As Steve Bowman enters retirement he leaves behind a legacy spanning 37 years in the Sewer Maintenance Industry.  Steve first began working in the industry with his father, who was a salesman for an equipment distribution company called Myers-Sherman.  “It all started when my father became the exclusive dealer for them in central Pennsylvania.  Dad purchased a Model 800 Vactor, which he mounted onto a 1969 Mack truck as a demo unit.”  Once the equipment was ready he invited Steve to go into business with him, helping him start a service division along with equipment sales.  They called the new company Jet Vac Service & Equipment, Inc., and began their first major project in May of 1974 with Manchester Township of York County.

The job went great and the Jet Vac name was passed around to many more boroughs and townships as a company that was both professional and trust worthy.  A cleaning project of the entire sewer system for the Borough of Wormleysburg followed the Manchester Township operation.  After doing another excellent job, Wormleysburg requested some additional work from Jet Vac, which involved something new for both Steve and his Father.  “After we completed the cleaning project they wanted us to televise the entire system.  Not knowing anything about televising equipment, we researched and bought our first Cues trailer TV/Grout equipment.”  That equipment purchase was an early introduction for Steve to the constantly evolving technology used in the sewer maintenance industry.  He would continue to experience the growth and development of such equipment first hand over the next three decades. 

Jet Vac’s original televising equipment started with just a black and white camera that was pulled manually through sewer lines.  One of the earliest developments Steve witnessed was the advent of a color camera and an electric winch that would pull both the camera and grout equipment through the line by flipping a switch.  This winch was eventually replaced by the self-propelled camera and then the pan and tilt camera.  In recent years a new main line camera was introduced that had the capability to launch a “mini camera” from the main line into a lateral, all in color.  Steve did not just see the growth of the camera equipment though; he also saw new trenchless rehabilitation technologies implemented.  “On the rehabilitation side I was able to witness the development of the ‘cured-in-place’ spot liner, mainline manhole to manhole lining, and lateral lining.  Jet Vac at one time or another provided all of these services.”

During this time of technological growth new competition began showing up in the boroughs and townships Steve had been working for.  While competition is viewed as a serious obstacle to many, Steve maintained his positive disposition and built relationships with many of the “new guys” in town.  One such relationship was with a project manager for Gannett Fleming named Jim Clark.  Jim would leave Gannett Fleming and begin his own business, Mr. Rehab, Inc. in 2000.  “Jim… was providing similar types of services as Jet Vac.  As his company grew he began expanding into services that we did not offer.”  Because Mr. Rehab was offering these services, Steve would occasionally subcontract projects to them, such as the testing and grouting of laterals.  This further developed a relationship of providing consultation and services with each other.

Steve has two sons who he introduced to the sewer maintenance industry by letting them work during summer breaks while in high school.  As they got older he waited to see if either would be interested in taking over his business.  Instead Steve’s oldest decided to move out to Colorado and his younger son decided the business was not for him.  In addition to that, by the mid 2000s Steve saw that Mr. Rehab and other competitors were vying for clients much more aggressively than they had in the past.  Steve felt he was loosing his edge on the market and began to question what the future would hold.  “So with the family not interested in the business, my equipment starting to age, and having very little debt, I thought maybe it might be a good time to sell the business.  One day when both Jim and I attended a pre-bid meeting together and afterwards we had lunch together.  I discussed my interest in selling Jet Vac and he suggested moving into my facility as his lease was soon to expire.  Jim expressed great enthusiasm and a year later, on April 13^th, 2007, we merged.”

Steve’s work in sewer maintenance has yielded some very unique memories.   Perhaps his most remarkable event was a job Jet Vac was contracted to do on the Azores, a small archipelago in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.  Steve and his crew were required to do some main line sewer lining on a US military base located there.  “We had some experience lining laterals but never did any main line lining.  I quoted a price and got the job.  Now I only had six weeks to figure out how I was going to do this job and get the equipment together.  I purchased a new TV truck, got a boiler installed on my flush truck, and then we dug a 200 foot trench in front of my shop.  We laid a pipe and then lined it.”  Their first attempt at lining was successful and thus they had the experience they needed.  They got everything ready by boat and left from Virginia.  Finally, after 3 months and with just two crews doing the lining, they completed what became a very successful and rewarding project.  “It was an experience everyone will remember”.

An influx of competition was not the only hardship Steve faced during his time running Jet Vac.  In 1979 they had a major fire in their office shop in New Cumberland.  They lost several employees personal vehicles as well as five years of records.  Most devastating of all was the destruction of video cassette tapes for a job in the Pittsburgh area that had just been completed.  At their expense they had to return to Pittsburgh and redo the entire job.  “This was a major set back, but we bounced back and started making money again.”  Steve also had to deal with the loss of his close friend and right hand man due to a motorcycle accident in 2005.  “We continued on, but there was always that emptiness and that is when I started having more thoughts of selling the business.”

Now with retirement in the picture Steve is looking forward to taking life as it comes, no longer dealing with the stresses of running his own business or the responsibilities of being a Project Manager.  Throughout his years running Jet Vac he took very few vacations and even then he could never totally relax while being away from his company.  One of the first things Steve is looking forward to doing while retired is getting reconnected with retail, which is what he was involved in before his father invited him to begin Jet Vac years ago.  He is also considering getting involved with various volunteer work.  First and foremost though, Steve has just one goal: “I plan to just take it easy for the summer”.  Good luck Steve!