Alex Sollazzo headed out on his own to open Midwest Septic & Excavating LLC in Neola, Iowa, five years ago when he was 21 — but his father and two brothers are closely involved in the business. His secret for working with family members is maintaining a strictly professional relationship when everyone is on the clock.
Working for his father’s company, Norm’s Pumping & Septic Service in Council Bluffs, Iowa, he worked on a single septic install project with a local installer. That experience convinced him to launch Midwest Septic in Neola, about a half-hour’s drive away. However, father and son continue to work closely together, supporting each other’s businesses.
“My dad encouraged me to go out on my own,” Sollazzo says. “We now work the same counties doing different jobs.”
Under Iowa’s time-of-transfer inspection law, every home or building served by a private septic system or private sewage disposal system must have it inspected prior to the sale or deed transfer of the property.
“If my dad does the time of transfer inspection and it fails inspection, he'll refer me to the homeowner,” Sollazzo says. “That way they're being served by the same family in a way.”
When Sollazzo needs to decommission a septic tank prior to replacing it, he counts on his father to pump it out.
“I pay my dad for pumping, just like any other customer would,” he says. “At the same time, I get calls from people who think I pump septics, and I always refer them to him. We'll also have days where something breaks, and regardless of whether it's my stuff or his stuff, we take the time out of the day to help each other. I'm very grateful that we’re both in this together.”
Sollazzo also enlisted his two brothers, Niles and Sawyer, straight out of high school to join the team.
“When I first hired them they were young and they still considered me only as their brother,” he says. “They were just kids, but I was able to train them to handle any work. They now handle all the excavation, and I consider them my foremen. They also love to turn wrenches, so they’ll do brakes, tires, oil changes and small equipment repairs.”
Sollazzo says the biggest lesson for him was to make sure that he treated his brothers as employees on the job — not as family. It became even more important to avoid the appearance of favoritism when non-family members were hired to the team.
“You have to be impartial,” he says. “My father and my brothers are fellow contractors, employer, and employees until 5:30 or 6 p.m. After that, we’re family again.”
Read more about Midwest Septic & Excavating in this month’s issue of Onsite Installer magazine.
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