For some of you, the start of the 2010 busy season is still off in the distance. If you’re up north like me, you’re still looking out the window at a snow pile and the skids of your restrooms are still firmly frozen to the ground in your yard.
But even if some of your first summer contracts are a few months away, you’ve probably been contemplating changes in your equipment inventory for some time. Starting with the Pumper & Cleaner Environmental Expo 10 days ago – I’ve been talking to many contractors who are gearing up for 2010. While there’s still some lingering doubt about the economic recession, many PROs I talked to at the Kentucky Exposition Center in Louisville, Ky., were looking to upgrade their inventories.
For example, a husband-wife team from Michigan, longtime portable sanitation contractors, were signing a contract at the Expo to purchase one high-end restroom trailer, and contemplating adding a similar shower trailer to serve special event clients this year. They were “glass-half-full’’ kind of people, convinced the trailers would create opportunities to serve their clients in new ways.
A Canadian contractor professed knowing little about the economic challenges facing his American counterparts. He was busy shopping for a couple of truckloads of restrooms to serve a growing demand back home. And the American PROs seemed to be in a mood to improve their restroom stock, too. Even during a recession, time marches on and restrooms get old and need to be replaced, attendees told me at the Expo.
And they found interesting new products on the exhibit floor. Trends in portable sanitation included several new hand sanitizing stands and a new and improved high-rise wheeled restroom units. The sanitizer stands, conveniently placed along with clusters of restrooms at special events and construction sites, were no doubt prompted by concern over increasing reports over E. coli outbreaks and the H1N1 flu virus. And the high-rise units are hopefully an indicator that commercial construction and other infrastructure projects will be on the upswing this year.
In the coming weeks, we’ll have a lot more to report on new products seen at the Expo. I’m also busy making contacts for future contractor profile stories in PRO. Stay tuned. And if you have any suggestions for profile stories or industry trends to investigate, drop me a line at editor@promonthly.com.
