Early in its existence, A 1st Rate Pumping Service became a go-to company known for its industry savvy and expertise. As professional waste handlers, the Southwicks made it a point to educate legislators, restaurant owners and the community about all things pumping-related.

“We stayed very politically active, and Mark did a lot of lobbying for different types of legislation, such as logical regulation of grease traps,” recalls Julie Southwick. “One local legislator didn’t even know restaurants had liquid waste. Nobody knew about liquid waste back then.”

Lincoln, Nebraska, was one of the first places in the United States to move to a digester system at its municipal treatment plant, which went into service not long after A 1st Rate went into business. “That environmentally advanced plant put us ahead of most other states who were still landfilling or land-applying, while our digester plant produces methane gas that produced energy,” recalls Southwick.

“Everyone was just becoming aware of the need to be ‘green,’ and we were all proud of our state being in the forefront of that movement. The 1990s saw a strong environmental movement in our area, and new laws were being written by every branch of government. With the new treatment plant, legislators wanted to control inflow quality.” That led to broad, ongoing discussions of emerging best practices.

Mark Southwick brought that pride and cutting-edge sensibility with him to industry trade shows, and ended up being a kind of ambassador there, as he shared what Nebraska was doing. “At the Pumper show, there were a lot of questions he’d answer, then invite other pumpers to follow up with him after the show,” Julie Southwick explains. In 1997, he represented the state of Nebraska in a federal EPA-sponsored conference in Denver on the state of liquid waste. He participated in a roundtable discussion about updating federal liquid waste regulations, and how it would affect the industry.

Based on what A 1st Rate staff learned at the shows, education became a key factor in building the business and remains so today. The management and technicians are eager to share their knowledge with any interested customer, from the staff at a restaurant to the homeowner with a septic tank to government officials. 

On the commercial side, this took the form of what Southwick calls “a one-client-at-a-time building block effort. We would go in and show restaurant owners and managers exactly what needed to be done with their grease traps, then educate the staff about how to scrape plates into a trash can instead of directly into the sink or drain.” For residential customers, she would send out a print newsletter informing homeowners about new regulations, answering questions they’d gotten recently, and inviting other questions. This and the pumping reminder program would spur people to schedule service calls several years out.

Mark passed away in 2005, but Southwick continues the tradition on her own now. A longtime member of the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality, she was appointed in 2009 by the director to serve on the board of the Nebraska On-Site Wastewater Advisory Committee (OWAC). In this capacity, she helps create state-level industry legislation, suggesting to the board ways in which the group is more likely to get legislation passed by creating better language and recommendations.

She has also taught classes such as “12 Toxins Found in Septic Streams” at the annual conventions of the Nebraska On-Site Wastewater Association (NOWWA). For one such class, she arranged a teaching tour at the wastewater treatment campus for attendees to follow the waste stream in metro Lincoln. She sees no end to her interest in continuing the family tradition of staying on top of the industry and making sure her colleagues and customers benefit from that knowledge.

Read more about Julie Southwick’s journey to develop her business in a full profile.