From Tragedy to Triumph: Dave Andres and the 9/11 Sanitation Effort

Pete: 00:00:07

Hi and welcome to get flushed.

Pete: 00:00:08

I'm Pete.

Pete: 00:00:09

I'm very sorry to tell you all that my good friend, sanitation expert, podcast collaborator Bon Viveur, and fellow raconteur Dave Andres passed away suddenly from natural causes at his home in Houston on the 7 January. That news came as a complete shock.

Pete: 00:00:24

Because Dave was possibly the most energetic person I know.

Pete: 00:00:27

The number of tributes paid to Dave online since his passing are testament to his work and personal style. He was the first to admit that some people didn't get him or didn't know how to handle him.

He could blow in like a hurricane and it could be hard to get a word in edgeways when he was in full flow, but he was genuinely the most open and honest person I've ever met. He was always willing to share his knowledge and ideas to help others improve.

p one Saturday evening in May: 2020

e hit it off straight away at: 11:00

I followed at: 01:00

If you've listened to the first 70 episode of get flushed, you'll know that Dave gave a lot to my show and he featured in several episodes.

The one I want to share today is an abridged version of his account of the sanitation response at ground Zero following the terror attacks on the World Trade center on 911.

niversary of those attacks in: 2021

Audio: 00:01:46

American eleven, are you trying to call? The cockpit is not answering their phone. Our number one has been stabbed and our five has been stabbed. Hi Jack, what's going on, Betty?

Aircraft is erratic again.

Pete: 00:02:07

of the World Trade center at: 08:46

It's one of those moments in time where everybody who witnessed it, either firsthand or on tv, can recall exactly where they were when they heard the news. My friend Dave Andres was the business development manager for Mister John, one of the largest wrestling providers in New York.

He arrived on scene the next day, Wednesday the 12 September, and he's agreed to share his story.

Dave: 00:02:40

I was actually on my way from central New Jersey, Princeton area down to a sewer plant in Camden, New Jersey to talk about grease disposal. And as is the case with me, many mornings I'm always on my phone, people are calling, I'm engaged.

And I noticed that my wife had called me three times, finally said, hey, listen, I got to get off this call. My wife's calling me. So I called my wife back and she goes, are you listening to Imus in the morning?

And that was the morning show in central New Jersey, in New York. I'm like, no, what happened? And she goes, a plane hit the World Trade center. I'm like, no way. Of course.

I turn on my news source, imus in the morning, very famous guy in New York, New Jersey. And by the time I get to my appointment, the second plane hit. Obviously, the press didn't know that it was a terrorist attack.

We just knew that both towers have been hit. So I go into reception, I check in, and amazingly enough, we went ahead and had our meeting. I don't criticize that.

I don't look back on that as a bad thing or whatever. We went in and had our 45 minutes meeting.

Pete: 00:03:49

But Dave, people didn't know what had happened, did they?

Dave: 00:03:52

No. I mean, it was a crisis.

We knew that the fire was responding, police were responding, but no one really knew the magnitude of the disaster that had just happened.

Pete: 00:04:02

If I just unwind a little bit from there. Dave, at the time you were working for Mister John in New York.

Dave: 00:04:06

ster John April Fool's day in: 1997

is we moved to New Jersey in: 1990

ing four new concepts at like: 07:30

But I then was at the World Trade center from September 12 daily for the next year and a half. What happened was I finished the meeting. We go to the executive director's office one of the towers was down and I had to excuse myself.

ys, we just got a request for: 1000

Our biggest competitor only had 40, so we ended up immediately getting the contract to deliver them.

Pete: 00:05:20

Where did that request come from, Dave? Was it from the emergency services on the ground?

Dave: 00:05:24

It was OEM, the offices of emergency management, which is under the mayor Giuliani at the time. And of course Mister John was a well established union operation. Had all the permits, had everything was needed. We were very well known.

at could say we could deliver: 1000

Pete: 00:05:42

That in itself is something else because not many restroom operators keep that much stock on hand in case of emergency, do they? It's just not done.

Dave: 00:05:51

I may be a weird bird and you know I'm not right for everybody, but when I got to Mister John, I asked Mitch Weiner and Gary Weiner, how many do you have in the float? And they're like what's the float? I said, the float is what we can fulfill every weekend with special events. It's the spare units you have.

At the time that I asked the question, my sales team was already selling 400, 500, 600 a weekend. And I said Mitch, we need a thousand. He goes, a thousand? What are we going to do with a thousand?

ll Mitch, we're selling four,: 5600

And ironically there's many large events in every portable restroom operators area. And there was the Susan G. Coleman breast cancer walk from Bear Mountain to Manhattan, which is a four day walk Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

And it has three camps where the walkers camp out. And it had always been a 900 toilet event that three or four operators, including Mister John, participated.

And when we finally had: 1000

Those 900 were deployed and then Tuesday the planes hit the towers and of course the breast cancer walk was canceled. And that's what enabled us to be able to say yes, we could move 128 at any given time with our trucks and equipment.

We got a call that said the sheriff is going to meet you at your yard Wednesday, September 12 and they're going to escort you to ground zero. I was in the lead truck, David dam was the driver. I didn't have my CDL. I was the passenger.

I was in the lead truck of 128, meaning truck after truck after truck after truck.

And we got escorted from Keesby, New Jersey, out through Staten island, up the BQE, over the Brooklyn bridge down to lower Manhattan, and we started slinging toilets. Mitch Weiner, Dave Dam, all my sales team, obviously normal standard delivery drivers and everything else.

And we deployed 750 toilets in two days and put them on daily service.

Pete: 00:08:09

Dave, it must have been absolute pandemonium. I mean, everyone's seen the footage of the towers coming down. There must have been debris everywhere.

Dave: 00:08:17

I.

Pete: 00:08:17

How on earth did you find a suitable location to deploy that many toilets? Because the footprint just of that many toilets is insane, isn't it?

Dave: 00:08:25

Ironically, and amazingly, the World Trade centers collapsed in on themselves within a very, very small footprint. So a block or two away, there was open area that you could line up 100 toilets.

t in groups of, I don't know,: 8100

I mean, there was debris and paper and a lot of dust, but nothing else, really, other than the Deutsche bank building, which was right next to the World Trade center was impacted such that it had to be torn down.

So what happened was, is they set up credentials, basically that you could come in and there were phases of the cleanup, that they changed the credentials. So when all the asbestos people came in, there was credentials. And then when all the other people came in, there was different credentials.

And I said, guys, you're holding this up. We need a credential. That is the toilet guy. I had a vehicle pass to get wherever I needed to go.

And to New York City's credit and the police department's credit, they had very, very tight security. One of the things that I enjoyed in my life and career is cigars, right?

So I had boxes of padrone cigars with me because I learned very quickly that when I came to the next checkpoint and I would be smoking a cigar, the police officer was being Caesar and not letting me through, would see the cigar and I'm like, hey, you want a cigar? And so I would hand out cigars like left and right. I actually became known a little bit for that.

If you have a gift that's meaningful to somebody else, you should give it away. You should pay it forward.

Of course, I was asking the guy for his bad number because I needed to put it in my daily report that he was obstructing the toilet services, which are going to create a toilet emergency, which I then have to report on to somebody else. And of course, you put in that context, but then you're handing the guy a cigar.

And then they used to wave at me and ask me to stop and I would hand him another cigar. So Mister John and the owners were very, very supportive. They funded all of that. It wasn't like a thing I was doing personally.

It was a business expense. I had been trying to get Tully Construction, 600 million heavy highway contractor in New York City. Tully Construction, for like three or four years.

They were dedicated to call ahead of, and I couldn't get them to bite on Mister John and Wednesday of the event. So two days in, I'm on the pile. I'm in my gear, mask, hard hat, safety gear.

And Denise Savonarola calls me from the office and says, they just ordered an aqua flush. She didn't even say their name. I'm like, who signed the purchase order? Tommy Oddheaddeh. And his last name was Lefchak.

You couldn't really pronounce it if you saw it. I go into the office and I said, hey, I'm looking for Tommy o. He goes, he's out on the pile. I'm like, okay, thanks. So I go out on the pile.

I don't know where he is, but I see three white hats. And a white hat in New York City means that he's like a supervisor. He's like a higher up than the other hats. So I come up to these three guys.

They're having a conversation. They're talking about there's track hoes and all sorts of stuff moving around. And I said, hey, I'm looking for Tommy O. He goes, I'm Tommy.

Oh, who are you? I said, dave Andres from Mister John, thank you for your order. He goes, listen, we're working three shifts here. That's two days late.

I said, well, let me call the office and see if they can come. Right? And he goes, no, no, no. Just get it here tomorrow morning. I made relationships through that disaster that I still have to this day.

And it was truly an amazing humanitarian response. And I believe that every pro in the country that's listening to this is the same way.

Pete: 00:12:25

My experience of disasters is that everybody rushes to the scene and that everybody does everything they possibly can. But at the end of the day, the restroom operator needs to get paid.

So how on earth did you manage the purchase order number and the agreement and the contract and all of that side of the business, because we all do things out of the goodness of our heart. But the bottom line is we're commercial ventures.

Dave: 00:12:46

Well, what's interesting about this is the chairman stepped up and secured all the information, got them all the insurance, got them all the truck numbers. When a disaster happens, I encourage every pro to be ready.

If you really want to play ball and be prime, like, be right in the middle of it, you need to be prepared and anticipating that. You need to shift your normal day to day operations. And everyone needs to be all hands on deck. There are no excuses.

We get what's needed, and we work with whoever we need to work with to make it happen.

Pete: 00:13:21

That leads nicely into my next set of questions, Dave, which are all about the business as usual. So what happened at Mister John with your normal daily jobs that you were servicing?

And I know Mister John was a big operation, so you had a lot of daily customers who weren't affected directly by 911 and still required service, but you've only got a finite number of trucks and drivers. So how on earth did you manage that huge uplift in daily workload? I mean, it must have been phenomenal. Dave.

Dave: 00:13:48

Everyone at Mister John stepped up. If you do the math, whatever 750 is times seven, that's what we increased our weekly service, like, instantaneously.

Now, part of the other thing that I did at Mister John, which I'm very proud of, is I asked him where the playbook was, and I ended up being responsible for the idea and initiation of writing a playbook on how we did the business. I mean, from answering every phone call, taking every order, cleaning every toilet, because Mister John wanted to grow.

So when I say at the time, Pat west, who runs Chem can services in Dallas Fort Worth right now, he was our satellite salesman. And Mister John had been satellite since the beginning. We bought a thousand tough ways of summer for seven straight summers.

of: 1997

And when I left nine years later, there was 26 total sales team, inside sales, outside sales, sales management. And we were doing 45 million, up from 8 million. If you want to grow, you need to have a deep bench.

You need to have extra equipment, you need to have surplus inventory.

And I know right now the labor market is very tough, but if you're really going to grow a business, you need to think in terms of how to grow your bench and find people inside your culture to stand and deliver. No matter what it is. We had the constant tension of operations, couldn't fulfill the deliveries and the service because we were growing so much.

The routes were getting messed up. We just didn't have the drivers. So I went to Gary Weiner, the president.

Gary, would you fund and support my account executives getting their cdls so they can drive those trucks that are available? He goes, sure.

I ended up having 13 account executives, like outside salespeople that got their CDL so that when operation says we don't have enough men, we said, no problem. Steve will do it, Fred will do it, Joe will do it.

We did all of our standard routes and we added all those additional ones at the World Trade center, and we put two men in the truck. There was like three trucks and those because we had surplus trucks and the helpers were guys who wanted to become drivers.

Pete: 00:16:18

How did Mister John manage the drivers who were going into that site every day? Because it must have been hugely traumatic. You know, I was in Christchurch the day the big earthquake went.

All the buildings fell down and we lost 150 people. That was nothing compared to the scale of the World Trade center.

And just seeing that destruction visually takes a big toll on people, you know, it's hard to comprehend and it's hard to get your head around. However, must those drivers have felt driving into the heart of that every day?

And I'm guessing they would have had interactions, conversations with the workers on the ground who were actually retrieving the poor, unfortunate victims and just trying to salvage whatever was there. I mean, how on earth do you cope with that?

Dave: 00:16:57

So you bring up a very good question, and I am really proud to say that the owners of Mister John and the kind of culture that I helped develop was all about looking out for everyone on the team to make sure they felt comfortable with what they were doing. They had support, training, they had what they needed.

My sales team, when there was a big job going on, would be known for knowing every worker on the job and what kind of Gatorade he liked and what kind of sandwich he liked, and they would show up with lunch and Gatorade. So what we did is that same culture of paying attention, giving them what they needed and then giving them respect.

We had three times a week dinners at the local italian restaurant to go over everything. After the end of the day, we all put in the extra mile.

And I will tell you that when you do a disaster and you get in theater, you can't run two guys seven days a week.

Every week you have to run them a certain number of hours so we ended up needing to have additional teams that went in, in the same trucks and did the same thing because it was seven days a week for like, over a year.

Pete: 00:18:13

Looking back, I don't believe anybody has told the story of the sanitation response at 911. And it's good that we're able to have this conversation because so many future lessons were learned then.

Dave: 00:18:24

And I hope this is helpful. It's not meant to be proud or look what I did. We did it as a team.

Pete: 00:18:30

We're not being sensational. Dave, it's a legitimate story to tell.

I've got friends in police departments over in the US, and they've told me that the restrooms actually provided a private space for those emergency services workers to just have a moment to collect themselves when they're working in incredibly difficult conditions.

Dave: 00:18:48

Pete, it's amazing that you just shared that feedback you got through your channels with the New York City police Department. Because one of the most meaningful things, we delivered these toilets.

And we would watch firemen and police officers and port Authority people go into them and not come out, like, well beyond the time you need to go to the bathroom. And we then discovered that they were so thankful for a place that was clean, dust free, alone, and they could just decompress.

I think that the sanitation response to every disaster that's ever happened, if you say you clean a good toilet, keep cleaning a good toilet, because that's what people need for their dignity. They need a good, clean space either to be alone, do their business.

It's amazing that a guy 20 years later that I've known now for two or three years brought up the punchline to something that I've shared with people. I just didn't know they understood it or not. The PSAI nuts and Bolts conference was that November in New Jersey.

And Mister John was one of the locations people got to come and tour. I was able to schedule 212 person golf carts where people from the PSAI were able to come and go onto the World Trade center ground.

And I remember Todd Hilde telling me it was one of the most impactful experiences of his entire career. And Todd Hildy's was satellite, I'm sure. I mean, people are like, how'd you do that? And it's because we made promises and we kept them.

We responded immediately. I'll never forget, it was a Friday afternoon.

I was down in the pile and I get a call from OEM saying, listen, we have a victim assistance centers that we need to set up to be open Monday morning up at this bank up by city hall. We need you up there because we need restroom trailers. I said, no problem, it'll be right there.

And we drove from lower Manhattan to city hall on gators, literally on gators. And we showed up and it was this old abandoned bank.

d like two bathrooms from the: 1940

So group contracting, a couple other people, and sure enough, they all jumped on their gators, and they showed up at the meeting. And sure enough, Monday morning, the new mayor, Bloomberg at the time, was able to open the victim assistance center.

They set up a food tent, a $14 million food tent, and we put six restroom trailers inside the food tent.

Pete: 00:21:41

Just the sheer logistics, because I imagine there were thousands and thousands of workers involved in that recovery operation. And it went on for a long time.

Dave: 00:21:50

A long time.

Pete: 00:21:51

And then, of course, there's restoring the equilibrium of the site and then the future build, so that the sanitation provision would have gone for a really long time.

Dave: 00:21:58

Yeah.

Pete: 00:21:59

So it's incredible, really, that you were involved from day one. I mean, it's just unprecedented global event.

Dave: 00:22:04

And what's amazing is you have to be ready for any call at any time. You never know what the next call is going to be. So I got a call to go to a parking lot behind the Verizon building.

And in this parking lot, they were storing, like, the ups truck that got struck. And you could see everyone's packages in it.

But that parking lot, which was parking cars, got taken over for the Verizon support with the group contracting, where we ended up delivering three restroom trailers, 14 holding tanks, a bunch of plastics. And this just went on and on and on.

I'll never forget when I was asked to deliver a thousand gallon water tank to the office up on the Staten island landfill. Right? So it was like the first order up on the Staten Island NFL.

So I went with the driver and we filled it with thousand gallons of water, and I went in the trailer that had requested it.

And inside that trailer were the recognizable remains of files I'll never forget on a table as I walk in, there is a woman's foot inside of a high heel.

There were watches, there were wallets, there were legal files, and it was everything that they could recover to try to identify who and what and wherefore.

Pete: 00:23:25

That's very sobering and very tough to live with. Most people aren't used to seeing that. If you've got an emergency services background, then you see things like that.

But most members of the public, and certainly most sanitation drivers would never expect to be involved in anything as horrific as that.

Dave: 00:23:40

It's an unprecedented, uncomparable situation.

But the lessons learned, and hopefully that's what this podcast will encourage every pro listening everywhere in the world, is that you can do the same thing. I'm not unique. I'm not special.

You all have it in you to respond based upon your preparation, based upon your supply chain, based upon your extra services. And I'm not suggesting you disrupt your normal flow. I refer to both and versus either or.

You need to imagine yourself doing both and, and in order to do that, you need a company culture. You need some spare equipment. And then if you don't have spare equipment, you need to reach out to your other competitors.

We let Jess Thompson and Johnny on the spot, put out all of his toilets. We didn't block him because he only had 40. We were big into collaboration. Now. We did own the site until even today for the reconstruction.

a new, energetic employee in: 1997

This happened four years later. And of course I'd been sort of beating the drum that things are going to happen, we're going to grow, we're going to get bigger.

And then when this happened and we all delivered, it really solidified the message that I had been promoting all along. And after that we just kept growing.

What's interesting is when Katrina happened, which is a huge hurricane, massive hurricane, we ended up being able to deploy twelve of our service trucks. And at the time we had six branches. So two from each branch is what it came down to.

It wasn't twelve out of the one branch, but we sent twelve service trucks, three, five thousands and two jetbacks down to New Orleans, Biloxi. We set up a camp, we had a project manager, we set it up and we supported United States services.

Roland Kay and United States Services had the prime contract and we worked down there for two or three months supporting them to get the work done.

And at the same time during that event, rich vector came down from service annotation and Tom Stang came down from CNL sanitation, two dear friends of mine in the industry, many people listening, know rich vector's name, they know Tom Stang's name, but those guys responded as well, and we just all collaborated to support United States services in fulfilling the FEMA contract. You know what it does? You know what it does, Pete, is it shows whether or not your ego dominates your business.

And if it does, you will not be participating in what I just described. If you don't have an ego and you truly care and you're truly willing to collaborate, you'll be part of one of the stories that I'm talking about.

Pete: 00:26:45

Is there anything else that you want to add about the history of 20 years ago when those planes hit the World Trade center?

Dave: 00:26:52

No, I just feel like an old man because it's 20 years ago. But it's as vivid of a remembrance as me.

And I can't thank you enough, Pete, for asking me to tell this story and what I would say to your audience, whoever's listening, if they found this valuable. I care deeply about the industry, and I also care deeply about sharing and helping people go figure out how to do it themselves.

But I would tell you that the portable sanitation industry and people are a sturdy bunch. They actually are people that enjoy going out and responding to crisis situations.

And, of course, we need to be sensitive to everyone and how they're impacted. And that really comes down to the owner of the portable restroom operation to make sure they're being sensitive.

But I think most of them are like, most of them have great teams that are ready to jump through hoops to make stuff happen. I think of Nancy Gump at Andy Gump. I think of Ross Ambrose at AAA. I think a service sanitation up in Chicago. I think of Tammy Orskovich at Arnold.

I think, of course, of Ron Inman at Honey Buckets and his entire team. I think of Paul and Noble Carl at Texas Outhouse. All these people are examples.

They're ready to stand and deliver, and they do on a regular basis, without any fanfare and without any recognition.

And if I look back, I'm really proud of being a part of the Mister John team and having the opportunity to respond to something, but I don't want any credit. It's just what we do. It just is what it is. And if you don't do it, someone else is going to do it. So we did it. Has it impacted my career?

Has it impacted my reputation? Of course. But it just means I'm now more capable of also helping others do something similar that's already inside of them.

They just might not know it. And that's what I love about the Get Flut podcast, is because that's what you're doing to portable sanitation people around the globe.

You're just sharing information. You're sharing confidence. You know, you got new ideas, and I appreciate up having me on the show.

Pete: 00:28:56

s first released in September: 2021

Pete: 00:29:00

In memory of my good friend David

Pete: 00:29:02

Andres, I'd like to send my condolences and warm thoughts to Dave's children, Jackson, Madison and Haley, his wider family, and the many friends and colleagues around the world. God bless you, Dave. Rest in peace.