Don Vermeulen has given away a lot in his 50-plus years in the onsite industry. He has given his thoughts and his knowledge. He has shared what he has learned that works, and what doesn’t. His beneficiaries include homeowners, regulators, engineers and competitors.

Based in Macedon, N.Y., about 15 miles east-southeast of Rochester, Vermeulen’s business, The Meyers Company, has served customers in a 50-mile radius. The business mix includes 45 percent replacement system installations, 10 percent component repairs, 35 percent operation and maintenance services and pumping, and 5 percent inspections for home sales.

Vermeulen’s next step is to retire:He is selling the business to Dan Morgenstern and Justin DaMore, who will operate it as Meyers Environmental. As his career winds down, Vermeulen reflected on the industry and the rewards he has enjoyed through giving.

“The more knowledge we can share within the industry, the better we all will be, and all customer relationships will improve as a result,” he says. “My career supports this.” First an entrepreneur, Vermeulen willingly sells system components to other installers who need them for their jobs. “Sure, installers buy items from me,” he says. “I never know when I may need a hand. We need to support each other, even as we compete for business.”

A winding path

After military service, Vermeulen spent three years in excavation and then utility work, performing mostly machine shop tasks at which he was proficient, but not happy. “It was not until I took a job with The Meyers Company that I found my comfort zone working outdoors,” he recalls. He hired on part-time and eventually became the company’s first full-time employee.

He saw that the job had potential and offered an opportunity for personal growth. From his first day on the job, personal growth and sharing of knowledge have been his cornerstones.

“When I started, the onsite industry was a whole lot less professional,” he says. “We had no formal onsite education. We learned by doing, and if what we did was wrong, we learned not to do it that way.” Vermeulen knows that learning preserves the practices learned, good or bad. If bad practices are not recognized for what they are, they will never be discarded and replaced. Continual evaluation and process analysis led him to find better ways to do things.

By contrast, he sees today’s onsite workers as career-focused. They are better educated before they get to the industry, and many continue their education within the field. But the thirst for education is not universal. “It is tough to get some installers to attend any training,” he says. “They have lots, too many, reasons for not attending.” Meanwhile, homeowners, especially those shopping for replacement onsite systems, are better buyers. They want to know how systems work, what the system can and can’t do, and how they must interact with the system. There are countless opportunities for homeowner self-education, and most who look to Vermeulen for repairs have invested in learning as much as they can before they call him.

“An educated homeowner can get past the ‘He’s trying to sell me more than I need’ stage through an understanding of advanced treatment units, soils and more,” Vermeulen says.

He also sees a fundamental shift in attitude toward decentralized treatment. “In the 1950s and 1960s, onsite systems were usually seen as an interim measure that allowed development now with the expectation that the big pipe would come along in a few years and carry the sewage away,” he says. “Today, it’s recognized that onsite systems can work if you pay attention to site selection, designing the system to the site, appropriate operations and maintenance, and homeowner education.”

A comfortable niche

Vermeulen has been focused on the replacement niche of the onsite industry, which in his experience is not significantly price-driven. “Owners of failed systems want long-term solutions,” he says. “They want to hire craftsmen who respect their property and who, among other things, diminish site disturbance. They understand what they need and want and are willing to pay for it.”

These folks appreciate the effects of undersized, overloaded or mistreated systems. They may have had bad behaviors in the past, but are willing to change. They have unlearned and relearned the responsibilities of onsite system ownership and stewardship. Vermeulen contrasts his customers to builders who want the cheapest price and want the installer to take all the responsibility. If the system fails, the homebuilder-customer wants the installer to solve all the problems. He likes to stay clear of that “cutthroat marketplace.”

On one project, Vermeulen was handed the plans and a permit that specified what he was to install and where. Shortly after the system was put into use, problems surfaced. When the problem was identified and a solution defined, the builder wanted Vermeulen, at his expense, to install a replacement system using alternative technology. He refused. After another installer constructed the replacement system, a perc test at the site of the original system failed. “I had installed exactly what the builder and the permit called for,” Vermeulen says. “There was no way I would be responsible for other people’s failures.” He and that builder no longer have a business relationship.

Always pragmatic, Vermeulen notes, “You can’t blame the world for your problems. If you do enough of anything in life, you will encounter problems. How you deal with them is what sets you apart. It will, in part, become your reputation.”

Doing it differently

From the beginning, The Meyers Company established a data file on every system its crews worked on. Properties were identified not by owner but by street address. For properties off the beaten path, detailed notes made it easy to return not just to the property but to the exact location of the system and each component. The system also includes dates of installation, dates of all service calls, notes of the technicians on each call, and the names, models and serial numbers of system components. “Every time we dispatch a technician, he carries basic system information and a summary of our past activities,” Vermeulen says. “That information has saved us countless hours that would have been lost searching for components.” Owners, past and present, are also listed in the database. The data file gives the company a competitive edge. When Vermeulen sold the business, the new owners appreciated that asset.

The company operated with one full-time person in the office. “The office staff is of critical importance,” says Vermeulen. The face, voice and vice-president of the company, Linda Seavert combined great customer skills with a thorough understanding of the business. She also scheduled and dispatched two vacuum trucks. Many people were shocked to learn that The Meyers Company ran, and ran well, with a single office person.

Three employees made up the installation and repair crews. Vermeulen viewed cross-training as essential. It enables flexibility and rapid response and, perhaps more important, it ensures that nearly every job can be handled on short notice.

None of this came by accident. Vermeulen invested heavily in employee education. With employees on board for 20 to 30 years, consistency became a marketable attribute that crews brought to every job site. With a foreman on the installation crew and Seavert in the office, Vermeulen was free to make sales calls, meet customers in the field, coordinate crews, interact with regulators, and train others.

The next iteration

He also spent time with onsite inspections for property sales, which require a different kind of attention to detail. “It is critical to know who you are working for,” Vermeulen says. “We are looking at a system owned by one person but we are working for someone other than the owner. Our report will affect both our inspection customer and the system owner.

“We must be fair and impartial to all parties, avoiding betrayal of current customers while nurturing future customer relationships.” The inspection business has benefited from the company’s data file. Meanwhile, the industry has benefited from Vermeulen’s time and expertise. He helped form the New York Onsite Training Network (OTN). Housed at Delhi University, the network delivers onsite system training across the state.

“Through the OTN, I’ve trained a lot of my competitors,” Vermeulen says. “The more professional we make our competitors, the better off we’ll all be.” That’s because better installers enable customers to make better system choices. New owners Morgenstern and DaMore will benefit from the work Vermeulen has done on the business and for the industry. They have a diverse yet focused goal: Growth.

“We are rebranding the company and will be adding tangential services,” says Morgenstern. “Maintenance and management of larger systems and service to commercial customers are parts of the expansion plan, as is a biodiesel facility.” Biodiesel will let the company operate in an earth-friendly way while gaining a measure of energy self-sufficiency.

All of Vermeulen’s employees are staying on board. “Don’s staff is the best trained, most professional group of employees in this industry and marketplace,” says Morgenstern.

The new owners come from outside the onsite industry. “We are looking at new ways of running a business in an old industry that will let us respond to changes in regulations and customer demand through environmentally responsible methods,” Morgenstern says. The partners see a bright future for the industry and for the company Vermeulen nurtured.

Looking ahead

Vermeulen looks forward to watching as the industry continues to change and grow, although he claims to be “on a slippery slope to non-involvement.”

He sees more use of challenging sites as more alternative technologies emerge and are validated by regulators. “The big pipe will be a solution only in densely populated areas where onsite solutions are unavailable, either because of space or soil limitations,” Vermeulen says.

“Small mom and pop operations will close, as they can’t keep up with the demands for new technology training, mandated continuing education, and higher skill requirements. Onsite businesses will pay more attention to business practices, perhaps by hiring people with business, not environmental, degrees to tend to the business side.

“The critical aspects of post-construction stormwater impacts on onsite systems will be recognized and mitigated. Regulators will be better educated in the skill of installation, in addition to the traditional tasks of regulating.” In all, the onsite industry and the community he has served will miss Vermeulen’s contributions. His success is rooted in his giving to and developing an industry that was, at times quite literally, under his fingernails.