Excellence From Commercial Power Sweeping

At the 2020 National Pavement Exposition Karl and Lori Stauty, owners of Commercial Power Sweeping, were honored as the power sweeping contractors of the year, a well deserved honor. The following tells about their company in 2020, at the time of the Award. However, we also offer a 34-minute audio interview with Karl that was conducted February 19, 2020. In the audio, Karl provides information about what has driven the company’s success, including their professional philosophy of business ethics, taking equal care of customers and employees, and much more. As is seen in the photo Karl and Lori chose to provide for the Award ceremony, they are very proud of the professional team they have collected around them, who are the ‘face’ of the company. The linked audio is highly recommended for anyone currently operating a contracting business of any kind, not just those in power sweeping. You’ll see the link at the end of this article. The following is what was included in the Award presentation, which took place in late January, 2020, at the National Pavement Exposition in Nashville, Tennessee.

---

Serving Virginia and North Carolina, Commercial Power Sweeping has created a unique operation in which a respect for employees has resulted in a work environment that not only retains employees but encourages them to work as partners with ownership. The contractor’s 30 employees operate 13 parking lot sweepers, nine street sweepers and 14 utility trucks. They generate 10% of sales from street sweeping, 30% from construction sweeping and 60% from parking lot sweeping and exterior building maintenance. Owned by Karl and Lori Stauty, Commercial Power Sweeping looks like a traditional sweeping company until you delve deeper into what “exterior building maintenance” really means and until you take a closer look at the way they treat and train their employees, approach safety, and follow environmentally friendly policies. Exterior building maintenance includes everything from pavement patching and crack filling, to lighting repair and graffiti removal. And they perform all work in-house. They retain employees by selecting the best prospects through a structured training program, offer more than basic benefits (including paid vacation and sick time and dental, vision and health insurance), offer cash bonus opportunities for operators, switch operators on routes to make the work a little more interesting, and take a proactive approach to operator and environmental safety. “This is a partnership,” says Karl Stauty. “We’re all here to share the same goal and if we can do it profitably, we can all share the wealth.”

---

If you’d like to know more about Commercial Power Sweeping, including many of the tips and techniques that have spurred the 34-year-old company to its unqualified success in power sweeping and exterior maintenance throughout its market area, you’ll want to click on the graphic to the right to listen to the interview conducted by WSA’s director, Ranger Kidwell-Ross, with Karl Stauty.