Wayne Engineering was long known as one of the top garbage truck suppliers in the U.S. In 2007 the company branched out into sweeper manufacturing under the name Wayne Sweepers via purchase of the Centurion sweeper from Tennant. Since then, the company has increased its footprint into the sweeping industry, as well as reorganized with new investment partners and formed Curbtender Sweepers LLC in October 2017.

Mark Watje first got involved with the company where his father, Kevin, serves as CEO in the early 2000s when still a college student. However, after graduation Mark worked some years at Western Star Trucks before coming back in 2016 to what is now Curbtender Sweepers. In addition to discussing the Curbtender organization, Watje offers a number of innovative industry ideas and concepts in the article, which includes a link to the 35-minute audio podcast conducted between him and WorldSweeper's editor, Ranger Kidwell-Ross.

Check out the Curbtender article and audio.

Bill Ackendorf Reminisces on 30+ Years Selling Street Sweepers

Bill Ackendorf's tenure in the power sweeping industry started in 1983 when he began working for an equipment dealer that represented Elgin Sweepers. Within two years, his considerable talent recognized by Elgin, Bill took a job with them as regional sales manager. As you will read, Bill's impact on the power sweeping industry was to last for over 30 more years.

In WorldSweeper's interview, which was done to capture Ackendorf's experiences for posterity, Bill discusses his experiences over those many years as well as catalogs some of the changes he saw along the way. Our coverage includes a 40-minute audio podcast with Bill conducted by our editor, Ranger Kidwell-Ross.

Toronto's Troubled Street Sweeping Program

The street sweeping program in Kansas City, Missouri, ended up in the gutter this fiscal year because of a deficit in the fund that pays for it.

Since 2005, street sweeping has been funded through a stormwater fee that KC Water customers pay each month. The fee is about $2.50 per household. "That fee has not increased in 16 years, so that fund has been running a deficit," said Communications Director Chris Hernandez. "It's obviously a different level of service, and it's unfortunate whenever you have to make a decision like that."

In our May newsletter we reported that Philadelphia was, at long last, ramping its sweeping program back up. To do so, the City purchased a fleet of 15 sweepers and is in the process of tripling its sweeping budget. However, after purchasing the full-sized street sweepers and putting them into use, City managers realized the machines are too large to fit between parked cars on about 10% of the streets scheduled for sweeping.

Currently, it appears the City will have to purchase several smaller sweepers, each at a cost of $250,000, forestalling the scheduled replacement of some garbage trucks in its fleet. In the meantime, workers with backpack blowers are walking an entire block's length on the narrow side streets in some neighborhoods in order to push their load of garbage onto a wider avenue. The situation – which can accurately be termed a fiasco – was documented in this linked article in The Philadelphia Inquirer.

If you have not provided info to your employees about WSA's Memorial Scholarship program do so today since applications are due by July 1st. This marks the seventh year that WSA will be providing two scholarships of up to $2,000 each toward tuition and other education costs to two students connected with the sweeping industry. These may be employees, or children of employees, who are or will be attending an accredited university or technical school.

Here is a link to the WSA Memorial Scholarship page as well as all the application instructions. Click here for a ready-to-print PDF form you can use as a way to get the info to your employees. Chances are that some of your workers have kid(s) that would really benefit from getting a scholarship. The amount of each scholarship is $1,000, which is doubled if a winning student is connected to a company that is a WSA Member.

We encourage you to distribute info about the availability of these scholarships widely throughout your organization. Remember: Applications will be accepted only until July 1st.

Being a street sweeper for Dubai Municipality doesn't mean riding around in an air-conditioned machine. Rather, the task for Naushad Raynkarveedu entails walking on foot while sweeping the curbline and other areas in a country where the temperature averages over 100-degrees fahrenheit for five months of the year.

Naushad Raynkarveedu has been sweeping the streets of Dubai for 17 years, making sure the city’s roads and sidewalks are litter-free, even while fasting from sunup to sundown during Ramadan. This marks WorldSweeper.com's first story about sweeping in Dubai, bringing the total number of countries we've covered to 30.