PMSI, Tri-State Sweeping and Property Maintenance Services

Picture the lush green mountains of West Virginia around Wheeling. The song’s not wrong. It’s almost heaven. At the least, there’s no place else like this stretch of Appalachia. Add to the vision the bass fishing here on the Ohio River, upstream from the reserve. Nestled in this rare environment is cozy Bridgeport Ohio, home of Nikki Kryston, President PMSI, and her world-class property services team.   

Ohio Valley Coal Miner Becomes Business Leader 

We recently had the opportunity to meet with Kryston and learn from her about the PMSI operations and history of this unique company. It’s a fascinating and deeply inspiring story: 

My father, George Kryston, started the company in 1994. He was a coal miner by day. He purchased his first street sweeper and continued to work in the mine until he grew the business to a point that he couldn’t do both anymore. My grandfather and some friends helped him during the startup years. The company grew and evolved over time as customers wanted him to provide other services. 

I started at 16, while I was in high school, helping the office secretary, taking sweepers to the local tire shop, and doing various other tasks. After I graduated, I started college. I declared a major in Chemistry, with a Pharmacy degree in mind, but discovered that that was not for me and switched to Business Administration studies. 

Around 2013, as a senior undergrad, I worked as a Project Analyst for Contract Sweepers (a sweeper company). Then, I came back to my roots here at PMSI. I went back to school and obtained an MBA while still working full-time at the office. [Ambitious and hardworking like her dad, but starting out with a Master’s Degree — a powerful testament to the coal miner and his daughter.] 

Kryston’s Business Management Succession

As I was taking more responsibility and eventually kind of started taking over, Dad stepped back, and now we started sharing the role of running the business. I became President of the company in March 2025 and he became Vice President. 

My father is still heavily involved in the business, but this change has made it possible for him to start enjoying more free time. He’s at retirement age. It was time to make the switch. It was a hard transition in a sense, though, technically, nothing changed functionally, just the titles. I had been running the company for a while. But, it was a big step for him. He has taught me beyond everything I need to know. As I said, he’s still very involved. Today, he’s out taking supplies to an employee who is a flood victim. (Bridgeport is currently struggling to recover from a deadly flash flood.) 

My father has introduced me to customers who’ve been in long-term relationships with him, so I can continue those. My step-siblings took other career paths — one in the medical field and one in engineering. So, I’m the person in the family to hand off the role of running the business. After my grandfather passed away, family friends continued to be very active in the company, and they still check in and provide consultation anytime needed.

They’ve all helped create the company culture we have. Every 10 years, I put on a big anniversary party, and bring in a band, food, and entertainment, as a big “Thank You”. We invite customers and everyone from the history of the company over the past 31 years. 

PMSI Distinguished in the Ohio Valley Market

Our service area encompasses the entire Ohio Valley, which spans much of Ohio and extends into West Virginia and Pennsylvania. That makes things more difficult, requiring licensing for each state, Workers’ Comp, etc. We had a Pennsylvania office at one time but have since consolidated operations here at Bridgeport, which has streamlined our service and management processes, improved overall efficiency, and reduced costs. 

Throughout the region, we make every customer and employee a part of our family. We would never overpromise and underdeliver. So, we have to turn down a new customer if we can’t take on the added workload and maintain quality. Quality over quantity has always been our policy. 

We have built strong long-term relationships with the customers, and they have learned to trust us. They look to us to take care of them. They’ve grown to rely on us and call on us to do whatever they need that makes sense for us to do it. For example, one steel producer we serve instructed us to begin providing a service we had not previously offered. They simply said, in effect, “We need you to start doing this for us.” That’s how comfortable they are with knowing we will add what they need, if feasible. 

We respect our customers, peers, and employees. Being a female in a male industry, I’ve actually never had an issue from that. I think that is at least partly due to the way I work right alongside everyone, from dawn to dark, as necessary. Our customers respect the work ethic we and our employees have. And, it’s not a job if you can make it fun. (We have pizza parties after work.)

It’s about 100-degree now, but we keep working. I think that’s where we’ve separated ourselves too, through the exceptional relationships we’ve built with all the people who count on us to be there and deliver consistent quality, no matter what.

PMSI Business Model

We provide sweeping to commercial, industrial, municipal and county government customers. We provide lawn care, snow removal, and back-end retail management support for long-time customers. Our commercial accounts include parking lot sweeping for banks, restaurants, and small and large retail centers. Milling cleanup used to be 90% of our business. That switched because we’re not a union business. The ratio has become about 65% industrial customers, 10% milling cleanup or county ops, and around 25% parking lot sweeping.

PMSI Services

Growth of PMSI in the Ohio Valley

In the 5 to 7 years since 2016, I had started to take on an executive role. The business continued to perform well. Even through COVID [2020-2023], we were very lucky. We weren’t really affected much. We manipulated schedules so that our workers were where they weren’t near each other. Our revenues didn’t decline. 

We have continued to grow at around 10% per year, at minimum. It can be a little overwhelming. It’s a lot, but not to the point that we can’t control quality. And, it’s a lot to think about. I believe we could grow 20% to 30% per year, but we don’t want to lose quality. 

We once had solely parking lot sweeping in Greensburg PA, but it was very hard to maintain without a manager there locally. If we grew 30 to 45 minutes away, maybe we could put a small satellite office at some location. But, our emphasis is on growing where we are and continuing to build on the reputation we’ve developed in our area over the past 31 years.

My father has built this company on word-of-mouth, and it continues to flourish that way. We have grown organically since the beginning, with no sales personnel. The only thing we do now to put our name out there is work with a marketing person who helps me keep the website up, works on SEO, etc., and helps with social media. But, I’ve had to tell them not to post anything to draw new business for now, as we are at max capacity.

PMSI Assets

We have 9 sweeper trucks. We provide service to a lot of industrial facilities. We have a broom sweeper dedicated to steel mill service. We serve mining properties. We’re busier in the spring at those. We service one mining operation a couple of days per week, and we are often asked to do street cleaning in the municipality for a mining company. For example, if they drag some debris out onto the road and need us to clean it up. We also serve gas and oil plants in the area a couple of days per week. 

In the last ten years, our work for big gas and oil facilities has grown. It often involves more servicing of gas and oil trucking facilities and haul roads than at the plants. The work is in keeping the community there in clean condition. 

We generate about a couple of million dollars in annual revenues. Our equipment list is up to around 300 machines, including mowers, trimmers, blowers, 2 remote controlled slope mowers, brush hogs, skid steers, many dump trucks, Steiners (articulating mowers), plows, salt spreaders, fertilizing machines, trailers, sweepers, and others. We also have about 40 to 45 service vehicles.

Training PMSI Staff

We have about 25 to 35 people on staff. We try to keep people working year-round, even if they do seasonal work. So, they have all received a lot of cross-training and have multiple skill sets. Everyone on our management team does training. Janie is our Secretary and Treasurer, and Jill is our main secretary. We have an operations manager, and myself, my father, and my stepmother who helps in the office too. There is also John, our landscape manager of 15 years, and my fiancé, Austin, our mechanic, who does a little of everything. 

We rely on Austin for many things. He helps get the guys going in the morning, talking with them to see what’s going on that needs to be addressed. And, he is very good at training. John can do anything as well. We count on him for any type of training. 

Our staff also undergo training through NPE, and we attend various expos. I have to have continuing education in vegetation and fertilization control. We’re also on with ISNetworld, which provides online training that our guys are required to receive. That sets us apart. We have to pay money for that. It’s especially important for customers in safety-sensitive industries.

PMSI Fleet Management

For us, reliability is a priority in the equipment we buy. We have Tymcos and Stewart-Amos sweeper trucks. We love them both, and they’re the only brands we keep. Tymco, the Young family company, was our very first supplier. We have been with them for a long time. Their sweepers always run flawlessly. Amos is a great choice for excellent sweeper trucks that can be operated without a CDL. We also like to stick with those brands so that if something happens to one truck, parts from another one can be used.

We’ve always had two mechanics available. We have a mobile mechanic who works on call and will come and help if our mechanic is jammed up. And, a lot of our employees are mechanically inclined. We also have a very long-time family friend who has a shop down the street for oil changes or anything else we need. 

John manages all the equipment for the landscaping maintenance. Austin would also take care of that ground-keeping machinery, but that equipment doesn’t require a lot of maintenance. The manufacturers have their individual shops for us to use for that kind of work. We sharpen all the blades and handle general maintenance of the equipment in-house.

Technologies at PMSI

We use CLIP software (designed for landscape business management) and QuickBooks®. I use Excel for a lot of things. I learned that in my MBA program. We do have some software for billing integrated, and we use GPS on all the vehicles. We don’t use cameras on the vehicles. I tried them, but, for the money, I didn’t think it was worth it for our particular needs. Our service area is very large, so our trucks cover a lot of distance every day. We’re in Ohio, but some days we may start in West Virginia, travel to Pennsylvania, and land back in West Virginia. 

Advice for New Industry Entrants from Nikki Kryston, President, PMSI

I would say never overpromise and underdeliver. That principle is what we’ve grown our business on, and we stay true to it every day. It doesn’t build a good name if you don’t.

But, how does she do it? Asked about her schedule, Nikki laughed: My day is 24 hours. I’m normally here at 7 am and I leave when the job is done. My phone rings 24 hours per day. We answer the calls, vs. letting them go to voicemail. I think that’s something else that sets us apart. People know if they need me, I’m always here.

Our Perspective on PMSI Leadership

The account of PMSI’s history reads like a movie script about an All-American success story. Local coal miner turns entrepreneur, builds a thriving company across regional commercial and industrial business sectors, and creates many jobs for his community over the following decades. 

Years pass, and the coal miner’s daughter grows up in the business to become a force for women’s success in a traditionally male-dominated industry. She grows the company to more than 25% of its previous size in under ten years of her leadership.

Prioritizing the customer experience 24/7, "quality over quantity," consistent overdelivery, admirable internal culture, and strong brand consciousness are some of the winning business traits of PMSI that make it one of the best regional service companies in the industry today.

 

For information about Property Maintenance Services Inc., Bridgeport, Ohio, call (740) 635-0590, write info@teampmsi.com, or visit the PMSI website.