Contractor Advocates Honesty to Customers and Vendors Alike

In 1995, Jay Presutti took a job in the janitorial field. This started Jay and his wife, Laurie, on the road toward the sweeping and full service maintenance business they operate today. For the first few years, Presutti now relates, the janitorial industry was strong and the move was a good one. However, in the late 1990s the janitorial field underwent a number of changes that were negative to contractors in that industry.

“Much of what the company did was floor care,” said Presutti, “and it got to where we would have to get a slip signed by the manager to confirm we did a good job. This became a time-consuming hassle and, sometimes, depending on whether the manager had just done something like get into an argument with the beverage supplier, they wouldn’t sign it and we wouldn’t get paid. Sadly, this would have nothing to do with the quality of work we had done.”

This prompted company management to start diversifying. What it added other exterior items like landscaping, day portering and parking lot sweeping, the business picked back up again. Within the next few years, though, the company owner got into financial difficulties and it appeared the company would go under. Jay and his wife, Laurie, purchased the exterior maintenance portion of the business, including sweeping, which provided the owner with enough money to continue with the janitorial side.

“We were able to get off the ground running,” said Presutti, “without having to start  a company with no accounts. We added a partner, Anthony, forming a corporation with him and Laurie as the two principals. That worked out very well. Another partner bought into the company later that year, as well.

“Anthony was killed in a motorcycle accident in late 2006 while riding alongside me on the Garden State Parkway on our way to a motorcycle event. Ultimately, the company then ended up being split up into two organizations both of which are in operation today. However, when this occurred it was more difficult than we expected to figure out how to make the split be equitable for all parties. Unfortunately, we hadn’t ever taken the time to spell out how a partnership separation would be accomplished.”

Presutti says they learned a lot of valuable lessons in this situation, one that all partnerships should take to heart. First off, says Presutti, keep in mind that any kind of a business partnership is akin to marriage. Whether it’s husband-and-wife in business together or a partnership with other, non-related people, he says, you need to have a comprehensive operating agreement in place. This needs to spell out in detail such items as what will occur when a partner wants to leave, what happens when there is a disagreement over purchase of capital and other equipment; basically, Presutti stressed the need to document what will occur in virtually any scenario that might come up.

“When there is a stalemate with any kind of business decision in your partnership,” said Presutti, “you need a written structure that details how you will get out of that stalemate. Will you involve another person, a third party mediator, for example? If so, how will this be accomplished?

“When we first bought the business, it was very fast-moving thing. We had to move quickly or risk that there wouldn’t be any value in what we had bought. Like, I suspect, many other people have done before us, we assumed it would all go just fine because our partner was a longtime friend we had gotten along with well for years. It’s human nature to think ‘Let’s just get the ball rolling and then we will come back and visit these types of items somewhere down the road.’  However,’down the road’  there’s never time to take care of these necessary items; and, suddenly it was too late.

 “Because we didn’t have the necessary documentation in place, splitting up our partnership was more difficult than it needed to be. In addition to being very expensive all-around, there’s no way to end up with a great decision. In our case, the other partner bought us out and we both just moved on.”

The Presuttis incorporated as East Coast Industrial Services, Inc. in May of 2008. Looking back, reminisced Presutti, they couldn’t have found a worse time to begin operating what was essentially a start-up business, even though both he and Laurie had plenty of experience.

 “One piece of advice I would offer for anyone who’s reading this is to always be upfront and honest with everyone you’re involved with. That includes customers and vendors alike. When we started this company we had a beat up pickup truck, a lawnmower, as well as some other very minimal pieces of equipment that included no sweepers or snow removal equipment.  As a start-up business, East Coast also had no credit standing. However — as we all do, good or bad — we also had a reputation.

“Because of how Laurie and I were known in the business community, we were able to reach out to people who had the equipment and financing we needed and procure the equipment we needed to operate. Because we’d always been upfront with our previous vendors and had a history of paying on time, they basically took our word that we’d continue to do so in our new company. Without that leap of faith we’d have never been able to make it.”

The Presuttis have two sons. One is still in school but works in the company part-time and during the summer months. Another son, Brian, who is 19 years old, has muscular dystrophy and is 75% blind. In spite of these impediments, Brian works in the business full-time. With special software, called ‘Zoom Text,’ he is able to see a computer screen. His niche in the company is management of the fleet and maintenance database as well as parts’ procurement. Brian is also able to help out in the shop on repairs he can see to perform.

Last Christmas season, after having gone through a lot of difficulties with their former partner and a few other negative issues that were surfacing at the time, the Presuttis decided the best counter would be to help others in their community who were less fortunate than themselves. On somewhat short notice, they worked with local agencies to identify two families that had children who wouldn’t be getting any Christmas presents. Over the course of a couple of weeks, Presuttis and their employees worked together to make that particular Christmas as unforgettable as possible for the families. At an expense of over $2,000 and a considerable amount of time, they ensured that all members of each family got ‘a visit from Santa.’

“In our case,” said Presutti, “Santa Claus arrived in one of our sweepers. We decked out a parking lot sweeper and a street sweeper with garlands and other decorations. Once he got to the houses, Santa delivered a variety of presents to the astonished families. I can tell you it was heartwarming when kids who thought they’d get nothing for Christmas ended up with a bicycle and more. As far as we’re concerned, the best way to forget about your own troubles is to help someone else who is less fortunate. It was a very positive experience and one we hope and plan to repeat this year and in future years.” If you are a World Sweeping Association Member, you can read more about this Christmas giving process. (Must be logged in to read.)

When the Presuttis started their new company, they decided that being a full service exterior contractor was definitely the way to go. “When the property manager looks into his or her Rolodex, they don’t want to have to look up a variety of people for a variety of services,” said Presutti. “Rather, they want to cultivate a single company they know they can count on for as many exterior services as possible. We self-perform many of the services we offer, and arrange for most any other services that one of our customers might need. I know our customers definitely appreciate that aspect of the way we do business.

“How does it make sense to tout that your company is ‘the eyes and ears’ for your customer, then identify something like a pothole that needs repair, report it, and then have your customer call someone else to handle the problem even though they’d rather have you do it? Being a full-service exterior maintenance company creates a win-win for everyone.

“To us, it also makes sense to do both industrial/street sweeping and parking lot sweeping. The latter gives you a steady income, since it is all contracted. Then, during the summer we get an income injection based on the roadway work that occurs in our market area.”

East Coast does heavy duty industrial and street sweeping as well as parking lot sweeping. The company self-performs landscaping, striping and a variety of other exterior maintenance tasks and has a key core of subs they call on for a wide variety of other services, as needed.

“There’s not much we won’t do for our customers,” said Presutti. “When they have a need, we get the job done for them. We have found that our customers just want us to handle it, whatever it is. If we need to utilize one of our subcontractors, that’s what we do. Property managers don’t want to worry about subs meeting their insurance requirements, or figuring out who’s professional and who isn’t, both items that are routine for us. They also don’t want to go through the hassle of setting them up as a vendor.

“To give you an example of one of the off the wall things we’ve done: We maintain the parking lot for a supermarket that’s located across the Ramapo River from a high-end condominium complex. The snowplow contractor, which wasn’t us, apparently knocked down sections of the fence next to the river. This marked the property line of the supermarket. A large collection of circulars and newspapers, as well as other floating garbage, ended up in the river. When the thaw came, suddenly there was all this garbage floating on the surface of the water.

“The condo owners mobilized the media about the problem and, long story short, we ended up with hip waders on collecting the debris, as well as in boats with pool skimmers scooping it all up so the condo owners didn’t have to look off their balconies and see all this garbage floating in the river. So, in our business, you can be line striping today and wading in a river the next day. When people ask me what my plans are, I tell them I go to work and see what the employees have in store for me.”

Although snowplowing used to be a service performed by East Coast, in recent years the Presuttis split that side of the business off into a separate corporation. This was done primarily for insurance reasons, since they found that the higher liability encountered in snow removal was impacting the insurance rates of entire business operation. Providing snow removal through a separate organization has saved them money overall in that regard.

“In New York, at any rate, the insurance for snow removal has gone through the roof. We were in a situation where we’d had no losses anywhere except for snow removal, but our insurance company wanted to drop us from all of our coverages. Splitting snow removal into a separate entity made the most sense just for that reason.”

In the accompanying podcast audio interview, Presutti also discusses how his company has automated its fleet maintenance process via developing databases that provide up-to-date, solid information about all the vehicles in the fleet. This includes such items as broom wear, or identifying a reduction in mpg on a particular vehicle. For those who snowplow, you will also want to listen about Presutti’s discussion about the snow database he has developed that tracks a host of information about every snowfall in their region, along with what services the company then performed for client properties. This, he cites as having saved the company significant money in terms of premiums, since his insurance company knows it has the data it needs to fight any lawsuits.

In the audio, Presutti also discusses the company’s data movement to the cloud, along with their pending move to handheld devices. This already allows all members of the East Coast team to keep up with any changes made by other members of the team. For example, these might include changes to the appointment schedule of someone in the field, or weather changes that then require a different approach to particular job tasks within the company on a given day. In the works is to have area manager inspections, scheduling and other standard, boilerplate items be done on-site and then auto-uploaded to client databases.

For more information, you can contact Jay Presutti via email sent to jpresutti@eastcoast-inc.com. The company’s website is www.eastcoast-inc.com.