County Trash Service

Ever since he started County Trash Service in Broken Bow, Oklahoma six years ago, Brad Pennington quickly learned a lesson about trucks. 

"If you just look forward to going out and working on your trucks, by all means buy used trucks – it will give you plenty of things to work on. I’m a true believer in having good new equipment to work with.”

GETTING STARTED

Pennington learned that lesson after he entered the industry out of necessity through his previous business running a construction company.

McCurtain County, Oklahoma has a green box dump site system through which solid waste is disposed and financed through a portion of sales taxes. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had stipulated the sites needed to be fenced in with on-site personnel to ensure what was being dumped was appropriate for the site.

As a business entity, Pennington was not permitted to dump there, with his only option to pay to dump at a local landfill. As a former city councilman in another town, Pennington developed a knowledge about the workings of solid waste collection. He attempted to ascertain whether any local municipalities would provide a dumpster for his business. At the time, they could not.

Thus, Pennington began County Trash Service, buying one truck in October 2012 and serving eight accounts.

TODAY

As a result of investing in new trucks, County Trash Service has grown to become the area’s only private trash hauler; providing commercial and rural residential solid waste collection comprised primarily of high-end vacation rental properties with a crew of up to 12 employees during the height of the season serving 2,500 stops with five trucks. His company dumps at two landfills, both located within 12 miles.

After buying his first truck, Pennington also bought an automated side loader.

“I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on labor,” he says. “I figured I could be the mechanic and the trash truck driver and my wife could take care of the books. When it got to the point where I couldn’t do any more myself, I bought another truck and hired a part-time guy to help me who still works with me, now full time. I added roll-off services and he’s the roll-off truck driver.”

In the beginning of his business, Pennington was always tinkering with his rag-tag equipment.

“Anytime you’re working with any piece of equipment, you’re thinking, ‘Hey, it would be great if this machine was out working right now’,” notes Pennington of lost revenue through down time. One year, he spent $40,000 maintaining a truck.

For Pennington, another driving factor in having new trucks is that it keeps his drivers happy in an industry where it is difficult to find and retain good help.

"I want them to have the best day, the best life that they can possibly have and still work with me picking up trash," says Pennington.

He’s worked hard to accomplish that by providing his drivers with vehicles featuring standard cabs from Ford or Chevrolet that are easy to get in and out multiple times each day and provide comfort such as air-conditioning and heat. 

“It’s important for me for those guys to not go home and ache and be completely worn out when they get done at the end of the day,” says Pennington. “We have automated carts. All of our trucks have cart tippers on them. You wear out the soles in your shoes but you don’t get that dirty working for us.”

Pennington utilizes diesel Curbtender truck bodies. 

“I’ve found that by using these smaller trucks that they have a high compaction rate,” he says. “We’re environmentally-friendly even though we’re using standard fuels because we’re using half the amount of fuel that a big truck would use. We get 9 to 11 miles per gallon in our trucks whereas the bigger trucks are getting 4 to 5 miles a gallon.

“It’s also more geared toward customer service. We go into a lot of people’s driveways, going up to their house to get the trash. In these smaller trucks, we don’t waste a lot of time by doing that because we’re more nimble in getting around the area a lot quicker.”

Pennington favors the Curbtender 8-yard Quantum series rear loader. Its swing panel design in contrast to a slide panel enables the packer to clear more trash in a shorter amount of time with a smaller hopper requirement. 

The hopper also is designed to be wide enough to receive commercial rear load containers without the use of a flared hopper modification. 

The oldest truck in Pennington’s operating fleet is a 2017 model (he has retired two additional trucks and is working on one to sell it). The rest are 2018 F-550 models. 

FINANCING THE GOAL

When he was set to get new trucks, Pennington couldn’t get his local banks to want to get into the local refuse industry with him.

“They didn’t understand the potential business I was creating,” he says. “It wasn’t until a bank from out of town found me that I was able to go into having the newer equipment.”

That bank was Arvest, which is run by Jim Walton, the son of Wal-Mart’s Sam Walton. Arvest executives had been in town to look at some large land purchase programs that would transform timber industry land into multi-million-dollar vacation cabins. 

One of the bankers had inquired of one of the men borrowing money for the land about the ownership of the trash cans he had seen. The Arvest customer made the introduction to Pennington. 

“In northwest Arkansas, people understand trash is one of the biggest businesses in the world,” says Pennington. “They really got on board with me and helped me make my business better, have better equipment, make more money.”

To make his case, Pennington had heeded the advice of one of the local bankers for whom he provided trash removal service to keep good books.

"Everything you do,  you  have to show where your money is coming and where it is going out," he says. "If you can track your books and show a bank what's happening, you can get some traction with a bank. If you can't show on paper what you're doing and what your projections are, the banks are going to be scared to help you."

“It’s important that you can show you’ve got this number of customers and they’re bringing in this amount of money and for the last few years, I’ve grown at this rate.”

As soon as he bought new trucks, Pennington saw his costs decline.

Pennington is cognizant that his drivers appreciate the new trucks. One of his employees showed his pride in his job and the equipment by having his name printed on a sticker, which he affixed near the door handle.

FIRST-CLASS CUSTOMER SERVICE  

Having new trucks also has enabled Pennington to provide the first-rate service upon which he prides his company. When he started his business, he ensured every customer had a roll-out cart in which to store their trash until pick-up day.

“I knew I would keep people if we gave good service,” says Pennington. “We never have let anybody go a week without them getting their trash picked up. Even when trash trucks were broken down, we used trailers and whatever we had to do. We worked during the holidays – whatever it took. We knew that as long as people’s trash got picked up, they’d always talk good about us. If we ever missed them at one time, they’d have something bad to say, so we try not to get anything bad said about us.”

On his commercial accounts, Pennington would go inside the building to remove trash from the bathroom and from behind the counter, replacing it with a new, empty trash sack.

Those special efforts paid off. 

“When I started gaining traction here, the county and some of the cities started trying to get some of my business by offering people a bigger dumpster for less money but I didn’t lose any of my customers.  

“Once you start doing a good job, trash customers are loyal. If you pick up their trash and they forget to push it out in front of the carport and you go up there and grab their trash and dump it, that’s a way to get a little Christmas card with a bonus,” says Pennington, adding that many times his drivers have received a $100 bill at Christmas. 

REACHING THE GOAL

Pennington says it’s his entrepreneurial spirit that has been a driving factor in his success.

“I’ve always been a real dreamer and goal-oriented,” he says. “I would establish a goal and in my mind or on paper, I’d figure out what I have to do to reach this goal. How many customers would it take? How many trash trucks would it take? I plan it out. The biggest thing is have a plan, work your plan and don’t let anything get in the way of it.”

Having new trucks have helped him hit the marks on his plan, Pennington says.

“I was spending more money on maintenance and service of the older trucks than I am owning the newer trucks,” he says. “Having the new trucks allows me during the day to focus on other parts of my business rather than trying to find a way to get a truck in my fleet running so I could do my job. 

“One way or another, you’re going to pay for the equipment,” says Pennington. “I’ve talked with so many people who started with a trash trailer and they stomp down the trash because they’re trying to keep all of the money in their pocket. I’d rather stimulate the economy by buying new trucks.”

Pennington plans to keep his trucks for three years and then replace them. His business is growing at a rate of 100 new residential cans per month. He seeks to get municipal contracts in southwest Arkansas. 

“I want to grow and give other people opportunities to make money and have a good life,” he says. “If I can help enough other people to have what they want, I feel like it will help me have what I want or need in life.”

Pennington points out that successful independent solid waste collectors understand the industry is service-oriented.

“If we’re willing to help them be comfortable during the day with good trucks and take care of our customers, I’d say we’re pretty high in demand.”

"Some of the big guys have forgotten about that," he says. "They spend more time chasing checks than thinking about how good of a job everybody's doing. I think that might be something that might cause a lot of opportunity for small guys like me. We're willing to do the work, we get good people and we're willing to pay the money to our people that they deserve to get them through their life and for things to be good for them."

Looking ahead, Pennington says he’s contemplating selling the business system he’s created as a franchise opportunity “for people to be able to buy a small truck they can run themselves and start their own business by replicating the systems I’ve put in place that’s made this where it can be as successful as it has been.”