Title: Iowa’s Crown Property Maintenance has Cleaned Commercial Properties for 8 Years – Without Sweepers
Through the years, we have showcased many dozens of sweeping contractors. The sweeper machines in their businesses have run from the largest street and municipal machines to the smallest of tow-behind and slide-in units.
Our featured contractor this month breaks new ground: Although the owner has been successful in running a parking lot sweeping operation for the last eight years, his company doesn’t have any machine sweepers machines whatsoever. None, nada, zilch.
Title: The Katz Group’s Transition From Property Management to Sweeping Continues Tradition of Professionalism
Rich Katz grew up in the construction and property management business. So, it wasn’t much of a stretch for him to found – along with his brother, Daniel, and cousin, Brett – a firm to manage properties. However, when the crash of 2007 occurred, the trio found themselves scrambling for ways to continue their company’s historical profitability.
“We decided one thing we could do was to provide sweeping on our own properties,” said Rich. “So, we bought a sweeper truck, hired an operator and put him out sweeping on our six properties. That worked out well, so we put up a website and have continued to expand from there.”
Ethics; Perseverance; Honesty: These are all traits that describe Leon Nelson, owner of Superior Property Maintenance, Inc. A native Jamaican, Nelson’s first job when he came to Florida in 1997 was as a sweeper operator.
After working for two different sweeping companies over the course of the next six years, Nelson then went into the sweeping business with a co-worker partner. However, as you will read, it wasn’t an easy road after that, either.
Title: Puerto Rico’s Sweep and Vac Combines Contracting With Equipment Sales
In the 1970s, Carlos Nevares made decisions for the sanitation department of San Juan, Puerto Rico. In that position, he became familiar with a wide variety of equipment, including a number of types of sweepers. His long term goal became to get into the sweeping business, but he wasn’t motivated to do so until he saw a magazine ad for an entirely new type of sweeper.
“All of the sweepers I’d seen you had to tweak them every day to get them to work right,” said Nevares. “Then, in 1988 I saw an ad for a Schwarze air sweeper and was impressed enough that I visited the company in 1989. We talked business and essentially by buying the sweeper I became the dealer for Puerto Rico. I believe that today I’m the Schwarze company’s oldest dealership.”
Title: Canada’s Arrowhead Parking Services Sweeps the High Road, Gives Scofflaws the Boot and Much More
Paul Lemmon, the president of Arrowhead Parking Services, entered the sweeping industry via an unlikely background. Drawing on his background in law enforcement – which included stints with both Canadian Customs and with Immigration – he started as a consultant helping customers make sure their business signage conformed to legal guidelines.
However, after a few years of listening to customers’ needs, he decided to expand his firm into more hands-on areas of actually installing any needed signage. Then, it wasn’t much of a leap to start assisting in another pervasive area of need, construction and parking lot sweeping.
Title: From Startup to Success With a 40-Year-Old Sweeping Company
It’s quite a stretch from being a wholesale mortgage broker in Nevada to running a sweeping contracting business in Oregon, but that’s how Eddie Hamilton got his start in the industry.
Soon after having surgery for skin cancer he got a call asking him to come to Oregon to ‘package up’ a business so it could be sold. Knowing nothing about sweeping – but figuring that business was business – Hamilton saw the opportunity as something he could do and a way to get out of the mortgage business. Two years later, Hamilton decided to buy the company he’d made a success.
