All State Pumping and Consulting Improves Productivity and Efficiency with Teletrac

Rich Kowalis, owner of All State Pumping, wants the Colorado grease pumping industry to clean up its act. And he’s using Teletrac services to show how it’s done. Grease pumping—cleaning out the grease traps of restaurants and other foodservice facilities—is a dirty business. Colorado is behind other states in its regulation of grease pumping operations. As a result, says Kowalis, “brown grease” trap‐waste often ends up in storm sewers and open fields. By contrast, All State Pumping not only pays for proper disposal, it pressure‐washes each trap and takes before‐and‐after photos of each service visit. Now, All State is  further increasing transparency by enabling its customers to monitor the process via Fleet Director.

Improving transparency reflects a national trend in industries where service provider accountability is increasingly viewed as important by customers and regulators.

Kowalis recently deployed Teletrac’s Fleet Director on each of his grease pumping trucks. Customers can log in to Fleet Director through any Web‐enabled computer and verify that an All State pumper visited their property, how long technicians were on the job and then exactly where the crew traveled to a licensed grease disposal facility. Proper disposal is important because brown grease will otherwise clog sewer systems and municipal treatment plants, causing illness and costing taxpayers money. It’s part of a $25 billion nationwide problem, according to the Wall Street Journal. Dumped in open fields, brown grease pollutes the environment.

However, proper disposal is expensive because the brown grease found in foodservice grease traps is difficult to treat. By contrast, “yellow grease” such as used cooking oil has commercial value because companies can readily process it into biodiesel fuel to power vehicles and electric generators. Browk grease is thick, evil-smelling gunk that gets flushed into sewers along with wastewater, unless it’s trapped and properly disposed of.

Kowalis maintains that some Colorado grease pumpers illegally dispose of their loads. In Colorado the grease business is virtually unregulated. “Some of these guys charge their customers less for the entire job than the fee I pay just for disposal,” Kowalis says, “even without taking into account my cost of trucks and employees and running the business. So you know something’s fishy.” Still, Kowalis wins over some customers by educating them to the problem – showing what’s going on behind their back and the problems it causes.

With the addition of Fleet Director, All State Pumping increases transparency in grease pumping services, giving All State customers greater peace of mind.

All State Pumping & Consulting, LLCAll State is the first Colorado grease pumping service company to offer this high level of transparency. However, the trend toward transparency in the form of independent GPS verification of industry practices is growing fast. For example, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) is implementing CSA 2010, a set of highway safety rules that includes independent GPS monitoring and electronic hours-of-service (HOS) logging to counter widespread HOS violations. Studies reveled higher accident rates among drivers and companies that have a higher than normal violation rate (such as extending driving times) a contributing factor in highway fatalities.

In some industries, greater transparency offers a strong competitive advantage, helping companies attract and retain customers. As detailed in our last newsletter, Teletrac customer ATX Protection & Investigations Corp. in Austin, Texas makes the most of this advantage. ATX integrates GPS and associated Teletrac information into every aspect of its operations. ATX customers can log in to view the stops ATX patrols have made at their property, and this information is tied to time‐stamped reports these patrols submit via Teletrac two‐way messaging terminals.

Similarly, governments and companies rely on Lewis Tree Service to keep highway areas and utility rights of way clear of excess vegetation and debris. Through Fleet Director, these customers can view the locations of LTS vehicles on specific assignments to help verify contractual compliance.

Meanwhile, All State Pumping is pioneering transparency with a different purpose in mind: to advocate for stronger regulation aimed at greater accountability throughout the Colorado grease‐pumping industry. Currently Rich Kowalis is lobbying the Colorado state legislature to regulate pumping and disposal in ways that will help keep brown grease out of storm sewers, treatment plants and the natural environment. “All State is doing things right,” he says. “All we want is a level playing field to protect the public interest.”

Kowalis added that he’s been contacted by people in a number of states, from Arkansas to Utah, who suffer similar problems in their own state — suggesting an increasingly broad market need for transparency that can be achieved with Fleet Director.