The First Hustles

When I got my first pressure washing machine, I thought I was unstoppable. I was ready to clean anything that stood still. I started with my own house, sidewalks, driveway — anything I could blast water at. I remember turning that machine loose on my aluminum-sided house and ending up with zebra stripes everywhere. The siding was oxidized, and I had no idea what I was doing. It took me a long while to fix the mess I’d made, but it was a lesson. That’s what those early days were all about: learning by doing, sometimes the hard way.

My real goal was kitchen exhaust cleaning, but that kind of business doesn’t take off overnight. So, like most people starting out, I did whatever jobs came my way. We washed trucks — bread trucks, transport vehicles, and fleets up in Kenosha, Wisconsin. We cleaned trucks over at Baxter Laboratories, scrubbed down exteriors of buildings, dumpster pads, and the backs of restaurants. If there was dirt or grease, we’d find a way to wash it off.

We even branched out into odd jobs inside restaurants — sewer rodding, welding, whatever it took to get in the door and build a relationship. The thinking was simple: if we could make ourselves useful, we could earn their trust, and sooner or later, they’d let us handle the kitchen exhaust cleaning.

The grease filter exchange became one of our early footholds. It kept us in front of the restaurants more regularly, and it created a steady rhythm of service. From there, the business started to click. Exhaust cleaning became our foundation — the core piece we built everything else around. Over time, we added other services to wrap around it: fire protection, filter services, roof grease protection. But the heartbeat of the business, the thing that gave us our start and our strength, was kitchen exhaust cleaning.

In those early years, though, we were just like everybody else trying to make it. You do anything you can to earn a buck, to build momentum, to keep the lights on. But eventually, you hone your skills, find your focus, and realize what’s going to carry you forward. For us, it was exhaust cleaning — and from there, everything else followed.