From the cab of her 2020 Ram 5500 vacuum truck, Bonnie Larson is doing triple duty. With the truck’s hands-free phone, she can take customer calls (office work) as she drives the 200-mile round trip to Mandan, North Dakota, to set up and service portable restrooms that tipped over in a storm the day before. At the same time, she stays in touch with her husband and employees about their routes.
Though the distance and work involved with owning and operating D&B Portables in Sanborn, North Dakota, can be daunting, Bonnie and her husband, Don, are up to the challenge and grateful to own the business. Now their work focuses on 26 counties in the eastern half of North Dakota, traveling longer distances for some customers. In their prior jobs with the wind power industry, they traveled all over the state and could be away from home months at a time.
“Our kids were teens, and we wanted to be around home and be our own bosses,” Larson explains as reasons they started D&B Portables in 2014.
STARTING THE DAY RIGHT
As safety managers in the wind power industry in North Dakota, Bonnie and Don earned respect and networked with businesses and workers throughout the state. Often as the only female among 250 workers, Bonnie noticed one thing male workers may not have appreciated.
“The guy who cleaned our port-a-potties made them nice, and it started my day off right,” she says, noting the couple recognized that portable sanitation is an industry that will always be needed.
Don researched how to build inventory, while Bonnie checked into regulations and licensing requirements. In November 2014, the Larsons started a business that had 200 restrooms and two trucks with a leased building in Jamestown in the southeast quadrant of the state. The couple adapted their past experience to learn new skills for running a portable restroom business.
Don looked for ways to make the job easier. He designed a double pallet fork for the skid-steer to move two restrooms at a time, set up a 1,000-gallon water tank with a pump to fill trucks and prepared tool bags for each truck to do repairs in the field.
With Bonnie’s aptitude for paperwork, they made D&B Portables a woman-owned portable restroom business. Her experience in construction helped make the difference.
Starting their business in the winter was challenging but by the spring Bonnie’s marketing, advertising and contacts started to pay off.
TEAM EFFORT
Bonnie holds 51% of the business, and she and Don share the workload. Bonnie takes care of contracts, scheduling, the books and payroll, and handles routes and deliveries as necessary in the western half of their territory. Don takes care of maintenance and the eastern half of their territory. Employees, Mark Roones and Steve “Bernie” Berntson, are cross-trained, though Roones typically handles the septic side of the business, while Berntson runs portable restroom routes.
The Larsons added septic service in 2015 when they purchased another business. All together they have added two septic businesses and one septic and portable restroom business.
In the beginning they had restrooms in the oil patch around Williston, five hours away, which made long workdays for them and their employees. As word spread about their business they had more local opportunities and they backed off the long-distance work.
“We are very involved with our community, gotten to know businesses and have grown every year. We’re very social and make a point to talk to them and keep the lines of communications open. When you do that face-to-face it makes more of an impact,” Bonnie Larson says.
WELL EQUIPPED
Driving long distances means the Larsons need to be prepared and efficient. They appreciate two 2020 Ram 5500 service trucks with aluminum 800-gallon wastewater and 400-gallon freshwater tanks and National Vacuum Equipment pumps from Imperial Industries. One truck carries a water tank under the bed so it can haul six portable restrooms. The trucks have dual-side service, comfortable cabs and hands-free communication technology, Larson says.
Because they travel through remote areas, they carry a full set of Milwaukee tools. For example, they use an impact wrench to anchor the restrooms to the ground with 18-inch lag bolts. If they can’t remove the bolts, they can use a cutoff blade to cut the bolts at ground level.
“When you are so far from home, you have to be able to troubleshoot for minor problems or breakdowns,” Larson says. “The other day in Bismarck a water hose blew. I dug in the tool bag, grabbed a hose clamp and fixed it.”
With demand increasing for more restrooms at events — 50 or more was typical in 2021 — they purchased another 20-place trailer from Stardusk Truck & Equipment to add to their fleet of 8-, 12- and 20-unit trailers built by H&H and Johnny Mover.
The Larsons are upgrading their restroom inventory (350) to Sansom Zenith units for construction and events.
“We love the Sansoms. They are built well, and I like them because the toilets are at an angle. When you’re sitting your face isn’t near the urinal. The hands-free door opening is a great selling point during these times. Many customers are amazed at the toe kick opening of the door,” she says.
Their hand-wash stations are Tuff-Jons on wheels for easier moving.
On the septic side of the business, they have two trucks, a 2006 GMC Kodiak with a 2,000-gallon aluminum tank and Masport pump and a 2016 Peterbilt with a 1,500-gallon steel tank with an NVE pump. With heated valves, pumping can be done year-round, though that work typically slows down December through February.
Finally, a 1972 Ford fire truck they purchased recently, has turned out to be a great investment.
“We were driving though a town and saw it for sale,” Larson says. With its 3,000-gallon water tank and pressure hoses it saves time and labor cleaning out tanks on the septic trucks, she explains.
BUSINESS RELOCATION
Another recent purchase in 2019 was new property for their business.
“We had been looking for a farmstead and we found one with 14 acres and seven outbuildings, a house and garage,” Larson says. It’s centrally located to their coverage area and helps them stay on top of business and vehicle maintenance. It also provides an opportunity for the future to land-apply waste and save treatment plant fees.
Knowing exactly where restrooms are located can be a challenge. For example, one of D&B’s contracts is to service restrooms on railroad cars when crews are making repairs and that can mean meeting the train somewhere at 6 a.m. Another time a storm picked up a restroom and set it in the middle of a field a mile away. It was after a trailer with restrooms was stolen that the Larsons solved the problem of finding restrooms by putting trackers on everything. Since cellular didn’t work well in their region, they use satellite-based trackers. The discreet trackers are riveted to the restrooms and trailers. “(Tracking) comes in handy if Don does my route to help him find the restrooms,” she adds.
The tracking devices also help employees. The business typically has two employees, who the Larsons treat as well as they can with above average wages, housing in some circumstances, Christmas bonuses and “we feed them like crazy,” Larson says. “Don likes to grill when he is home.”
To comply with COVID regulations, twice as many units were often needed and they were spaced out for social distancing and more services were required. D&B has always had hand sanitizers in its restrooms, which was a great selling point, and customers also like the hands-free doors. Hand-wash stations were in big demand, and the Larsons used their entire inventory. Septic pumping was up too, as more people were working from home or staying in second homes.
ROSY OUTLOOK
Opportunities are plentiful for D&B Portables as a woman-owned small business, but quality service also drives contracts. They pride themselves in being “a clean and green company.” That includes providing quality, thorough pumping and cleaning and using environmentally friendly products from J&J Chemical, Walex and Sunrise Environmental.
Besides the work in the field, Larson is comfortable handling government paperwork and marketing the business through radio and newspaper advertising and dropping off cards at construction sites. She uses QuickBooks for accounting and creates route maps with Google. The trucks have GPS, but it’s not always accurate in North Dakota.
Despite the distances and challenges, the state is full of opportunity.
As grandparents and parents of adult children, the Larsons juggle work and family, especially in the summer. Spending time with grandchildren often includes them riding along and helping clean restrooms.
“I couldn’t be more proud to do what we do. I love to travel and what a perfect job to get to see the state. We are both very social people and have met many new people because of the job that have become friends. We are truly blessed,” Larson says.
