What do you get when a registered nurse becomes a portable restroom operator? Restrooms that gleam like a hospital operating room. And that emphasis on cleanliness that starts with owner Susan Taylor is helping Taylor Services Restrooms 2 Go build a solid clientele in its home territory around Macon, Ga.
To drive home the importance of clean restrooms, Taylor rides with new employees to personally emphasize the company’s way of doing things, such as fully evacuating waste tanks, thoroughly scrubbing units, using fragrance sprays during wash-downs and installing new scent discs.
“Then we reinforce the training by making them ride with veteran drivers for a few weeks before we turn them loose,” says Taylor, who has operated the business with her husband, Tim, since 2006. “We also do random inspections periodically and address anything that’s missed. It’s a big commitment on my end.”
GOODBYE TO NURSING
Taylor didn’t know a vacuum pump from a distribution box when her husband met a septic pumper who was planning on selling his business and retiring. Tim Taylor was running a dry-cleaning business at the time, but did landscaping, excavating and small demolition work on the side.
“This man was willing to get us going and show us the ropes,” Taylor says. “We already had a head-start because we owned some heavy equipment.”
Then the couple attended their first Pumper & Cleaner Environmental Expo International, where they took certification courses. At the same time, they realized that many people in the septic pumping business were also portable restroom operators.
“Long story short, we came home with 12 standard restrooms and one handicapped-accessible unit,” Taylor says.
Then the transition from nursing to portable restrooms began in earnest. At the start, Taylor worked three days a week at the hospital and two days running restroom routes with her mother, Katie Barker, who still handles the company’s bookkeeping. In the meantime, Tim Taylor kept one foot firmly planted in the dry-cleaning business.
