out of the annual conference and trade show in January, talking to other people in the industry and talking to the vendors, seeing what the new products are that can help us improve.
Biggest issue facing your association right now: Classes can sometimes be boring, and so much of it is redundant. I would like to see the classes taught by good installers who are also good at teaching.
Our crew includes: I have two technicians, Brandon Willis and Doug McGinnis. And our secretary is Paula Woodward.
Typical day on the job: I meet with the guys at the shop in the morning and get them started on a job. I also bid on jobs and do routine service work.
The job I’ll never forget: We had a job on a 45% slope. I was tracking sideways on the slope with the excavator. The downhill track sunk into the old steel septic tank. Ten feet below the excavator was a 3-foot wall, and on the other side of the wall was a lake. I got off the machine and just about left the job. But I’m not a quitter, so we kept going. It was tough, but we were able to get the job done. How did I get out of the tank? One of the nice things about an excavator — I just moved the boom to the downhill side and lifted it up and walked it out. Then I filled it in.
My favorite piece of equipment: I love our Kubota KX057-5 compact excavator. It’s fun to have that thing be an extension of your fingers, and to see how smooth and good and accurate you can operate. It’s a challenge I really enjoy.
Most challenging site I’ve worked on: Our challenging jobs involve very steep terrain and tight conditions. We do a couple of those a year. We do a lot of work on the Lake of the Ozarks and when you get down into the Ozarks there are a lot of steep hills. We did one that was more than a 50% slope. And it was rocky so any little rock under the tracks would turn into marbles and go scooting down the hill. Those jobs involve pushing the machines to their limit.
Oops, this didn’t work out as planned: There was a job somebody wanted me to bid on. I looked at it, pulled out my tape measure and measured it, and it didn’t fit according to the engineer’s design. So I told them I couldn’t do it.
The craziest question or most insightful comment from a customer: A customer told me that when I correct an employee, I should do it in private, but when I praise them I should do it publicly. Another customer told me that while a job applicant was filling out paperwork (when that was done in person), he’d go out and look in their car. He said, “If their car is full of junk, they’re not taking care of it and they won’t take care of your stuff either.” That’s how he hired people.
If I could change one industry regulation, it would be: The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services (which oversees septic systems) has a regulation that when a property gets replatted, you cannot give variances anymore. The law is that the septic system has to be 50 feet from any classified lake or stream. With these properties on the lake, we get as close as five or 10 feet sometimes, but we have to get a variance to do it. But if you move your property line or join two properties, or subdivide, you can no longer get a variance. That can be a problem sometimes. I had a situation where an individual joined a couple lots. The house was on the point and there was just no place to put the system. If it was even 40 feet, we could have put it in, but not 50. Another issue is, I wish the Missouri Department of Natural Resources would relax their regulations for a one- or two-home discharge system when there is no choice to tie onto a bigger system or include more homes because it becomes almost cost prohibitive for somebody who has no room to put a subsurface dispersal system in.
Best piece of small business advice I’ve heard or came up with: I always say be humble, not arrogant. And the biggest room is the room for improvement.
If I wasn’t working in the wastewater industry, I would like to: It would be a fun hobby if I could just play with my machines without any business pressure.
