I’ve heard a lot of stories about how two people with a passion for small business got together to start a wastewater-related company, but this one really takes the cake.

It was out of an unstoppable will to survive and succeed that friends Jason Guarino and Tyrone Gale Jr. forged a partnership to open Sussex Septic Services six months ago in Georgetown, Delaware. The road to the onsite business was a bumpy one as both men survived near-death experiences and supported each other as they rebuilt their lives.

The men had become fast friends when they worked for the same employer; Guarino as a mechanic on diesel engines and hydraulics and Gale as a limo driver. They went their separate ways — Guarino eventually working in the onsite and septic service business and Gale opening his own limo service, Atlantic Transportation. Then tragedy struck.

Guarino, 44, five years ago suffered an often-fatal brain aneurism while doing mechanic work in his garage. After a 10-hour craniotomy surgery and a year of recovery, he was let go from his job, recalling how his employer labeled him a “liability.”

A short time later, on June 7, 2014, Gale was the driver in a highly publicized crash on the New Jersey Turnpike as he chauffeured 30 Rock and Saturday Night Live comedian Tracy Morgan and his entourage home from a show at a casino in Dover, Delaware. Morgan and Gale, 44 at the time, suffered serious injuries, and comedian James “Jimmy Mack” McNair was killed. A Walmart tractor-trailer driver was charged with vehicular homicide and had apparently fallen asleep at the wheel before rear-ending Gale’s limousine.

GETTING DOWN AND DIRTY

The life-altering experiences gave each man a sense of urgency to work hard to accomplish goals. Guarino wanted to pursue a dream of building his own onsite installing company, and Gale wanted to help him make that happen. Using part of a lawsuit settlement with Walmart, Gale helped finance the purchase of excavation equipment for Guarino, and then the two partners started digging their way toward success last June.

In a few months, Sussex Septic Services completed about 20 onsite installations and went into the winter with the start of a backlog that would keep their two-man enterprise busy into the future. Though he doesn’t have to work anymore, Gale jumped into the trenches and through training from the Delaware Onsite Wastewater Recycling Association is working on appropriate licensing and soaking up all the knowledge Guarino can share with him.

The two hardworking guys say it’s been a perfect match and they see great potential in the onsite industry.

“I know when I first started out, I was kind of in the way more than I was helping. Then there was a day when I was shoveling and sweating and my clothes were drenched, and I was just smiling and laughing,” Gale says of the — perhaps unexpected — joy he derives from his new job. “I don’t have to do any of this, but I frickin’ love it! People are very distressed when their septic system has a problem, but then we can do something to help and you see their gratitude. We’re going to take care of it and do it right.”

“I took him out of a suit and tie and into jeans and a T-shirt and in the hole with me and he loves it. He’s been there 100 percent of the way for me; he’s just backing me and it’s awesome,” Guarino says of his business partner. “We need one another. I have all the licenses and experience and operate the equipment, and he has the business smarts. He’s started out at the bottom, shovel in hand, and is learning just like I did. He doesn’t need to get his hands dirty, but he’s driven by watching a business grown from nothing into something big.”

The mutual admiration these buddies have for each other is inspiring. But it was clearly a tough road to arrive at this happy place.

TRAGEDY STRIKES

Guarino had been aware he was susceptible to aneurisms by heredity; his mother, a sibling and several other relatives had suffered from weakened arteries that can rupture with devastating consequences, often leading to death. He had a CT scan and doctors at first did not detect a problem. But then he collapsed and it felt like “someone came up from behind me and shot me,” he explains. Gale was there when he came out of the operating room.

“I feel like I’m the luckiest man in the world. Why did (God) let me live? It’s a blessing to be able to get out of bed every day and actually do what you love,” he says.

Fate snuck up on Gale as well.

When Tracy Morgan’s name came up on the job board at Atlantic Transportation, Gale (the company owner) grabbed the ticket for himself. He loves comedy and jumped at the chance to drive the carload of comedians around. But it wasn’t the best introduction with Morgan, who was “standoffish” when Gale picked him up at his home, at first telling him, “Hey, I appreciate you picking me up, but I don’t want you to show up again unannounced. I’d hate to call the cops on you.”

But they built a rapport on the long trip and “you would have thought we went to college together, and it was like a reunion. I watched the show and it was one of the best shows I’ve seen in that area in at least five years.”

Gale was going to turn the group over to another driver for the trip home, but he says Morgan insisted he get back behind the wheel of the tricked-out Mercedes Sprinter van. At 1 a.m., traffic slowed to a standstill on the turnpike, and that’s when an explosion rocked the vehicle.

“It was almost like watching the military channel and your tank hits an IED. I thought the road blew up. The next thing you know we were twirling around and my shoulder was scraping on the asphalt while we were spinning,” he recalls. “Everyone is screaming and I’m screaming; and at that moment, every game that I missed with the kids, every moment I took for granted in my life just flashed in my head.”

He was heartsick to learn McNair died in the crash. They became close even though they’d just met that night. To this day, he meets once a year with McNair’s sister and checks on his kids. It may seem unusual, but the limo driver and the others in the crash keep in touch.

“Me and Tracy still talk; the seven of us all together, in Tracy’s words, we’re brothers for life,” says Gale, who admits to feeling guilt over the accident even though he couldn’t have prevented it. And the Walmart settlement that made him financially independent? “I would have handed that check over just to be able to drop Jimmy Mack back off to his family.”

INVESTING WISELY

The money offered financial security, but it didn’t make Gale happy. He was too used to working hard. “I was more depressed because for the first time in my life, I had nothing to do,” he recalls. So he bought some investment properties and a farm that he transformed into Heartwind Sober Living, a residential facility for recovering drug addicts. Drugs and alcohol had impacted Gale, and this was his way to give back.

And the sober house triggered him to go into business with Guarino.

The five-bedroom facility had a failing septic system and an onsite designer had recommended a large mound system as a replacement. Gale asked for his friend’s opinion, and Guarino recommended an alternative  system that took up less space, allowing for future expansion of the facility.

Gale became intrigued with the wastewater industry. He knew Guarino had an amazing work ethic, and he now saw he had the expertise and know-how to succeed in the onsite business.

Guarino recognizes an uptick in construction coming at the same time as an aging of the workforce in the wastewater industry. Those factors make Guarino think they can add another crew this year and potentially expand into pumping and other related work.

“I never in my wildest dreams could have imagined owning my own business. I was always the one who worked sunup to sundown. It’s who I am. I’m a worker, and it’s what I do and what I know in life,” Guarino says.

“Actually I feel alive in this because it’s your business and you’re two friends working together,” he continues. “I tell you: The first two months were nothing but risks and it was as scary as the aneurism. But failure is not an option for me; I can’t fail a friend who’s willing to do this for me.

“This goes to show you can never give up on life,” he concludes. “There are always doors to open, and if you don’t take the leap, you’ll just never know.”

A BRIGHT FUTURE

Gale knows the company will succeed, in large part because of his partner’s work ethic.

“This guy will not — will not — leave a job site until he’s satisfied. We’ve had moments where he doesn’t like how this is coming out and he says, ‘I’m going to take it out and start it over and do better.’”

Two goals come to Gale’s mind when talking about the onsite business: providing jobs for people in the area — hopefully even some of the residents at the sober home — and one day turning the company completely over the Guarino.

“One thing about J (Jason) and I: We turn tragedy into triumph,” Gale says. “With the two of us, every day is a victory. There’s no way to lose, unless we just don’t wake up. Let’s just keep doing the best we can do.”