THE TEAM
Frank King owns Action King Services in Lowell, Mass., a company that provides septic tank and grease trap pumping in addition to portable restroom rental.
King’s daughter Karen is vice president and general manager, his son Frank III is project manager, and Real Betty is the foreman for seven service techs. Marie Schofield handles dispatch and Sharon Eno-Maxim works part-time doing scheduling and invoicing. Sheila Richards, who has performed office duties for the company for over 15 years, coordinates the Haunted Happenings event, and everyone in the company gets involved at some point.
COMPANY HISTORY
When King got out of the military in 1966, he went to work for the Massachusetts Depart-ment of Corrections and then the State Hospital. But the pay scale was discouraging and he realized he had to find something else. His cousin was in the sewer business and another fellow he knew had a pump truck. “Both of them looked like they were doing pretty well, not a bad deal, so I got the idea from there,” he says.
King and his wife, Louise, bought an old oil truck, which was modified with a diaphragm pump, and he built a number of wooden restrooms. But the harsh North-east winters turned out to be too much for those units, persuading King to get out of that line of work and concentrate on septic service. He was lured back into it 20 years later, and today portable restrooms account for about 25 percent of the business. They’ve got 450 units, two restroom trailers and three vacuum trucks.
MAKING CONNECTIONS
The Halloween project fell into King’s lap six years ago. “They gave us a call,” he says. “I couldn’t tell you why.” But it was probably word-of-mouth, as King says he has a good reputation not only with his customers, but with his competitors with whom he occasionally shares equipment. After getting the call, Richards took over and developed a solid relationship with Ellen Talkowski, the City of Salem special events coordinator. Both entities have enjoyed an easy, friendly partnership since. “Sheila’s personal touch has really made the whole thing work,” King says.
THE MAIN EVENT
In the 1700s, Salem was an international seaport. In the 1800s, resident Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote The Scarlet Letter and House of Seven Gables, and in the 1900s the city nearly burned to the ground. But it was the events of 1692-93 that will forever haunt the community, namely the Salem Witch Trials in which numerous people were accused of witchcraft: 150 were imprisoned and 29 were hung, mostly women.
Salem has given up trying to sweep this tragedy under the rug, and now incorporates it into its celebrations, including the month-long Halloween festival they call Haunted Happenings.
Numerous activities are provided for an estimated 200,000 visitors, including a street fair and carnival, witch trial reenactments, House of Seven Gables tours, and psychic readings. Modern witches can take in a Samhein feast or attend a witches’ ball; kids can visit haunted houses or go trick or treating, and the curious can listen to seafaring tales, tour museums and historic homes, or visit ancient graveyards.
BY THE NUMBERS
Although the company sits down each year with the city to plan for the event, attendance figures are always somewhat unpredictable, as they’re affected by the level of media attention, weather, and the economy. “Funding has a lot to do with it as well,” King says. So they typically start out with a number based on the previous year’s activity and then stand ready to bring in more units if and when conditions warrant.
In 2009 they provided 50 blue and green Poly Standard restrooms equipped with hand sanitizers from PolyPortables Inc., as well as three of the company’s Enhanced Access Units, or EAUs.
LET’S ROLL
Deliveries began two days before the Oct. 1 kickoff event, a “Night at the Museum” children’s parade. They began with 39 restrooms, ramping up to 50 a week later. The units stayed in place for the full month.
Deliveries were made using a Chevrolet pickup pulling a 20-unit trailer, as well as their flat tank vacuum truck. Drivers were accompanied by Talkowski, who helped pinpoint locations. Units were situated in small groups in nine sites around the city — the wharf, the visitor center, a city park, parking lots, main streets, museums.
KEEPIN’ IT CLEAN
For the first half of the month, technicians made the 40-minute trek from their shop to provide twice-a-week servicing: Mondays and Fridays. By the third weekend, they went to three times a week: Monday, Thursday, Saturday. And the last week of the month required four. The company used all of its services vehicles — a 2006 Isuzu with a 1,000-gallon waste/300-gallon freshwater steel tank from Crescent Tank Mfg., a 2005 GMC 5500 with an 800-gallon waste/300-gallon freshwater steel tank from Best Enterprises Inc., and a 2001 Isuzu Tugger from Keith Huber Inc. with a 600-gallon waste/ 250-gallon freshwater steel tank. All have Masport Inc. pumps.
Drivers, wearing company-provided sweatshirts, T-shirts and jackets, worked from 8 a.m. to noon. Occasionally they encountered impatient patrons, but despite the large crowds, Talkowski and the police ensured that units were accessible.
The company follows standard Portable Sanitation Association International-recommended cleaning procedures and uses Green Way Products (PolyPortables Inc.) deodorizers for odor control. King likes to add PineSol to the wash water. “When you spray the unit down, it leaves a nice smell for a couple days,” he says.
FUN FOR ALL
Although Haunted Happen-ings presents a few of the usual festival-type problems — foreign objects stuck in hoses, tipovers — the company loves this event. “The guys like going down there,” King says. “They’re treated well. Ellen makes it real nice for them. They get free passes and bring their families. They look forward to it.”
