As a farm labor contractor in California for more than a decade, David Rodriguez never planned on becoming a portable restroom operator.

But dissatisfied with the service provided by local portable sanitation companies he hired to clean restrooms for his agricultural workers, Rodriguez started doing it himself. And thanks to a serendipitous twist of fate, he now owns and operates Rodriguez Portables, based in Oroville in north-central California.

In just three years, the company has grown to include more than 600 restrooms and five vacuum trucks. The business also has expanded into supplying fencing and barricades as well as water tanks for mobile construction offices, recreational vehicles and the like.

“I never intended to start a restroom business,” says the 32-year-old entrepreneur. “But it has worked out so well that I wish I would’ve started doing it much sooner.”

Rodriguez’s story underscores the importance of taking calculated risks to capitalize on business opportunities when they arise, as well as responding to customers’ needs, which helps drive service offerings and builds customer loyalty by providing them with one-stop shopping.

“Everything in our business came about through customer demands,” says Rodriguez. “Initially, it required big up-front investments. But in the long run, they’ve all been worthwhile.”

The company now obtains about 90% of its sales from monthly rentals, with construction-site rentals generating approximately 65% of that revenue and agricultural rentals chipping in the balance, he says.

TIRED OF WAITING

The seeds for the business were planted around 2019, when Rodriguez — who was tired of dealing with portable restroom operators who rarely showed up as promised — decided to clean the restrooms himself. At the time, he owned about 20 restrooms from PolyJohn, mounted on two-unit trailers.

As a farm-labor contractor, Rodriguez recruits and manages laborers farmers hire for seasonal work that includes planting, cultivating, pruning and harvesting a variety of crops at farms and orchards. He’s required to supply portable restrooms and drinking water for the laborers — sometimes as many as 80 to 100 employees per season.

“If the restrooms aren’t cleaned often enough, I’m subject to fines because technically it’s my job site,” he explains. “I never got fined, but I often had to explain [to regulators] that the companies we hired to clean the restrooms were running late.

“It was a big concern for us because the fines can be hefty.”

To alleviate that headache, Rodriguez bought a used vacuum truck for $500: a 1987 Ford F-350 dually equipped with a 500-gallon waste/200-gallon freshwater tank and built out by the previous owner.

After the owner of the truck showed Rodriguez how to clean a restroom, he was on his way to self-servicing his restrooms.

SEIZE THE DAY

Then fate intervened in July 2020. Rodriguez’s employees were pruning vineyards when the property owner, who owned a large construction firm, saw the restrooms. He asked Rodriguez if he was interested in providing 100 restrooms and 50 two-unit trailers for disaster cleanup work in the wake of the so-called Dixie forest fire.

The massive Dixie fire — the largest in state history — burned for 3 1/2 months and torched 963,309 acres of Northern California before it was contained.

Rodriguez explained that he didn’t run a restroom rental company. But the insistent contractor said it would be a great business to get into. Other companies weren’t interested in the project, the contractor told Rodriguez, because it would involve servicing the restrooms twice a week at sites about two hours north of Oroville, in mountainous terrain with heavy snowfall in winter.

“He said I should name a price,” he says. “Then he made me an offer I couldn’t refuse and that’s how I got into the restroom business. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time.”

Because of the pandemic, buying 50 trailers and getting them delivered quickly was almost impossible. So the contractor gave Rodriguez a month to build 20 trailers for starters.

“So our welder and another employee and I started working 12- and 14-hour days, Monday through Saturday, with one guy cutting materials, one guy welding and one guy painting,” he says. “I don’t know how we did it, but we did.

“We were on that job for two years, sending two trucks up there twice a week to service restrooms at about 10 of what they called ‘lay-down yards,’” Rodriguez continues. “And that led to a lot more work because the contractor was recommending us to everyone he knew, so it was hard to say no.”

BUILDING INVENTORY

The roster of equipment grew quickly. Today the company owns five vacuum trucks, all equipped with slide-in aluminum tanks and Masport vacuum pumps: a 2020 and a 2022 Ford F-250, each equipped with a 350-gallon waste/150-gallon freshwater tank from FMI Truck Sales & Service; a 2023 Ford F-350 with a 540-gallon waste/260-gallon freshwater tank from FMI; a 2022 Chevrolet 5500 with a 540-gallon waste/260-gallon freshwater tank from FMI; and a 2019 Chevrolet 6500 with a 1,500-gallon tank built by Custom Tank Fabrication and used for pumping out septic tanks and holding tanks.

“At the time, the pandemic made it hard to get vacuum trucks quickly, but slide-in units were easier to get,” Rodriguez explains.

The company also has invested in about 600 restrooms from Satellite Industries; roughly 150 hand-wash stations from PolyJohn; and two self-fabricated luxury restroom trailers. In addition, it also owns about 150 self-fabricated trailers – around 80 two-unit trailers and 70 one-unit models.

“The mobile trailers are our bread and butter,” Rodriguez says. “Each one is equipped with a GPS unit from Verizon Connect so we know where each trailer is located. That way our drivers don’t have to call supervisors and superintendents to find out where the units are.

“Contractors love that we know exactly where our restrooms are located.”

ADDING SERVICES

As the business diversified, it also bought about 10,000 linear feet of 12-foot-long, 6-foot-tall fence panels from ZND US; 100 aluminum barricades from ZND US; approximately 15 500-gallon water tanks for temporary office trailers and RVs; and about 50 250-gallon holding tanks from Satellite.

“One of our customers asked if we have fencing,” Rodriguez says, explaining how the ancillary rental products came about. “I said, ‘We don’t — but we’ll get some.’”

The company started renting water storage and holding tanks in 2023 for the same reason: clients kept asking.

“I’ve learned to never say no,” he says.

How could Rodriguez afford to invest in that much equipment in such a short amount of time? He used revenue from his labor-contracting business, he says.

“If not for our farming operation, we wouldn’t have been able to grow that fast,” he explains. “We used revenue from that business to buy trucks and restrooms and build the two-unit trailers.

“We invested a lot of money into equipment, but we got it all back.”

EYEING MORE GROWTH

Looking back, Rodriguez still marvels at how a chance meeting with a contractor led him to build a successful business. He also says his wife, Mariana, plays an instrumental role in the company’s prosperity.

“She is a big, big part of the business,” he says. “She runs the office and handles the finances — I couldn’t do it without her. She’s been such a key part of our success.”

How did Rodriguez gain the know-how to run a successful enterprise? While he doesn’t have a business degree (He originally went to school to get an administration of justice degree and wanted to be a police officer), he says his brother is a contractor and so was his father, who’s now retired.

“I may not have a business background, but I’ve been around a business all of my life,” he says. “I also hired a good certified public accountant, which is a big help.”

As for what lies ahead, Rodriguez sees nothing but positives on the horizon.

“Mariana is just as determined and dedicated to grow the business as I am,” he says. “We don’t plan on hitting the brakes any time soon. It’s a great business.

“We have a good thing going and as long as customers keep asking for things, we’ll keep giving them what they want,” Rodriguez continues. “I feel like the sky’s the limit.”