This is an industry trade publication and our intention is to fill it to the brim with valuable business information — from how your company can balance the books or market a product or service, to detailed explanations on how to tear down and rebuild a vacuum pump. These things are the nuts and bolts of your small business.
I’ve struggled with how much of our content should stretch beyond the bounds of strictly business talk and enter the realm of the personal challenges faced by a PRO after he or she puts down the vacuum hose and calls it a day. I sometimes wonder how much value readers would derive from life stories coming from me in this column or a fellow portable sanitation contractor elsewhere in PRO™.
A few months ago, I decided this year-end holiday issue would be a good opportunity to focus on a more personal struggle being faced by a restroom contractor. The decision was made after Kathy Vana wrote a heartfelt e-mail to me.
Kathy explained that her father, Bill VanPolen, the owner of VanPolen Portables in McBain, Mich., had been battling a serious illness for most of the year. While he faced life-threatening Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, Bill’s family joined forces to keep the small portable restroom company afloat. His youngest daughter, Mary VanPolen, quit her job to take over day-to-day operations of the company.
Taking over
As a result of their commitment to the family business, Bill had one less thing to worry about as he fought for his health. Mary said later that she simply made herself learn the tasks that had to be done.
“It’s not easy. I just know that doing it makes his mind be at ease,” Mary told writer Sharon Verbeten in our PROfile story on VanPolen Portables (“In This Together”). “Doing the job and doing it well means a lot to him.”
Kathy thought a story about their family business in PRO would lift her father’s spirits. I was struck by the VanPolens’ efforts to save the family business. Bill’s “right-hand girl’’ gave up a career in the dental field to come home and run the business. His wife, Dollene, continued to run the office and help make executive decisions in Bill’s stead. The rest of the family worked weekends, placing, servicing and picking up restrooms at special events.
I assigned the story for December, expecting a hopeful and inspirational feature that would reflect the season where many people pause to count their blessings. The results are inspirational, but, unfortunately for the VanPolen family, the hopeful side of the equation waned.
Kathy e-mailed me as we were preparing the story for print. She told me her father had taken a turn for the worse and was returning home from the hospital in the care of hospice. The rosier prognosis they hoped for was not to come. Kathy asked if she could have the story before publication so she could read it to her father. I sent a transcript of the story to her. Bill died a day later.
Family business
To honor Bill, we decided to run the story as the family read it, rather than update it with word of his death. We were proud to hear the entire family thought it was a well-written piece.
The more I think about the VanPolen family, the more I realize this intensely personal story is just as valid in the pages of PRO as any nuts and bolts business topic.
A majority of restroom contracting businesses are owned by families, and those families often have to deal with similar heartbreaking and tragic events. The VanPolens illustrate how they quickly developed and implemented a disaster plan and persevered through a tough situation.
I’m sure the VanPolens’ loss is being felt throughout their small-town community. But the VanPolens are also a part of the greater community of PROs, thousands of families working to make a living in this close-knit industry.
As the holidays approach, we send our condolences to the VanPolens and wish them the best moving into a new year. I extend the same wishes to all of you as you reflect on the past year and plan for a prosperous 2008.
More tributes inside
On our Industry News page this month, we pay tribute to two important figures in the maturing of the portable sanitation industry. Ed Cooper, president and owner of PolyJohn Enterprises Corp., and Fred Cutler III, longtime owner of Sani-Can in Reno, Nev., died in late October.
Cooper, 68, is remembered for growing PolyJohn into an international company that has sold portable restrooms in 35 countries. Cutler, 81, is credited with helping found the Portable Sanitation Association International.
