Looking Back at 2024 Forward to 2025

Again, it’s December, the natural time to reflect on the past year and look forward to the next one, to think about lessons learned, and form expectations and plans. Taking stock of 2024, consider your best business decisions, worst mistakes, milestones reached, targets missed, and how it all shook out in the year-end financials. Looking ahead, what are your best plans for improving on the past year in the new one coming up? How does your experience over the past several years compare with the plans you had made? And, how do your plans for 2025 align with the realities of the industry?

Reflecting on the most recent years leading to 2025, since 2022 and the weakening of the economic effects of COVID, operators whose commercial sweeping businesses had taken a serious hit from COVID were more cautious. Some were even concerned about how their companies would stay afloat going into 2023. Others, whose sweeping companies were treated as essential services during the pandemic experienced growth and very bright outlooks for the future. 

In the past couple of years, as throughout the several years before 2020, sweeping business operators we’ve met with have shared very optimistic projections for upcoming periods based partly on a sense of what can be expected across a stable sweeping industry and larger external economy. 

2024 and Earlier Years

So, how did we get here? What has shaped our collective perspective in and about the pavement sweeping industry as it is now, going into 2025? Here are some sweeping business owners’ comments from recent years since 2022 and one from even well before that, to help us gain perspective on their alignment with our own attitudes about predictions and planning for the upcoming year and beyond:

2023: Philip La Manna, Owner, EP Milling & Sweeping, Farmingdale NY

As the founder of his 17-year-old Long Island pavement maintenance company near Massapequa, LaManna has grown his business to such an impressive level that his service has become an integral regional resource. 

“We don’t set goals for growth; it happens organically. We stand out because we work with paving contractors to help them achieve their goals in a timely fashion. About 95% of our new customers come by word of mouth. Around five percent come from contractors seeing my logo on my equipment or tractor-trailer, which leads them to google my company and gives them a way to get in touch with my office. Working with 125+ contractors per year keeps me informed. My operators tell me about contractors with new and upgraded equipment and practices, and contractors will let me know what they will be doing differently next year and how that may or may not affect us. I don’t think of negative conditions that may arise. I take it one day at a time, and ensure that I do my part, and focus on what I have some control over.” (from December 2023)

2022: Marie Miller, Western Sweeping LLC, Phoenix AZ

From 2020 to 2022, Miller achieved an astounding growth rate at Western Sweeping in Phoenix. The new entrepreneur, with her new commercial pavement sweeping company, created soaring growth from zero to five new sweeper trucks and a field staff consisting of her husband and 5 drivers — all in just two years. 

“If our work is excellent, people will be willing to pay for excellence. From the beginning, we weren’t the cheapest company. We were priced pretty high at first. People would not call us when they heard that. But, we were actively handing out cards on job sites and people saw how well our trucks were performing, and it kind of exploded. This year has been very busy. We work with teams as they do paving, sealing, repaving, milling, striping, etc. All our trucks can do trackout. We probably pay the most for skilled people. The customers can rely on a good job being consistently done. Plus, we answer our phones. Prompt response makes a big difference in what the customers are used to for service quality. … Our employees say they don’t want to work for some big company — to be just a number. They want to be part of something. And, to inspire people to start small businesses, that’s a very satisfying accomplishment for us.” (from December 2022)

2018: Ken Hohlt, Sr. Co-Owner, Crown’s & Curbs, Inc., St. Louis MO

One of the St. Louis area’s leading power sweeping service providers, Ken Hohlt, talked about growing his company over the years in the dynamic greater St. Louis region. 

“Our customers don’t call us because they have a pressing desire for sweeping services. They contact us because they have a pressing need for that service. They need us, and we need them. So, we know we’d better respond reliably and provide quality service. You could say that we passively market our business by simply keeping an eye on our future business well-being, and letting ourselves be motivated by our need to have satisfied customers who will continue doing business with us and refer their associates to us too.” (from May 2018)

2024-2025 and Beyond

Talking with sweeper truck manufacturers, sweeping business owners, and related financial services experts at the 2024 year end about their perceptions looking back at 2024 and forward to 2025, we gained some insights into their experience of the past year and their knowledge-based expectations for this new one — for their own companies and industries, and for the associated industry of commercial sweeping businesses that constitutes some or all of their customer base. 

Here are some of the comments we received from these professionals to help inform a general perspective on the outcome of 2024 for operators and a practical outlook for 2025:

2024-2025: Joe Hendrickson, VP of Sales and Marketing, Schwarze Industries, Huntsville AL

VP, Joe Henderson, looks back on 2024 milestones, at the close of Scwharze’s 50th Anniversary year, and ahead toward a new era of innovation.

“2024 was the year of celebration and reflection for Schwarze. 50 years in the industry is something we wanted to celebrate with the people that got us here. With involvement from our partners at 800 Sweeper, NAPSA, AEM: I Make America, Schwarze Dealers, and the numerous vendor and marketing companies we work with, Schwarze was able to make our 50th year in business one to remember. FOR 2025, we have an amazing customer base and an amazing team of people building our product. These are the people who make this business special. Our motto for 2024 is “We Didn’t Come This Far To Only Come This Far”. I think this is a testament to our resiliency and our commitment to our customers. We will continue to pursue product excellence and superior customer service. 2025 will prove this commitment as we reveal 3 new product innovations at the upcoming PAVE/X.” (from December 2024)

2024-2025: AlexAlex Byczynski, Vice President, ODRA Road Sweepers, Grand Forks ND

ODRA sweepers, with the debut of the famous MT4H, has disrupted a significant segment of the pavement sweeping contractor market with its ultra-streamlined alternatives to traditional heavy equipment for a variety of construction applications. 

“At ODRA Sweepers, we’re riding a wave of incredible momentum as we are not only finding new customers but also existing owners continue to discover that we are the trusted manufacturer behind the high-performance sweepers they rely on. (Even if it has competitor badging). We’d like to thank all our customers, and we’re excited to look forward to the year ahead; the best is yet to come.” (from December 2024)

2024-2025: Jayme Gerads, CLFP, Business Development Officer, Oakmont Capital Services LLC, West Chester PA 

Inc. Magazine has listed Oakmont Capital Services as one of the 5000 Fastest Growing Companies.

“2024 proved to be a challenging economic environment for many industries, including equipment finance and commercial sweeping. Financing equipment has let our customers move quickly to take advantage of opportunities in the market. We are focusing our efforts on providing an outstanding customer experience to help businesses grow in 2025.” (from December 2024)

2024-2025: Giovanni Recalde, President, Atlantic Sweeping & Cleaning, Inc., Sterling VA

Giovanni Recalde leads a rapidly growing enterprise. The company has grown throughout Virginia, Maryland, Washington DC, West Virginia, and Delaware, and has even started providing service in Tennessee. 

“We’ve been striving even more this year to build a team for the long-term future and have been putting the right resources into place to do that. We have been building our team as we’ve grown the business over the past 10 years. In the last six months, we’ve hired more office staff to get things precise. Businesses have growing pains, and to remedy that, you need the right people in the office to meet your goals and vision. We just hired a new billing person, bookkeeper, dispatcher, additional account manager, and operations people. We’ve also just brought in an HR Manager and a Marketing Manager. Marketing will collaborate with HR on employee retention strategies. My advice is to keep in mind that you don’t know it all and never stop learning. Keep your ears open for advice on operations and follow up with good work. That is the key to success. It may not all happen right away, but learning and improving will prepare you for your future when you do encounter those opportunities to realize new growth for your business.” (from November 2024)

2024-2025: Mark Schwarze, Marketing and Product Development Manager, Victory Sweepers, Huntsville AL

Mark Schwarze is the industry’s most experienced and knowledgeable expert on quality sweeper manufacturing, to the great benefit of today’s Victory Sweepers organization.

“Looking back at 2024, we set records in almost every quarter. We had a bad October, but after the election, we saw a very significant boost. We’ve got the Mark 6 to complement our Mark 3 coming out soon. That requires us to do a lot of stuff and none of it is very easy. We’re bringing in a model for India. I think it will be called the Mark 8. It’s all air-machined. That’s exciting. We also broke ground on our new building not far from our current factory in Huntsville. It’s about 87,000 sq ft. Huntsville is booming right now. So, it was difficult to get the right building. We appreciate the contractors with the 1-800 group we’ve been working with. They’ve been very productive for us. Other stuff we’re working on for the contractors’ side include a municipal product line. Our corporate leadership is very optimistic about the future.” (from December 2024)

A Future in the Pavement Sweeping Industry

Per Marie Miller, Western Sweeping (from the December 2022 Spotlight), “We want to help make the industry here work for everybody. We really have that excitement about wanting to work together with our peers. We’ve gotten to know each other and we give each other work. It’s very satisfying to see that our hard work is providing opportunities for other families in the community as well as ours. Hiring local workers and seeing the rewards of that rolling out to my community so that people can maybe afford to buy a home in the future or raise their standard of living is very rewarding. To have a business that does well enough that we can do that means a lot to us.”

Further, as the EP Milling & Sweeping company owner pointed out in December 2023, “The street sweeper is 100% essential to milling operations to remove the finer materials near curbs and edges that other equipment can’t clean as efficiently.” Likewise, of course, effective sweeping is necessary on construction sites, commercial properties, and municipal streets. It’s a necessary industry for maintaining the quality of modern life. However, it’s a very expensive business to be in, and it’s fraught with contingencies in the B2B market, employer market, and larger external economic environment. 

As you see, the post-2022 theme is decidedly positive in the outlooks of anticipation among decision-makers in commercial sweeping and related industries, although there is a notable emphasis on the need for modernized operations and service/product innovations for optimum competitiveness.

Overall, it appears fair to suggest that the future of the industry belongs to the well-informed, the tech investment inclined, the most fiscally savvy, the most organized, the most team-culture inspiring, the most quality committed, and the best calculated risk takers. So then, nothing new really? Perhaps nothing new. 

However, the challenges within all these standard parameters, of course, continue to increase in magnitude and complexity with each new year. So, to help ensure market share, multiply your efforts in thorough planning, creative solutions, lean operation, collaboration, and service-culture-building for 2025! Best wishes to you and your team for great success in this New Year 2025!

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