Back to their roots

Frank Thompson of Thompson Sanitation has worked for decades, and is now, in a way, back where he started.

 

“My job these days is running around and taking care of things,” he says lightly. Thompson’s business, which has been based in Clarks Grove since his father founded it, now has additional bases of operation in Austin, Mason City and Owatonna. He has gone from being the company’s only employee in the early 1990s to overseeing about 40 workers.

 

Thompson Sanitation was founded in 1982 by Frank’s father, Roger. Frank was 9, his brother 11. Their job back then was to run around and take care of things–but in a much different way.

 

Roger was an arborist, someone whose profession was to trim and maintain trees. Yet, when a friend suggested he could take on the one-day-a-week task of collecting trash for the 240 homes in Ellendale, he decided it would be a suitable side job. It was less than a year later Thompson Sanitation became a two-day-a-week job with the addition of Geneva’s 170 homes.

 

Roger recruited his two sons to help during the summer and on days when there was no school.

 

Frank laughs as he remembers. “Oh, we dreaded it. It would be 5 or 5:30 in the morning, and he would come downstairs and tell us it was time to get up.

 

“We would hang off the back of the pickup and he would drive slowly through the neighborhoods. He’d stop. We’d jump off the back and go grab the garbage bags, then throw them in.”

 

He remembers trying to get to the bags before his brother, so he could take the lighter ones and leave the heavier ones for him. “We were kids. We bickered, we picked on each other. That’s what brothers do,” says Frank.

 

Though he and his brother were not paid for their work even as they advanced through high school, and his father added pickups in the city of Freeborn, Frank says he gradually came to appreciate the value of the service his father’s company provided, and its potential for growth. He also realized many elements of the work suited his personality. “You’re always doing something,” he describes. “You’re never sitting still. You never have to wonder what you should do next.”

 

Frank says he was only a couple years out of high school when he purchased the business from his father on January 1, 1995. “From there, it just kept growing,” he recalls.

 

Soon after purchasing it, he expanded his business to include “roll-off” dumpsters: he explains these containers are rented by people or businesses who are doing a large project–especially remodeling or reconstruction. They pay to use the roll-off and have it emptied regularly throughout the duration of the project, then return it. For more than a decade, his father, Roger, took care of the roll-offs.

 

He did have a part-time bookkeeper and office manager, but aside from her and his father, he was a one-man operation; he would take his truck to each of the contracted communities early in the morning on the appointed day, finish partway through the morning, and then go to a full-time job he held until 1998 or so with an area construction company.

 

That changed in 1999. By then he had expanded the business to additional communities and needed both a second truck and a second driver. In 2001 he built a 120’ x 80’ structure in Clarks Grove so he could park his vehicles indoors. “It wasn’t anything grand or special,” he observes, “but it served the purpose.”

 

Across the (nearly) three decades he has owned the business, he has continued to serve the cities of Ellendale, Geneva and Freeborn. These days he also has operations in Mason City, Austin, and most recently, Owatonna–where he built a new facility late last year.

 

Frank admits to feeling honored at having his company selected to collect recyclables in Owatonna. When he bid on the project, he was competing against another well-established collection company. “My bid was lower,” he observes, “but it wasn’t much lower.”

 

He takes the city’s decision to go with his company as a major vote of confidence, especially given how much easier it might have been to stay with the former contractor.

 

“I believe in customer service,” comments Frank. “We do everything we can to be sure we follow through on our end of the bargain.

 

“If someone isn’t satisfied, we figure out why and we do what we can to fix it.”

 

Regarding all the communities his drivers serve, Frank states, “We’re proud to be in these markets.”

 

Frank says he currently has about 40 employees, including both drivers and office staff.

 

His job these days is back to “running around”; he says he checks on the operations at his various sites almost daily.

 

Asked what people don’t generally understand about the business of collecting and disposing of trash and recyclables, he comments “I wish they knew how expensive it is.”

 

He admits it’s easy to take services like his for granted–items are placed on the curb and hauled away. One of the first things people may not consider is the cost of the “automated side loader” trucks used in the business. Vehicles of that sort cost more than $450,000, and, once ordered, often take a year or more to be delivered. They have an expected usable “life” of about five years, and require persistent maintenance thanks to the many moving parts; still, he mentions, he would rather see wear and tear on the vehicles than on his workers. “Which is worse,” he asks, “replacing a part on a truck or replacing someone’s knees?”

 

Given the specialized nature of the vehicles, he mentions, if one of his trucks goes down it can be quite a scramble to find a replacement, even for short-term use.

 

Another element of the business many people don’t consider is where the collected items end up.

 

In Owatonna, his drivers complete their daily routes, then immediately merge onto Interstate 35 to drive to a large recycling plant in Lakeville. For trash collection routes, Thompson Sanitation must contract with landfills somewhere near each community. That, too, entails expense.

 

Still, with nearly 30 years of experience in the field, he states his goal is to “keep moving forward.” He says he is willing to “have a look at” new markets as he learns they are available.

 

Frank continues to live and keep his main base of operations in his hometown of Clarks Grove. He expresses gratitude to his family–specifically his wife Kristy “who really puts up with a lot,” and to his children Robert, 12, and Anneka, 9, who are “patient when I’m away as much as I am.”