Andy Zabrieszack started small more than 30 years ago. But the owner of A&A Porta Potty’s in Danleyton, Kentucky, believes that a dedication to service and a willingness to jump quickly on business opportunities has catapulted his company to taking on some of the largest industrial contracts in his service area.
His grandfather and his father were in septic service, and he and his twin brother, Allen, worked in the family business, AZ Septic Tank Service, through high school.
“In our senior year, my dad asked us what we were going to do with our future,” Zabrieszack recalls. “I said I wanted to try out port-a-potties. For graduation, my dad bought me 10 port-a-potties and let me borrow one of his septic trucks, and Allen and I launched A&A Porta Potty’s in 1992.”
The truck was a bare-bones 1977 Chevy C10 with manual transmission and steering. “It sounded like a hot rod, but was slower than dirt,” he recalls. “I would load up 10 five-gallon drums of water every day for freshwater. It was torture.”
Competition was fierce and Zabrieszack was looking to differentiate his offerings in the market.
“Cleaning these units every two weeks was standard in the area, and I decided to clean my units weekly so we could beat them on service,” he says. “It made a big difference.”
In the company’s second year, Zabrieszack bought his own dedicated vacuum truck just as the brothers decided to strike out on their own. Allen chose the septic field and began to slowly take the reins at AZ Septic.
LOAD OF CHEAP UNITS
Fortune smiled on A&A when a PRO in Indiana placed an ad in Pumper magazine offering to sell some of his old portable restroom inventory at $10 per unit.
“My dad and I took a weekend trip up there and I bought 200 potties, some of them for $1 apiece,” he recalls. “[He] just told us to get them out of there, and he even loaned me a trailer. I made more than a dozen round trips. That was our breakout year because I could now start bidding on festivals and other big jobs I couldn’t handle before.”
A&A hired its first employee in 1995 and three more the following year. Clients included a produce stand and numerous construction contracts. The company’s big break with industrial clients occurred just as the contractor concluded its first major contract with a music festival held in Mount Sterling, Kentucky.
“We were loading up 100 restrooms after the festival and got a phone call from American Electric Power,” Zabrieszack says. “They had a maintenance shutdown going on, and they asked if I could get them 43 potties and 23 hand-wash stations. I said we could have the restrooms there in an hour and a half. I called up PolyJohn and ordered 23 hand-wash stations, which arrived the following morning.”
Following the two-month contract, Zabrieszack received a call from Marathon’s Catlettsburg Refinery which was also scheduling maintenance. The company took 100 portable restrooms and all 23 hand-wash stations.
“From there on, we developed a reputation for handling big outages,” he says.
MANY OFFERINGS
Today, the company employs nine people. Its service offerings have expanded to septic system installation and pumping holding tanks at sewage plants. A&A also rents holding tanks, office containers, storage containers, freight containers, portable guardhouses, tables and chairs.
The portable restroom inventory includes 450 from PolyJohn, 250 from T.S.F. Company, 100 from Armal, 48 from J&J Portable Sanitation Products, and an assortment of older units from defunct manufacturers. ADA units include 25 from Satellite Industries and 20 from PolyJohn.
A&A also manufactures its own multistation restrooms from shipping containers.
“We rent shipping containers and decided to convert some of them into what we call restroom boxes,” Zabrieszack says. “They’re steel boxes with steel doors and they were designed for the rough treatment they get at industrial outage jobs. It’s cheaper to build them than to buy them and they’re a lot tougher. You can beat the brakes off them, touch up the paint and they’ll keep rolling on.”
A&A offers four 40-foot units, one 24-foot unit, six 20-foot units, and three 14-foot units, all with exterior holding tanks. The smallest offers one toilet each for men and women, with the largest containing three for women, three for men and two urinals.
The company also converts shipping containers into construction site offices and guardhouses for rental. Zabrieszack’s own office was built from a converted shipping container.
A&A offers 150 hand-wash stations from PolyJohn, Satellite and T.S.F. and holding tanks from both PolyJohn and Kentucky Tank.
HARDWORKING FLEET
Restrooms are hauled into place by four transport trucks: 2000 and 2017 Ford F-350 flatbeds; a 2014 Kenworth Rollback with hydraulic winch; and a 2000 Volvo semi tractor. Several trailers used to carry portable restrooms include two 10-unit trailers from Liquid Waste Industries and a 20-unit trailer from McKee Technologies. A TRAIL-EZE trailer carries the heavy box restrooms.
The service fleet includes a 2000 Mack with a 1,500-gallon steel tank and Wallenstein pump, a 2001 Sterling with a 3,600-gallon steel tank and Masport pump built out by McKee Technologies, and a 2019 Peterbilt with a 2,500-gallon steel tank and Moro USA pump built out by Hull’s Truck Bodies.
An additional nine Ford F-Series trucks ranging from 2001 to 2014 are outfitted with stainless steel tanks and Westmoor Condé pumps. All of the trucks feature 300 gallons of fresh water with waste capacities ranging from 500 to 700 gallons.
A 2014 International carries an aluminum tank split three ways — 650 waste/300 fresh/100 chemical — and Masport pump, also built out by Hull’s Truck Bodies.
“That extra chemical tank comes in handy when you fill it with concentrated cleaner,” Zabrieszack says. “You can mix it on the spot to clean those portables.”
J&J Portable Sanitation Products supplies deodorizing chemicals.
TURNAROUND SPECIALTY
About 85% of the company’s work involves industrial maintenance contracts for steel mills, refineries, chemical plants and power plants, which typically run from 60 to 90 days. The remaining contracts service construction, events and local parks. A&A has become something of a go-to company in the area for industrial maintenance work.
“Many companies in the area don’t work after normal business hours, and it’s not an area you enter easily,” Zabrieszack says. “I don’t know how you get a reputation for doing maintenance work other than doing it.”
Some of the largest contracts support as many as 2,500 workers, requiring as many as 300 restrooms and trailers and 40 hand-wash stations. The company also sets up a laydown area at each site with up to a dozen spare poly restrooms to replace units that are damaged. Vacuum trucks are parked on site 24/7 and units are serviced as many as four times a day.
“There’s so much pumping between the holding tanks, digesters, port-a-potties and hand-wash stations, it’s just pump, pump, pump,” Zabrieszack says. “We often replace 1,000 rolls of bathroom tissue and 40,000 paper towels a day.”
At any given time, A&A has 100 portable restrooms loaded and ready to go in case an industrial client requires them in a hurry. The contractor dips into these reserves for local festivals and one-off events, which typically require about 15 to 20 units for a weekend.
LOOKING AHEAD
Zabrieszack still helps his brother at AZ Septic from time to time — they occupy opposite corners of the same lot. Their father, Allen, has stepped back from an active role, but still makes appearances as an adviser.
Zabrieszack continues to search for new opportunities for incremental growth. Fence rental is next on the list and he’s also looking at potential opportunities in tent rentals. In addition, three team members have recently started classes to become licensed sewer plant operators, a requirement to perform sewer plant maintenance work under Kentucky regulations.
He’s considered expanding the service area, but realizes this would involve establishing a satellite office, probably across state lines.
“If we need to expand to remain profitable, we have plans in place on how it would happen,” he says. “We could do it in a heartbeat. But we’re doing very well here right now, with a capable team serving the clients we’ve served forever, picking up new business and finding new opportunities in the area.”
