The team
Tim Watts is president and CEO of Maui Shower Company LLC, a mobile shower company. His son Sam handles operations, staffs the office in Burnsville, Minn., just outside Minneapolis, and is the events coordinator. Scott Anderson is in charge of sales, part-timer Bob Stoks takes care of equipment issues, and another part-timer, Tom Dahlberg, handles marketing.
There are three drivers — Tom Gwinn, John Palmer and Steve Hughes. The company flies them home between gigs — Illinois for Gwinn, Florida for Palmer, and Arkansas for Hughes — but they’re on the road much of the year, traveling from event to event. It’s a lifestyle, not a job – and it’s not for everyone. “They have to understand customers, they have to take care of customers, they have to be presentable, and they have to be willing to work hard,” says Tim Watts.
At most events, drivers need help with setup, cleaning and crowd management. The company usually hires a local attendant through Labor Ready, a temporary employment agency. For the Indy 500 auto race, drivers Hughes and Gwinn were assisted by one temp worker, as well as Gwinn’s wife, Kay.
COMPANY HISTORY
The idea for a shower trailer was planted in Watts’s head in 1997 when his 11-year-old daughter Allison was horrified to learn there’d be no showers at a four-day music festival she wanted to attend. Watts started noticing that this was, in fact, a common problem at festivals. Over the next few years he did some research, developed ideas, and started designing a trailer in his head, all while holding down his “day job” as vice president of operations for a trucking company.
But the idea languished until Allison grew up and got married. Watts’s new son-in-law found the concept exciting. “He called me a coward if I didn’t do it,” says Watts. Together they worked with Featherlite Trailers to hammer out a design, and the business was born. Eventually they purchased two more trailers, these made by Renegade/Kibbi LLC, Bristol, Ind. Maui is now in its fourth year of business and is in the process of adding a fourth trailer to its inventory.
So how did they get their name? Watts explains: “Before we started, I hired a national company to do marketing. I had a couple of ideas, but they came up with this. They said people would remember the name because when you think of Maui you think of vacation, you think of beaches, you think of water. After arguing for a while, I said OK. And it worked — people do remember the name.”
GOING CUSTOM
Watts always knew he wanted to design his own trailers because he couldn’t find exactly what he was looking for. “Ours are self-contained, there’s one source of power, there are individual shower stalls, and they’re lockable,” he says. He also knew he didn’t want the complication of including toilets. “If we did toilets, there would be fewer shower stalls and we’d also have to deal with blackwater as well as graywater.”
Separate doors along the side of the trailer lead to each of the 11 heated and air-conditioned stainless steel stalls, a material Watts chose because it’s easy to clean, sanitary, and indestructible. Each stall has a dressing area with hooks and a bench and a 36-inch by 36-inch shower area. A $10 token provides six minutes of diesel-generated hot water at 2.5 gallons per minute. The trailer has enough water for 1,100 showers. Patrons can purchase soap, shampoo and towels, but most bring their own. The trailers are designed to get people in and out quickly — no sinks, mirrors, or electrical outlets are included.
The trailer exteriors are visually stunning with their colorful beach and surfboard decals. Watts wanted them to stand out. “They had to be yellow,” he explains, “We climbed to the top of the Speedway and looked down at the race car transports and saw what color jumped out the most. I thought it would be orange or red but it was yellow.”
The drivers live in relative comfort in the rig — a toterhome built on a 50-foot Freightliner chassis.
MAKING CONNECTIONS
This is Maui’s third year servicing the Indy 500. “Our first year, I called up and begged,” says Watts, but another company had the contract. The second year the Speedway called Watts, saying they wanted improved service. “They said, ‘Can you do it better?’ and I said yes.” Since then Watts has had the shower contract for all the events at the Speedway, although, because of the volatile price of diesel fuel, he does not sign long-term contracts.
THE MAIN EVENT
This year marked the 92nd anniversary of the Indianapolis 500. Some call it the largest single-day sporting event in the world. Although the Speedway does not disclose attendance figures, it is estimated that between 250,000 to 300,000 people attended the 500-mile, 200-lap race in Speedway, Ind, on May 25th. About 50,000 campers were expected. The company’s job was to provide shower facilities for campers who either didn’t have or didn’t want to use their own showers.
LET’S ROLL
Two trailers were set up at the Speedway on Thursday morning, May 22, and removed the following Monday morning. One was positioned near the camping area across from Turn 4; the other near the announcer’s tower.
The company can connect its trailers to local water and sewer sources but those were unavailable at the Speedway so Maui set up four 3,000-gallon, rubber onion-shaped bladders — two for freshwater and two for graywater.
The showers were open from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. each day with peak activity from opening until the start of the race. “People were taking showers right up until the National Anthem,” says Sam Watts. More than 2,000 showers were provided during the weekend.
KEEPIN’ IT CLEAN
Stalls were wiped down and sanitized after each use with ordinary household cleaning products. Three times a day they were scrubbed down with industrial cleaners. Maui replaces its plastic shower curtains every month.
The company does not do its own pumping. The Speedway provided this service through a local company, Gordon Plumbing, which pumped out the graywater once a day. The freshwater bladders were filled and topped off daily by Aqua Fill water delivery.
A WINNING EVENT
Finding a few drunks on the shower steps first thing in the morning is nothing new to Maui drivers, but compared to rock & roll festivals, the family-oriented racing crowd was well-mannered, even though lines were sometimes 50 or 60 deep. “This is one of our most tame events,” says Chris Watts. “This was a perfect event. Everything went pretty smooth.”
