It's clear immediately that a business article in Crain's this week is no ordinary entrepreneur profile. "Earl Braxton could never make pee pay," begins the portrait by Bill Shea.
Earl Braxton: "I've been kicking ass and taking numbers." (LinkedIn photo)
His 74-year-old subject, described as the "portable toilet king of Utica, originally wanted to extract enzymes from human urine for medical research. That venture faltered and the former tax accountant focused his full attention on a subsidiary.
He had "bought what was then called Porta John Corp. for $5,000 in 1969 from a client who owned part of it and owed Braxton that much money," Shea writes.
"It was kind of repulsive, to be honest with you," Braxton said. "My wife almost left me. . . . I said, 'I am going to make this into a hell of a business.'" . . .
By the 1980s, Braxton was doing upwards of $5 million annually from selling, leasing or franchising portable toilets, he said. . . . "I've been kicking ass and taking numbers ever since," he said. "My phone rings off the hook. I get 20-30 emails a day for orders."
In one week earlier this month, Porta John sold 58 toilets for $191,000, he said.
Shea's in-depth, 1,900-word account describes technology advances and expanding global sales by Porta John Industries Inc. Customers include the U.S. Navy, disaster relief agencies, nuclear plants, the oil industry and more than 80 Fortune 500 firms.
The company manufactures its toilets and ancillary products (such as hand-washing stations, showers, decontamination stalls, and toilets designed to double as hunting blinds) at a thermoforming plant in Utica that employs a dozen people. . . .
The oil industry is his largest client, and his products are used on ocean oil platforms and in remote drilling locations such as Africa, he said.
The compelling look at setbacks and successes of a plucky Wayne State graduate also tells why he bought more than 1,200 web domain names in the late 1990s. It's all flushed out at the link below.
-- Alan Stamm
