A desire among customers to “go green” has been a significant factor in the development of new products for United Rotary Brush and their SmartSweeptm line of recyclable road brooms. United Rotary Brush is a family-based company that manufactures and sells road and runway rotary brooms as well as custom-engineered brush products for customers throughout North America and the world. The company has facilities in Lenexa, Kansas; Marysville, Ohio; Galt, California; and Barrie, Ontario.  And now, with the recent acquisition of American Rotary Broom, United Rotary Brush also has facilities in Escondido and Pomona, California. The company has made significant efforts to develop environmentally conscious products.

The company’s popular Turbolinetm  Gutter Brooms, for example, are completely recyclable. When they wear out, the contractor simply removes the tufts to recycle them.“We’ve received some really good feedback from customers, and we are already working on an updated version,” said Michelle Allen, of the company’s Marketing Department.

The Turbolinetm polygutter brooms weigh up to two-thirds less than standard wire gutter brooms and take up a third of the space, according to information provided by United Rotary Brush. That means lower shipping costs, reduced storage space, and a savings on wear and tear on hydraulic motors.“The design of TurbolinetmGutter Brooms makes them significantly easier to install, even on the job. All you replace are the tufts. The Turbolinetm plate stays in place. This reduces downtime and labor, which means lower costs,” according to United Rotary Brush. “You can also customize your gutter brooms for every season and sweeping condition and use any combination of poly, poly/wire or wire brushes.”

As the company’s website says, ““Keep the plate, change out the tufts. You decide which combination is right for your sweeping application.”
United Rotary Brush’s SmartSweeptm recyclable line includes not only Turbolinetm Gutter Brooms, but also UnitedProtm Strip Brooms. The brooms come in both center-sweep and spiral-sweep versions. Each is designed to improve debris collection, and they are made from 100-percent poly plastic back strips. They are easy to install and replace, and, because they are recyclable, they are environmentally friendly.

The development of the SmartSweeptm line of recyclable brooms resulted in large part from the United Rotary Brush’s wish to keep material out of landfills.The desire to be environmentally friendly seems to be a good partner with the overall focus of street and pavement sweeping: to keep litter, grit, and chemicals out of storm water systems, to protect wetlands, and to simply improve the aesthetics of city streets and gutters.United Rotary Brush describes its Turbolinetm Gutter Broom and UnitedProtm lines as products that “green” as well as clean the community.

Part of the move toward a recyclable line has been a growing movement among some municipalities to require green products, Allen explained.Cleaning materials, biofuel-operated machines, and similar “green-” manufactured goods are getting the backing of city councils and governing boards all across the country.“I feel as if it is the wave of the future,” Allen said. “We’re goingto see more and more cities move towards recyclability when given the choice.”
Schwarze Industries, one of the world’s largest sweeper manufacturers and a leader in sweeping technology, is another company focused on green products. The company, which is headquartered in Huntsville, Alabama, manufactures street sweepers, parking lot sweepers, and road repair units; it operates in more than thirty-five countries, and in 1996, it opened a manufacturing facility in Brisbane, Australia.

It is no surprise that the company has developed several products that meet the needs of environmentally conscious clients. In fact, recently, the Water Pollution Control and Street departments in Lafayette, Indiana, purchased two Schwarze model DXR street sweepers. Although cities buy Schwarze sweepers all the timeit is the reason behind Lafayette’s decision that made this purchase stand out. The DZR is a waterless and dustless design, an environmentally friendly, year-round sweeping solution for the city.What sold the Water Pollution Control Department onhelping the Street Department purchase the DXR was the fact that the model contains and traps veryfine particulate matter, including PM-10 fines, which are known to contain a high percentage of heavy metals, phosphates, and other pollutants, according to a statement from Raymond Massey, director of sales and marketing.If those pollutants are neglected, they can wind up in storm water runoff and eventually find their way into the city’s sewers.

“If you don’t keep the streets clean, everything ends up in the sewers and eventually our rivers, lakes, and bays,” Kenny Martin, Schwarze Midwest Regional Sales Manager warned. “Many city departments are beginning to realize that it’s mutually beneficial to help each other out financially. Through the cooperation of the different departments and recognition of the benefit of having this equipment, everybody wins. The streets are clean, the storm drains stay clean, and you can capture materials that would have polluted the air.”

Another feature that some Schwarze machines have in the environmentally friendly arena is the WhisperWheel(SM) fan system. The innovative system allows Schwarze air sweepers to run seventy percent more quietly than conventional sweepers, reducing noise pollution. The system also uses up to twenty percent less fuel.

Still another company that is environmentally conscious is GreenSweeper, a Murfreesboro, Tennessee company that sells electric-powered parking lot sweeper units that “capture” power generated by truck engines, convert it to a steady electrical current, and send it to an industrial, three-phase motor that powers attached sweeping equipment. The company’s website boasts that the GreenSweeper is “maintenance free, worry free and emission free and totally clean.”
Compared to traditional gasoline-powered units, the GreenSweeper unit not only saves on fuel costs but also cuts down on noise pollution and the use of hazardous materials at work. The company says the unit uses a scant quart of gasoline from the truck tank engine for each hour of sweeping.

As is true in most industries, not everyone will see the issue the same way. Mike Dyck, General Manager of Masco Sweepers of Santa Clara, California, explained that while environmental issues are important, the true cost savings on some of the equipment is questionable.

“Environmental impact is something we are all very aware of today. ‘Green’ anything is a way to show how a manufacturer of a product is concerned about how these products affect the world around us.  In the sweeping industry,” he continued, “‘green sweepers’ have concentrated on sweepers that have been converted to natural gas or propane. These street sweepers that are converted are really not parking lot sweepers. Street sweeping and parking lot sweeping are completely different.Streetsweepers must be able to sweep up a complete array of materials found in a street (such as) sand, rock and gravel.

“On average, a parking lot sweeper sweeps litter and trash left behind by people shopping in a shopping center or wherever people park cars. Generally, heavy material such as sand is not found in parkingareas unless there is a heavy winter salting and sanding program. Most snow states are eliminating sanding for many reasons, including keeping the storm drains clean.”In other words, some of the sweepers that are converted to natural gas or propane are not suited for parking lot use. Their efficiency is based on how well they do the job, not necessarily on the type of fuel that powers the equipment.

Some truck/sweeper combinations are not considered typical “green” machines by environmental purists.

“Trash from parking lot sweeping weighs around 150 to 200 pounds per yard. The sweeper that sweeps parking lot trash is completely different than a street sweeper. The environmental footprint impact left by the Model 1600 Ford ranger is only 25 percent of what a converted street sweeper is. Fuel consumption, oil maintenance, wear on tires and brakes, wear on roads and paved surfaces, emissions, financial burden and general cost of maintenance are cut [by] 75 percent.”

Dyck said so-called “green” sweepers do have their place, however.

“From a ‘green’ point of view, operating a street sweeper converted to alternate fuel may be good for a street-sweeping application. Parking lot sweeping does not benefit from alternate fuel application. Small gas engine truck[s] and operating on a fuel-efficient gas auxiliary motor emit only a quarter of emissions, one-third the oil maintenance cost, one-third of the weight impact on a parking structure, and the most important green (factor) is [that] the cost is a quarter to a third” of green equipment, he said.

“Environmentally, this sweeping process is being overlooked because of political pressure putting attention on alternate fuels. There is no greener parking lot sweeper on the market today (than Masco). All this adds up to a greener sweeper with a light earth footprint.”

No doubt sweeping component manufacturers and others in the road and parking lot sweeping industry will continue to look for ways to meet the “green” demands of consumers yet balance cost and maintenance issues with other environmental factors. Such technology can save money – sometimes – in fuel and shipping costs, while reducing or eliminating noise and emissions.

The price in some cases can be costly—or at least higher than conventional units. But the savings in the long-run, through lower fuel and maintenance expenses, can be an appealing factor. If cities begin requiring or start leaning toward increased use of environmentally friendly products, watch out: sustainability, recyclability, and biodegradability will be joined by a fourth and an important factor—marketability.

Story by Marie Elium

Story by Marie Elium

So why don’t more cities have the same commitment to recycling street waste? For one, it is expensive. California communities have been under strict state requirements to reduce the amount of waste that goes into landfills, and the law can be a powerful motivator. Another reason is that as other cities work desperately to make up for lagging tax dollars because of the economy, venturing into new programs—even ones that can eventually save money—seems like a luxury that many simply cannot afford right now.

While most street sweeper waste unintentionally ends up in landfills, a small amount is intentionally put there to serve a specific reason. Under the proper circumstances, states will allow the grit and dirt from sweeper hoppers to be used as a top cover on landfills. The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency offers specific guidelines for using the material as a daily cover on sanitary and construction landfills. The agency recommends that the refuse should only be used as a top cover in landfills that have groundwater monitoring mechanisms in place.

Studies have been done elsewhere to show the economic value of finding alternative disposal methods for street-sweeping debris—methods that do not involve landfills. In fact, last year, researchers at the University of Massachusetts Boston detailed the experience of the town of Natick, MA and its street sweeping trash.

Natick, just outside of Boston, has about 32,000 residents. Dirt, sand, and organic material from street sweeping and catch basins are regulated by the state’s Department of Environmental Protection. The study, conducted through the John J. Collins, Jr. Center for Public Management, noted that the debris is considered a solid waste and, therefore, has to be taken to a landfill for disposal. The only way that the material can be used as a landfill cover or for other purposes is if chemical tests can prove it is safe for reuse in such a manner. The study noted that the cost of dumping sweeping waste in a landfill was up to $100 per ton for the town, but could easily climb even higher if the waste were categorized as hazardous. The waste was substantial. Natick’s 195 miles of roadways generate between 700 and 1,000 cubic yards of street sweepings each year, according to the study.

For that reason, several years ago, Natick asked the state for permission to conduct a pilot project to find new uses for the dirt and grit that the town’s street sweepers collected. Actually, most of what Natick collected was sand—valuable in Massachusetts’ cold and snowy winter climate. The town had two uses for the sweeping debris: reusing the sand on its roads during the wintertime and mixing it with already-collected composted yard waste so that it could spread on a closed gravel pit.

The pilot program showed that Natick’s start-up costs were about $25,000, which covered the initial preparation of the application to gain state permission for the project. That, of course, was a one-time expense. Annual costs are estimated at about $8,000—almost all of it related to testing the material for contaminants. The rest, about $1,000, covers staff expenses. The payback for the pilot program came within the first year.

“Making this change leads to a net savings of about $25,300 annually after the first year, during which the one-time start up expense reduces the net savings to $300,” the study concluded. “This program pays for itself within the first year.”

While the University of Massachusetts Boston study focuses solely on Natick, its findings can be applied to communities elsewhere, with a few stipulations. Municipal leaders need to ask themselves five questions to help determine if alternative disposal of street-sweeping debris is right for their cities.

1. How many cubic yards of sweeping does the municipality collect annually?
2. How likely is it that the municipality’s sweepings will meet the standards for use as a soil additive?
3. Does the municipality have a use for extra soil additive?
4. How much is the municipality currently paying to transport and dispose of the sweepings?
5. Can the municipality find the money to pay for the upfront cost of preparing the Beneficial Use Determination application?

        Environmental regulators are quick to acknowledge that street-sweeping debris needs to be handled with care. After all, it routinely contains pieces of glass, metal, salt, and all types of other materials. All bets are off if street sweepings and catch basins have been the unwelcome repository of gasoline or similar hazardous wastes. Connecticut’s Department of Environmental Protection has published a guideline for managing street sweepings and catch basin debris and encourages municipalities to develop a plan for collecting the material, safely storing it, and reusing it locally “in a manner that does not pose a risk to public health or a risk to wetland and water quality.”

        Among the reuse options for screened street sweepings—minus costly analytical testing—is to mix it with new salt and sand mixtures to treat roads, parking lots, and sidewalks in the winter; to cover landfills; to fill potholes and then cover them with asphalt; to fill in the median strips or along road shoulders on city-owned public right of ways; or to use as an aggregate in concrete or asphalt. With chemical testing, the options increase even more. The debris can be used as fill on industrial or commercial properties, or it can help absorb hazardous materials in an emergency, the Connecticut DEP noted.

        One thing is certain when it comes to street sweeping debris: as landfill dumping prices and transportation expenses continue to rise, cities will be looking harder at and more favorably for ways to reuse the material. Compost, pothole filler, traction for winter-slick roads—many recycling options have the potential to be far cheaper than hauling the waste to a landfill.

As the University of Massachusetts Boston study authors pointed out, “Because the costs of dealing with street sweepings are now lower (and partially de-linked from the actual amount of sweepings collected), there is greater incentive to do more street sweeping. More sweeping can lower the amount of debris that goes into the catch basins, which may in turn have additional financial and environmental effects, both positive and negative, that are more difficult to quantify.”

Story by Marie Elium

Take a parade. Add a row of food trailers or maybe a car show. Like Ferris wheels? Why not include a half dozen amusement rides, too?
Communities throughout the United States attract thousands of people each year to special events, whether the event is a sports celebration, a founder’s day anniversary, summer carnival or church festival.

While the reasons for the events vary, the results never do: trash and lots of it. Paper plates, confetti, cigarette butts, food wrappers, scraps of paper—and, if the parade included horses, add a few dozen piles of manure to the mix.

Cindy and Lawrence Doty of Just Better Cleaning, Inc., in Margate, Fl., have built their ten-year-old business around special event sweeping. The company does other sweeping, too, of course, and has a nice business servicing parking lots, condominium complexes and other conventional areas. However, Cindy Doty, who is the company’s vice president, said that special event sweeping and cleanup comprises the bulk of their business.

The company owns twenty “backpack” blowers that can be carried on workers’ backs, plus fifteen Isuzu trucks that sweep up debris. The family-owned and -operated business has built a solid reputation in the Broward County, West Palm and Miami-Dade areas of southeastern Florida, and Doty said that business dropped only slightly during the recession. The company was able to ride out the worst of the economy, thanks to long-standing and long-planned special events such as car shows, flea markets and carnivals that are the bread-and-butter services of Just Better Cleaning.

While the company’s equipment is straightforward—the usual blowers and trucks that are part of most commercial sweeping operations—its marketing is slightly different from other operations. Doty explained that getting the company’s name out to the public is the biggest factor in a successful special event sweeping business.

For example, Just Better Cleaning belongs to all the area Chambers of Commerce in southeast Florida. Either Doty or her husband, Lawrence (the company president) attend the monthly meetings, get to know other business owners and—most important—meet the folks who plan special events. Advertising is also important, especially in publications or in places that will reach event organizers.

“It takes a whole lot to build up your business,” Doty shared. “Basically, you have to go out there and advertise. Go to the Chamber of Commerce meetings once a month. Go to where (businesses or groups) have ribbon cuttings. Hand out your business cards and brochures. Just show your face so they know who they’re dealing with.”
“The business isn’t coming to you; you have to go to them. You have to put yourself out there,” she added.

Doty said sweeping contractors who specialize in special events really do not require different equipment or strategies from other sweeping contractors. The only difference may be in the constraints that a community may place on the sweeping company. For example, most special event sweeping is done between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m., after the event is finished but before local noise ordinances kick in, which is usually around 11 p.m. If a noise ordinance is not an issue, a city or town certainly will want debris cleared by the time people begin to go to work or when downtown stores open for business.

“No two events are alike, even when it comes to sweeping up the aftermath,” said Debbie Jacketta, owner of Jacketta Sweeping Service, Inc., in Salt Lake City, Utah, and another contractor involved in special event cleanup. Her company has seen its share of cleanup work after special events that range from festivals and parades to college football tailgate parties and the 2002 Winter Olympics.

Established in 1968, Jacketta Sweeping Service started out sweeping parking lots. The company now operates a fleet of ten sweepers and provides such services as scrubbing, power washing, catch basin cleaning, striping and snow plowing.

When it comes to sweeping after special events, timing and execution are crucial, stressed Jacketta, who agreed with Doty that when you sweep is as important as how you sweep.

“You don’t want to be sweeping right after the event ends, or you’ll be dealing with traffic, congested streets and crowds,” she explained. “On the other hand, you shouldn’t wait too long after the end of the event to start the cleanup.”

Jacketta stressed the importance of coordinating with other cleaning crews on the timing of street sweeping. “We usually sweep after cleaning crews on foot have already picked up the larger debris, but in some cases, we’re also working with water trucks and dump trucks.”

After a football tailgate party, for example, Jacketta’s company sweeps the parking lot, which is inevitably littered with cans, bottles, paper, cups and other leftover items. Her company’s preferred machines for special event cleanup are the Crosswind regenerative air sweeper, the Road Wizard and the Broom Bear mechanical sweepers from Elgin Sweeper.

“The Crosswind does a great job cleaning large, flat, paved areas such as streets and parking lots, and the Road Wizard and Broom Bear both have dumping action, so waste can be easily disposed into dumpsters right there on the job,” Jacketta said.

Plan ahead in terms of getting access to the venue and the timeframe required by the sweepers to do their job. According to Jacketta, it generally takes her crew about three hours to sweep up after an event like a tailgate party or festival. “Be patient and plan on taking some extra time for sweeping after an event,” she cautioned.

While it is always easier to clean during daytime hours, Jacketta said many event sweeping jobs are done late at night or early in the morning when it is dark. It is always important to be aware of the surrounding area while sweeping, especially when lighting is limited. Jacketta also recommended having at least one extra operator available on the job to help out during sweeping.

Another expert, Bill Burkhardt, who is the street sweeping foreman for the city of St. Louis, Mo., has managed his share of sweeping projects after the city’s numerous parades. For him, the key to effective sweeping is to do it early enough after the parade has ended.

“We send our sweepers in right at the tail end of the parade,” Burkhardt said. “We treat our sweepers like they were just another float in the parade, even to the point of dressing the machines up to match the occasion, so they fit in. We have sweepers painted and decaled for every parade from Mardi Gras and St. Patrick’s Day to celebrations for the Cardinals’, Blues’ and Rams’ sports teams.”

Burkhardt said the city operates a fleet of about thirty Pelican sweepers from Elgin Sweeper. For cleanup after a parade, Burkhardt assigns a Pelican to each side of the street to pick up debris like cups, cans, bottles and confetti. While sweeping, the Pelicans perform some unique weaving and zigzag maneuvers on the street.

“Since our sweepers bring up the rear of the parade, I expect my operators to provide some entertainment for the spectators along the parade route,” Burkhardt said. “We’re proud of our Pelicans, and we like to show off the performance features of the sweepers while we’re working. We put on quite a show.”

Burkhardt said that it generally takes his crews about four hours to completely sweep up after one of the city’s parades.

To summarize, here are a few tips for special event sweeping:
* To get the contract, make sure the people planning the events know who you are.
* Be mindful of noise ordinances, after-dark lighting and other constraints you may not expect.
* Allow extra time. Crowd dispersal after a special event varies depending on traffic, weather and the event itself.
* Bring extra help.
* Have the right equipment for the job. Large sweepers are perfect for a wide parade route. Backpack-style sweepers can reach into small spaces.
* Join in the fun. If your sweeper is bringing up the rear of a parade, make sure the equipment is parade worthy. Show off your equipment and your business in a fun, festive way.

Story by Marie Elium                                       

Yesterday, Matt Peach, Vice President and Owner of Extreme Clean USA, the event and venue cleaning company, was painting trash cans for Walt Disney World®. If he tells you it is an endless job, that’s because it truly is an endless job. When he and his team finish refurbishing the 17,900 trash receptacles that grace the entire Orlando resort, they start right over, repairing and painting each one again. About 300 to 400 containers a week enter Extreme Clean’s MAACO Collision Repair Shop and come out ready to return to the job of keeping the famous resort as spotless as Disney World’s reputation demands.

And that level of clean is what Extreme Clean USA’s own standards demand. Whether it’s the Talladega Superspeedway, Disney’s Wide World of Sports, the New York Yankees’ Legends Field or the State Fair of Virginia, Matt’s superior cleaning teams have received accolades from event-goers and clients again and again.

Before he established Extreme Clean USA about ten years ago, Matt Peach spent most of his life getting ready for this career. He worked for his father’s cleaning company in rural Indiana when he was a kid, picking up the basics of techniques and equipment. He honed his custodial, managerial and special events capabilities during several years on staff at Walt Disney World, overseeing the cleaning companies that took care of the huge resort. His time at Disney, a stint with another event cleaning company, and some practical experience working the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia, convinced him he was ready.

“I came back and thought I’d do it myself,” Matt says. Apparently, his timing was perfection itself. “It blew up overnight.”  

Ten years later, Extreme Clean USA has contracts with famous racetracks, popular state and county fairs and well-known sports events and venues. Although most of its clients are major events—more than a million people—some are as small as just 300 people.

Cleaning and more
The company also does much more than just pre-event cleaning; it also maintains the venues during the events and post-event clean-up. It has expanded to include Distinct Decorators, which builds sets and installs them for events, and the MAACO body shop that also paints thirty to forty cars a week. The newest branch, Extreme Green USA, began last fall in response to a need for recycling services for its clients.

“Recycling is finally hitting the event industry,” explains Matt. “Partnering with Coca Cola, we now handle the recycling at all the racetracks and fairs. It’s a very big challenge to turn it around.” For example, Talladega Superspeedway sports a mile-long grandstand: “We have to go through it twice, once to pick up the recycling and once to clean and sweep it.”

Extreme Clean has a core group of eight full-time managers in different regions around the country. “That’s who runs the show on the road for me. They live in New York, Indiana, Alabama—wherever—and we fly them into the event, or they drive in if they have one of my pickups.”

The company operates with a full-time staff of thirty. However, give the team a race at Daytona International Speedway or a New York Yankees’ Spring Training weekend and the staff suddenly swells to as many as 1,300 workers. And this is where Caroline Peach, Matt’s wife and the “numbers person” for the business, really shines. Caroline is responsible for locating local nonprofit organizations to staff about 75 percent of the part-time workforce—a feature that makes Extreme Clean different from all the rest.

Unique way to “give back”
“We don’t use a bunch of day laborers,” says Matt. “We employ mostly local high school kids, church groups and military personnel and give that money back to the community. Every single race at Richmond International Raceway, we’re able to give a huge donation so all the military families can attend without paying at all,” because the local military personnel, under the supervision of their drill sergeants, serve as Extreme Clean’s temporary workers.

“There’s a church group that works two races a year for us at Talladega. The pastor told me that what they did for us paid the church’s mortgage and all its utilities for an entire year.

“We pay them the same hourly wage we’d pay any temps. They work hard for us. That’s a win-win for all of us.”

Matt is responsible for contract negotiations—“we’ve never lost a contract”—and customer relations, along with budget and staffing.

With the economic downturn, he’s found that “everyone wants discounts.” So he works with them.  “Caroline prints out the P&L sheets, and I show them to the client. I tell them what I need for the project to be profitable, and I suggest options to save them money. We work it out.”

In pursuit of excellence and customer satisfaction, Matt knows that successful communication is a key feature.  “I don’t stress out about anything. If there’s a problem, we fix it.”

Extreme Clean USA and its subsidiaries are based in Okahumpka, Florida, northwest of Orlando. For more information, visit the website: www.ExtremeCleanUSA.com or contact Caroline Peach at 407.832.0590 or CarolinePeach@ExtremeCleanUSA.com.

Story by Anne Biggs

There is a constant flurry of human resource changes, insurance changes and regulatory changes that will affect most industries including the street sweeper industry. Are you up to date with these changes to legislation? Do you know about and understand that there are immediate changes going into effect in the western U.S. that will no doubt be a national issue in the not so distant future?

The member section of the NAPSA website offers tools to our membership that will keep them updated on these issues. Additionally, there are NAPSA board members actively involved in battling changes that are believed to be unfair or could lead to damaging the current status of the industry, such as the emission changes being discussed by the State of California.

In the member section of the NAPSA website you can find information pertaining to regulations that restrict health risk assessments in wellness initiatives. There are educational items detailing the ease with which an employee can file discrimination claims from their home computers and how an employer can battle employees who may choose to blog about their company or employer. There are links to reports produced by experts in industry law that explain a company’s rights or responsibilities regarding Family Medical Leave, Whistle Blower laws and state initiatives to address non-compete agreements as well as many other issues effecting business owners.

Getting access to this information is simple and the knowledge gained; along with the additional benefits of membership, make the cost of this information a must for sweeping professionals.  To learn more, please visit www.powersweeping.org and sign up today.

“Kevin and I were looking to buy a business that fit our skills: Kevin’s background is in engineering and sales, and mine is in finance,” Viki says. “And we wanted a business where we could make a positive impact pretty quickly. We found this.”

Dayton Sweeping was started in 1972, by a one-man sweeper operator. When the wife-and-husband Kroeger team purchased it in 1999, it had a workforce of seven.

“Like a lot of people outside the industry, before this, we were blind to parking lot sweeping, never thought about it, didn’t even know it was done. But we built the company quickly. We’ve doubled our employees, from the original seven to our current fourteen, and have doubled revenues as well. I can’t believe it’s been ten years.”

Sweeping and more
“Our core business is parking lot and construction sweeping. We also provide snow removal services and have recently added power washing and landscape maintenance, based on customer need. In addition, for a few select customers with specific property management needs, we provide a variety of other services that we subcontract and oversee.”

DSS regularly sweeps at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Fairborn, Ohio, as a subcontractor on construction projects. In 2009, the company also did construction sweeping at Dayton International Airport as a subcontractor. The remainder of DSS Sweeping’s clients are within a two-hour radius of Dayton for construction sweeping and within a one-hour radius for parking lot sweeping, covering seventeen Greater Dayton and Greater Cincinnati counties in Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana.

“Our parking lot customers are shopping centers, strip malls and big-box stores like Walmart. Besides construction clean-up jobs, we subcontract on municipal projects. Our ideal customer is one who wants the job done right. Usually, these are property managers, who are less hampered by costs and driven more by the quality of the work.”

Viki, who is responsible for strategic planning and budgeting, gets a kick out of her work. “I really like strategic planning. I’m a very organized, detail-oriented person, so I like generating ideas, coming up with a plan, and then watching the plan come to fruition.

“We are very quality driven. We believe in communicating with the customer, finding out what the needs are and then meeting those needs, instead of offering just a flat service.”

Change can be good

What advances has Viki seen in the industry?

“I think GPS technology has made a significant impact, providing us with a huge opportunity to improve our operations and cut costs, especially since GPS has become more cost-effective. We use it to assist us with billing and routing.”

To her relief, the economic downturn hasn’t impacted DSS’s business as much as she feared it might. “Only a few of our customers have cut services completely, while others have reduced services, but not significantly. And fortunately, some property managers see the downturn as their chance to let go of ineffective contractors and hire us to do a better job. We’ve seen the downturn as a growth opportunity and have hired a sales executive to generate new business. We are also pursuing projects funded with stimulus dollars.”

She believes strongly that one of their key skills is their willingness to learn from others, especially when faced with challenges. “We had a big problem with turnover a few years ago. Parking lot sweeping can be a tough job, working at night on your own. We’d train the new hires, but after two or three nights, they wouldn’t come back.

“We’re involved members of NAPSA, so we took some of the best practices of companies across the country, tweaked them to meet our needs, and implemented them. Now, we describe the job better in all our hiring materials so applicants fully understand it before they’re hired. It’s reduced our turnover by half, and now we have quality people who are really proud of the work they do.”

DSS Sweeping, majority owned and run by a woman, is certified as a Women’s Business Enterprise (WBE), Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE), Encouraging Diversity, Growth & Equity (EDGE) and is a NAPSA Certified Sweeping Company. For more information, visit the website: www.DSS-Sweeping.com.

 Story by Anne Biggs

• Flotation device under the seat: check.
• Access to the mid-plane emergency exits: check.
• Nothing suspicious or odd hanging from the wings: check.

Now, anxious flyers can add another item to the list: clean runway.
Pilot error. Terrorists. Faulty mechanics. Many things can bring down a plane, but none more quickly than a stray piece of metal on an airport runway.
Careful sweeping and daily checks of runways are a seldom-seen but integral part of keeping passengers safe. An impressive arsenal of sweeping machines, huge magnets, chemicals and even radar in some places—along with a simple scan by human eyes— keep airplanes where they belong: in the air.
The biggest single safety issue in the airline industry is FOD, or Foreign Object Debris. The FOD can be natural—such as rocks, brush or birds—or manmade—such as metal components or rubber. The rare but entirely possible result of FOD is that the object can be sucked into an aircraft engine and cause catastrophic damage or bring a plane down.
Unsecured fuel caps, tools from maintenance trucks and all sorts of other items can wind up on an airport runway. Routine sweeping—along with the use of powerful magnets—are part of nearly every airport’s maintenance routine.
“I don’t see how there is anything more important than keeping the runway clear of debris. It has tremendous negative outcomes if you have any debris on the runway,” said Bill Johnson, Executive Director of the Tallahassee-based Florida Airports Council. The group represents twenty commercial and seventy-three general aviation airports.
“Keeping a runway clear of debris,” he continued, “is the most important thing any airport can do.”.
The issue has several components. First, FOD such as small pieces of metal can end up in an engine. A second consideration is that an object on the runway can split an aircraft’s tire, peeling off rubber. The result is a piece of rubber that can wind up in an engine.
How airports deal with the issue depends on the size of the facility and frequency of flights as well as whether or not vehicles routinely cross the runways or travel on other areas that service airplanes. Additionally,. construction projects on hangars, air traffic control towers or terminals introduce hundreds of opportunities for FOD to get on a runway, Johnson noted.
Regardless, each day, the runways are checked—sometimes by highly technical radar or other devices, other times by a worker driving along the edge to look for FOD.
Airline safety experts and the federal government all place a priority on FOD and  its detection. The Air Force Safety Center has even produced special FOD prevention posters. One shows a man with a broom and another man bending down to pick up something from a runway. The caption: “One person can make a difference.” Another poster, this one with a gruesome skeleton holding pieces of metal, reads simply: “FOD: just waiting to happen.”
“People don’t understand the true implications [of FOD]. Even if a piece of material goes into an engine and doesn’t cause a crash, it can cause multiple millions of dollars worth of damage to an engine. For the airport, it is critically important that airport runways are clean of all debris all the time,” Johnson explained.
Sweeping plays a crucial role. Runways are often one or two miles long, and 100 to 200 feet wide. The size of the sweeping device depends on the size of the airport runway. Many use conventional sweepers—just like the ones for parking lots, construction sites and roads. However, to make sure that every piece of metal is collected, airport maintenance workers also use magnets, which are able to pull ferrous objects from oily or greasy surfaces. Blowers and vacuums can collect much of the debris, but they do not work as well as a strong magnet sweeper does in certain situations.
Magnet manufacturers customize their products so they can be used on trucks and conventional sweepers. Magnets are used in untold areas of industry. The magnets produced by Magnetic Products, Inc. of Michigan, for example, are mounted above food conveyers to pull out any stray metal bits that may have found their way into the food during the production process.
Two types of magnets are used with sweepers on airport runways. The first is a permanent magnet that requires no power to feed or operate it. The magnet can hold anything that is ferrous, or attracted to a magnet, at all times. A permanent magnet has no “off switch.” Debris has to be manually cleared from the magnet surface. The operation is simple, but requires more work. Usually, the magnets on sweepers have a faceplate that breaks the magnetic surface and reduces the amount of force required to clear the magnet.
The other type of magnet used with sweepers is an electromagnet, which operates with copper or aluminum coils. DC current is fed to the magnet, creating a powerful force field. Cut the electricity, and the magnet loses its power and allows items to drop away.
Conventional sweepers, sweepers with magnetic attachments and magnets used alone are all components of an airport’s runway maintenance equipment.
A final issue, according to Johnson, is the accumulation of rubber on the runways. As airplanes land, they leave a trail or skid mark from their tires. Too much rubber on a runway can hamper the aircraft’s ability to land. “Too much rubber affects the braking,” he said. “Braking with rubber on rubber instead of rubber on asphalt can affect stopping.” To counter that issue, airport operators use chemicals, water and sweepers to scrape the rubber when it begins to accumulate too thickly in vital landing areas.
Johnson compares runway cleaning with keeping a parking lot or roadway swept. The stakes, however, are much higher if an errant piece of material ends up in an aircraft engine.
“Whether it’s a parking lot at a mall or a road, you just have to sweep this stuff up. Thousands of airplanes can fly off a runway with a bolt sitting on it and nothing would happen. When it does, it’s a fluke. It’s just [that] we are trying to keep the fluke from happening,” Johnson said.
“It still comes down to the basics of how you keep stuff off any kind of runway, roadway or parking lot, except you don’t have a multi-million dollar engine at stake.
“The implication of a flat tire in a parking lot is a little different than a three-inch bolt going into a jet engine. In aviation, all accidents happen because of multiple things that go wrong,” Johnson said.
Keeping a runway clean by using road sweepers and magnets removes at least one element from the equation.
Nervous flyers: your list has now expanded.

By Marie Elium

Cupp really couldn’t afford to buy a new sweeper truck. So he bought three.  "I got three used Schwarze trucks," he recalled, "for $15,000 total. Then I combined them into one truck, which I used for two or three years."  A second truck followed, and Artscape now has a fleet of four. Thanks to the efforts of Schwarze Industries (Ricky Hyatt) and Tech support.

"We do a little of everything, parking lots, state roads," said Cupp.  “We’ve even got a contract with the LaFarge Company for quarries."  Cupp isn’t shy about forging new business relationships.  "I’m a little guy, but I’m kind of personable," he said.  Like the time he noticed a sweeper company working on a state highway.  "I pulled over and asked one of the guys how they got into that. He told me who to contact, and everything fell into place.

Before he was "micromanaging" parking lots, Cupp hung drywall. Then, he started cutting grass and landscaping.  "Through the grass-cutting job, I got to know a lot of the property owners in the Baltimore area, and I saw where a sweeping company might have potential."

Cupp continues to drive one of his company’s trucks, focusing primarily on highway work.  “A lot of guys, when they start building a company, decide to sit back and put all the work on somebody else,” he said. “Me, I still like to get out there and make sure the job is done right.”

In the lagging economy, Cupp sees the recent trend of property managers and municipalities hiring one company to perform multiple tasks to be reversing itself.  “It’s getting so everything is done by bid,” he said, “and not splitting things up.”

Nevertheless, he remains upbeat.  “I don’t think its all price,” he said. “I just can’t look at it that way. I think service still counts for a lot. When we bid $75 for an hour and a half, and if we’re out there for only 30 minutes, we adjust for that.”

Cupp took something of a gamble, he said, by not passing a fuel surcharge along to his customers. Instead, he decided to ride it out, and has recently been rewarded with pre-2007 prices.

The management tier for Artscape (now a $400,000 a year business) remains tight and a family business – Cupp, his son Danny and his wife Tammy. But that doesn’t mean Fred Cupp doesn’t think his other employees aren’t crucial to the company’s success. 
“You’re entrusting someone with a $90,000 piece of machinery,” he said. “That’s not something you take lightly. And it’s really to your benefit to keep your employees happy, something we try to do with bonuses and maybe an extra week’s vacation.”

Flashing back to long nights trudging across deserted parking lots with a broom and dustpan, Cupp now sees a long-term benefit in that drudgery.  “It made me very meticulous.”