Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 8, 1992 TAG: 9203070183
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GEORGE KEGLEY BUSINESS EDITOR
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Cleanliness is such a requirement that Handy Dump's 15 trucks are equipped with dustpans, brooms and shovels so their drivers can clean up around collection boxes after they empty them.
Driver Karl Geisler said drivers "are not allowed to leave if you spill something on a customer's property."
"Our guys know the customers . . . Mr. Jones likes it this way and Mrs. Smith likes it that way," said Denise "Dee" Dudley, a vice president and one of the two sisters who run the company.
"It doesn't matter if the customer has a monthly account of $5,000 or $20, they get the same level of service." said her sister, Karen Conklin, also a vice president. "It doesn't matter if a customer has 10 or 100 boxes [dumpsters], it's how well we do it."
The daughters have taken over from their mother, Leman Dudley, the founder.
With their high level of customer service, Conklin and Dudley expect not only to compete against the Roanoke Valley's new big player in the trash collection and hauling business, Waste Management Inc. But the two women are making plans to enlarge the business.
Conklin and Dudley expect that by June they will be in larger quarters, the former Dickerson GMC building on 24th Street, Northwest.That's because the business has outgrown its location in Roanoke Industrial Center. Also, they want to move out of the flood plain, where the suffered damage in the 1985 flood.
Although the company hasn't closed the transaction on the new building, it is already taking bids to enlarge the 24,000-square-foot Dickerson building by 25 percent to accommodate an enclosed recycling center. That operation, now in a small building near their offices on River Avenue, probably will handle aluminum, paper, corrugated boxes and glass, Conklin said.
And after extending their territory to Blacksburg and Christiansburg last week, the sisters expect to add two trucks to their fleet of 15 and they plan to hire two employees every six months for the next several years. They want to open a Christiansburg office, as well.
Dudley said she looks for new approaches to the old problems of trash removal while Conklin handles the operations side of the business.
Conklin estimated that the company collects waste from 95 percent of the restaurants and many of the apartments complexes in the Roanoke Valley. "We service the little guy," she said.
Handy Dump does "a fine job" for the Roanoke Airport Marriott, according to Lonnie Linkous, the hotel's director of engineering. Handy Dump "does a lot of recycling," including computer or typewriter paper, he said.
Conklin and Dudley were disappointed last fall when they lost to Norfolk Southern Railway Co. the contract to haul the valley's trash to a new landfill. "We knew we could haul it cheaper but they liked trains," Conklin said of the regional planners.
But it was the recession that nudged them to send their trucks out in search of new sources of garbage. "If factories cut their production lines, they are not generating as much trash," she said.
In their emphasis on service, "We'll run and hop, we don't allow slow walking here," Dudley said.
The company tries to avoid landfill costs for customers by recycling, Conklin said. Much of the waste goes to the landfill but it is the last resort "if we can't sell it or move it," she said.
In a time when garbage companies often have a reputation as environmental bad guys, "we are business environmentalists," Dudley said. Conklin is vice chairman and she's in line to become chairman next year of Virginia Waste Industries Association, an organization of about 80 companies.
And in a business traditionally dominated by men, Handy Dump's owners say they enjoy competing as women.
They recall, however, that growing up they had no desire to join their mother's company.
In fact, after college - Dudley went to Roanoke College and Conklin to the University of Louisville - both tried other jobs but they came back to the family company and they were drawn into the business. They had held summer jobs at Handy Dump during school vacations.
Leman Dudley, after working brutal hours - 4 a.m. to 7 p.m. - for years, has turned the company's operations over to her daughters but she still calls on customers.
"There's nothing as rewarding as having two daughters walk in your footsteps and doing a little better," she said.
The Dudley family "knows their stuff," according to Ellen Aiken, recycling coordinator for the Clean Valley Council. "They make an effort to work with businesses to meet their individual needs," she said.
by CNB