If you haven’t already looked at our June PROfile yet, I invite you to read the inspiring story of how Matthew Duras and others are raising the portable sanitation bar in the Czech Republic.
In the early 1990s, when the Communist government in Czechoslovakia was toppled and replaced by a democracy, portable sanitation on a construction site amounted to “a hole in the ground with a wooden shack built over it,’’ explained Duras, owner of sanitation provider Johnny Servis. But a few short years later, Duras’ company has an inventory of 7,000 portable restrooms from PolyJohn Enterprises Corp., and service equipment to rival what we have in the United States.
The story that sticks with me most from Duras’ interview was how fast wireless technology spread through formerly impoverished, backwards countries and is now the norm for everyone. Duras explained that it use to take 15 years to obtain a telephone landline under Communist rule, but in the course of a few years, everyone has skipped the traditional phone line in favor of cell service. The land lines, Duras said, “have almost become obsolete before they had a chance to become common.’’
The experience of Johnny Servis just goes to show how rapidly an economy can be transformed, and that we all need to be ready to adapt to inevitable advances in technology.
