Just Say Yes

Guzzler trucks open up new markets for Alabama industrial and municipal cleaning company.
Just Say Yes
One of ATC/Hilyer Services’ Guzzler vacuum trucks offloads at a steel foundry in Marion, Alabama, where it was vacuuming liquid and dry material out of tunnels and pits and under conveyor belts.

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aying “no” to potential customers was so distasteful to Arland Hilyer that he finally decided about five years ago to take a calculated gamble and make a $200,000 investment in his company: the purchase of a powerful Guzzler CL industrial vacuum truck, made by Guzzler Manufacturing Inc.

As a result, Hilyer’s business – ATC/Hilyer Services, based in Montgomery, Ala. – has increased its gross revenues by nearly a third. Moreover, the company, which also offers plumbing, drain cleaning, waterblasting, hydroexcavating and pipeline video inspection services, now owns three Guzzler CLs and is considering the purchase of a fourth.

“At the time, I had to turn down business,” says Hilyer, recalling the days when potential customers would call and ask if his company did industrial vacuuming work. “And I hate to lose work.

“These trucks opened up a whole new market for us,” he continues, noting that the trucks primarily service factories such as lyme plants and paper mills, where they’re used to clean tanks, pulp dryers and other general-purpose industrial vacuuming jobs. “They’ve increased our revenue volume by about 30 percent … they’ve provided a decent return on investment.”

The trucks feature 18-cubic-yard debris tanks; tri-lobe blowers with maximum vacuum range of 16 to 27 inches Hg and airflow range of 5,089 to 5,250 cfm; and telescoping booms. But Hilyer’s favorite features are the trucks’ dependability and durability – critical elements in an industry where downtime can cost some customers thousands of dollars an hour.

“Keeping equipment running is very important to our business,” he explains, noting the trucks often handle industrial spills and other emergencies. “If your equipment is down, you stand a chance of losing work. The industrial business is like that … if you can’t get the job done, they’ll find someone else who can. They shut down parts of plants for us to do work. So we have to get in and get out as quickly as possible.”

Hilyer didn’t look around for vacuum trucks when he felt it was time to buy. As a longtime veteran in the industrial cleaning industry, including stints with other companies before forming his own, he was very familiar with Guzzler products.

“I’ve had a relationship with Guzzler for a long time,” he says. “In 25 years, I’ve had very, very few problems with them. Plus, they have a shop about 100 miles from me, so if something does go wrong, it’s easy to get it serviced.

“If you take good care of them – service them like you’re supposed to – there’s no reason why you can’t get 20 years out of these trucks.”

So far, Hilyer says he has yet to see anything the Guzzlers can’t handle. In one particularly difficult job, one of the trucks ran for three or four days straight, he says. In that incident, which occurred about three years ago, about 400 or 500 gallons of grease spilled into a storm drain at an Alabama food-processing plant. From there, it ran out into a detention pond in a wooded area. To make matters worse, the detention pond overflowed its banks because of heavy rains, spreading out the grease a couple hundred feet farther.

“It was a real mess,” Hilyer says. “And because of the woods, the closest we could get to the pond was about 800 feet away; plus the pond was downhill, beyond a steep incline. Usually, you lose some vacuum power with that kind of distance and going uphill. But I was amazed at how that Guzzler vacuumed at that distance … you could hardly tell if it lost any power at all.

“That truck ran pretty much continually for three or four days, and it didn’t hurt it one bit.”

Hilyer says the trucks have made a huge difference in his company’s business outlook by opening up new markets and diversifying its client base. Had he been able to afford it, he says he would’ve bought his first Guzzler even earlier than he did.

“Our customers have been very impressed with these vacuum trucks,” Hilyer notes. “They illustrate the importance of keeping up with new technology. You never want someone else getting a leg up on you, that’s for sure.

“Once you get inside these plants and show customers what you can do, your [revenue] volume increases significantly,” he adds. “Without them, we’d still be making a living, but we definitely wouldn’t be as big as we are now.”



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