Express Disposal key part of Concrete Enterprises expansion

ALBANY — In 2015, while working for a real estate auction company selling land and commercial property, Jason Wiggins came across a ready-mix concrete business for sale and saw an opportunity to do something different. He contacted his childhood buddy, Luke Bryan, and the pair bought the Albany company. While Bryan operated as a silent partner — busy with his career as the 2021 Country Music Association Entertainer of the Year — Wiggins took on the role of chief executive officer running day-to-day operations.

Although Concrete Enterprises had been successful, Wiggins saw the potential to make improvements, grow the company and expand services. Within a couple of years, Wiggins added portable restrooms and then roll-off containers in order to provide more services for their construction customers.

“He started seeing these other things,” General Manager Clint Eudy said. “His thought was that concrete is one of the first things on the job and so are portable restrooms, so why wouldn’t we be in that as well?”

Wiggins started with 28 Armal restrooms and a pickup truck carrying a KeeVac Industries slide-in tank. The new service lines quickly grew, and he soon separated the division from the concrete company and formed a new company, Express Disposal.

In the fall of 2020, during the depths of the coronavirus pandemic, the company quadrupled in size when it entered into the trash collection business.

“This has all been done within the last four years — from zero portable restrooms to 685, zero roll-offs to 550, zero garbage cans to 25,000,” Eudy said. “The biggest thing in how we’ve been able to make all this go and grow is we do put the employees first.”

Express Disposal operates out of a 5,000-square-foot warehouse/office building on five acres in Leesburg. The team includes 11 office staff, three salespeople, 19 technicians handling portable restrooms and roll-offs, and 45 working trash collection. The company’s service territory encompasses all of southwest Georgia.

The company does not focus on events but is active in the community. It provides units for local parades and charity fundraisers, Albany State University’s homecoming activities and events at the Albany fairgrounds such as the Southwest Georgia Car Show. Express Disposal also keeps units at area high schools for softball and football games and other activities.

About 35% of the company’s portable sanitation work is for agriculture and 25% solar fields. Both industries have a need for trailered units that can be moved around by the customer as work progresses. A local fabrication shop made their 35 trailers that carry two restrooms and a hand-wash station.

Solar fields are handled a little differently. For security purposes, technicians are met at the main entrance to the field and escorted through the property. These construction projects typically last from four months to a year-and-a-half and require from 10 to 75 units, depending on the size of the field. Permanent units are placed around office trailers, while the construction work requires trailered units. Equipment is serviced two or three times per week.

Express Disposal has a contract with the city of Albany to provide trash pickup for residents and also offers subscription services to individuals. They have eight Peterbilt garbage trucks and 12 Freightliner grapple trucks with Pac-Mac bodies for hauling yard debris and junk waste. Residential customers are given 96-gallon waste carts.

Because of its good reputation, high visibility and excellent pay and benefits, Eudy says Express Disposal generally doesn’t have trouble attracting prospective employees. In fact, a lot of people contact them. New hires ride along with a driver for a few weeks learning routes, procedures and policies.

Each division holds weekly safety meetings, and the whole company has a monthly meeting held early in the morning before everybody heads out.

“We always bring in something,” Eudy says, “whether it’s biscuits or doughnuts. Sometimes we’ll cook sausage dogs on the grill.”

The company has no immediate plans for further drastic changes while they catch their breath, but officials say they hope to continue expanding geographically and are always looking for opportunities.

Eudy admits it’s been a hectic past few years and challenging to keep up with the growth, but everyone has stepped up to the plate and successfully navigated the transitions.

“It’s been a struggle for everyone to take on this kind of growth,” he said. “But we’re still a relatively small business and still have that mom-and-pop feel. And we know in our hearts and minds that we can’t do this without our people.”

Special Photo: Matt Odom