THE TEAM
Twice a year, a five-person crew from Mr. Clean Port-A-Potties heads out to the Clark County Fairgrounds in Springfield, a city located about 20 miles northeast of Dayton in west-central Ohio, for the Springfield Antique Show and Flea Market Extravaganza. The crew includes Eric and Sherry Storts, the company owners; their son, Zach, a technician; and technicians Cameron Doggett and Steve Judy. The company has serviced the event, held on the third full weekend of May and September, for the last eight years. “It’s one of the largest special events we handle,” says Sherry Storts.
COMPANY HISTORY
Sherry was working in the kitchen of a Springfield high school and Eric was a diesel mechanic in Columbus when they heard Mr. Clean was up for sale. At the time, the couple’s two sons were members of their high school wrestling team, and their coach was a good friend of an opposing coach who owned the company. The couple bought the business in 2008, figuring it would be a weekend endeavor that would supplement their existing jobs. “But it grew. And grew. And grew,” Sherry says. Eric finally quit his job in 2011 to run the business full time.
EQUIPMENT MATTERS
When the Storts bought the company, the purchase included one vacuum truck and 34 restrooms. Today the company owns 10 service trucks; about 950 restrooms, mostly from PolyJohn and J&J Portable Sanitation Products; 16 restroom trailers from Rich Specialty Trailers, JAG Mobile Solutions, A Restroom Trailer Co. (ART), Comforts of Home Services Inc. and Lang Specialty Trailers; about 60 hand-wash stations from Satellite Industries and PolyJohn; roughly two dozen 300-gallon holding tanks, primarily from PolyJohn; approximately 50 hand-sanitizing stands from PolyJohn; three flatbed trailers that can hold 10 restrooms each, one made by McKee Technologies and the other two fabricated in-house; and a 10-sink trailer from McKee Technologies.
The trucks were built out by Robinson Vacuum Tanks, Advance Pump & Equipment, Best Enterprises and Imperial Industries. Most of the truck feature stainless-steel tanks; the rest carry aluminum tanks. They rely on vacuum pumps from Masport, plus a few from Conde (a brand owned by Westmoor Ltd.), Fruitland Mfg. and National Vacuum Equipment. Most of the trucks feature tanks 650-gallon waste/300-gallon freshwater capacities. The smallest tank is a slide-in unit with a 400-gallon waste/200-gallon freshwater tank and the biggest one carries 800 gallons of waste/400 gallons of freshwater.
THE MAIN EVENT
The two, four-day-long SASFME shows are considered premier events of their kind in North America and among the largest such shows in the world. From Thursday through Sunday, the shows typically host about 30,000 antique lovers who comb through a vast trove of antiques sold by more than 2,000 vendors on the 120-acre fairgrounds, a former airport. The event attracts visitors from throughout the United States, Europe and Asia. “It gets pretty crowded,” Storts says. “You can hardly drive through the grounds. We have to drive super slow because there are a ton of people in there.”
BY THE NUMBERS
Mr. Clean supplies the event with 48 restrooms and eight hand-wash stations. Four of the company trucks with larger tank capacities are used to service the restrooms, as well as vacuum up water at vendors’ booths after heavy rains and pump out waste tanks on recreational vehicles parked at a campground located on the fairgrounds. While 48 restrooms may not seem like enough for such a huge event, Storts says they supplement the fairground’s permanent restrooms. Waste is taken to a treatment facility conveniently located several miles away.
ON WITH THE SHOW
Restrooms are delivered on the Monday before the event. They’re positioned strategically throughout the grounds, with some clustered near the facility’s four main gates and more located at various food courts. “The old airport’s two runways form an X and we place restrooms at the end of each of the four legs of the X,” she explains. The restrooms get serviced twice a day, around 7 a.m. and 4 p.m. The company uses chemicals from J & J Portable Sanitation Products. Servicing the restrooms takes about four hours.
The Mr. Clean crew usually goes home for a break between service runs. But if it rains, they stay on site all day to remove any water that might collect at vendors’ booths. “Our biggest challenge is just trying to drive around and get from one point to another with all those people there,” Storts says.
On Sunday, the crew starts pumping out and cleaning restrooms around 4 or 5 p.m., then typically takes about half of them back to the company’s shop by 8 or 9 p.m. The shop is only about 1.5 miles from the fairgrounds, which makes logistic a lot simpler. The rest of the units get transported back to the company’s shop on Monday morning. But sometimes the company handles fairground events on consecutive weekends; in those instances, the company leaves restrooms on the grounds.
“For example, we just had a car show after the antique show, so we left 23 restrooms there for the following weekend,” Storts says. “Sometimes we have restrooms there for several weeks at a time.”
JOB WELL DONE
The company devotes about half of its staff to handling the shows. As such, servicing the events is a big commitment. But after doing it for so long, employees know the drill. “It’s a lot of work, but it’s a good time,” Storts says. “We have a lot of fun. We know it’s a big event, so everyone gears up for it. When all is said and done and things have gone well, it’s a very satisfying feeling.”
