How did the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally provide adequate sanitation service for thousands of visiting bikers before the advent of modern portable restrooms? It’s a question I kept asking myself as I ran into the Sturgis crowds while on vacation in South Dakota’s Black Hills during the week leading up to the rally last summer.
I’ve been in a lot of big crowds in the past, but nothing I’ve experienced before — or I’m likely encounter in the future — matches the sheer numbers of people flooding into the scenic area that features Mount Rushmore and the Badlands. “You’d never believe it if you didn’t see it for yourself,’’ was what Sturgis-area residents told me about the rally, which started in 1938.
As I took snapshots of the tourist attractions, like Wall Drug and the Crazy Horse mountain sculpture, I kept seeing banks of portable restrooms placed up and down every highway, and pumper trucks making the rounds in each picturesque former mining village. I know it’s a no-no when you’re vacationing with your family, but I found myself sucked into thinking about work and how local PROs met the challenge of serving more than a half-million people over a few weeks.
Opportunity rumbles
I turned my lens toward the portable restrooms and talked to some of the people who pump and maintain the units. The results can be found in the Working Vacation story (“Calling All Restrooms”) in this issue.
Can you imagine the portable restroom providers 40 or 50 years ago hammering away on wooden units, building and placing them as fast as they could, then trying to pump them out with homemade trucks using suction provided by engine vacuum? Add extreme 100-degree summer heat, the lack of deodorizing chemicals and a surlier, rougher biker crowd than you’d find today. Workdays must have been fun back then.
The technicians I saw as they ramped up for the 2007 rally enjoyed lightweight restrooms that are a snap to pump and clean, reliable trucks with strong vacuum pumps, air conditioning, and often automatic transmissions to ease the task of sharing the roads with all those motorcycles.
Despite the fact that campgrounds and local businesses reserve the entire available inventories of several PROs in the region, it seemed to me like the demand from partying bikers could still outstrip the supply.
See you at the expo
Like the largest event of the year for the Harley crowd, this month brings the biggest event in the world of portable sanitation, the Pumper & Cleaner Environmental Expo International in Louisville, Ky. And if you’re going to be there Feb. 27-March 1, I’d like to meet you.
The Expo is my best opportunity to network with PROs and learn about the current challenges you face back in your hometown. This year I’m expecting to hear about how a slowing construction industry is impacting contractors across the country. I’ll be watching to see what equipment PROs are sizing up in an effort to diversify service offerings or serve existing customers better. I expect regulations involving disposal will be on the minds of many pumping professionals.
As I like to do every year, I’m sounding the drumbeat for PROs to arrive a day before the Expo exhibits open to attend Education Day seminars. As I talk to contractors throughout the year, I ask if they’re planning on attending the Expo and Education Day. If they’re coming, but plan to pass on the full day of seminar offerings, I put in a pitch for the learning opportunities they’re missing.
The Portable Sanitation Association International is organizing a PRO-specific seminar this year, with the PSAI’s Millicent Carroll and industry veteran Barry Gump of Andy Gump Inc. in California, giving a talk on procedural breakdown for special events. It’s a timely topic, considering that many contractors hope to build special events business this year to help make up for potential construction account losses.
If you can’t make it for Education Day, portable sanitation-focused seminars will continue on Friday, Feb. 29. Industry equipment providers will speak on building a restroom rental business, marketing shower trailers and maintaining a modern vacuum truck.
Flag me down
The first Expo at the Kentucky Exposition Center promises to be the biggest and best ever. If you picked up this issue of PRO™ as you arrived in Louisville, stop by the COLE Publishing booth and ask for me. I’d love hearing about your company and story ideas or suggestions you have for the magazine.
