About
It startedat a landfill.
How an Army engineer officer ended up running a junk removal company, and why it franchises.
Where this came from
Zack Willey commissioned as an Army Engineer Officer in 2009 and served eleven years on active duty — Germany, Afghanistan, Fort Leonard Wood, Fort Drum, and a tour as an instructor at West Point. He left active duty in 2020 for a corporate job that looked right on paper.
- Where it started
- Charlotte, North Carolina
- Founder's background
- Army Engineer Officer
- The operating template
- The corporate store
The founder
One Saturdayat the landfill.
How an officer with a corporate job ended up hauling junk, and why the store he built from one Saturday became the template every territory runs from.
That spring, COVID suspended Charlotte’s bulk trash pickup. One Saturday he loaded his own junk and hauled it to the landfill himself. Standing there covered in sweat, watching the sun come through the steam coming off the piles, he realised he was happier than he had been at a desk in months.
He drove home and told his wife he was starting a junk removal company. He landed his first customer the next week with no real idea what he was doing. The Charlotte store he built from that is still the corporate store, and it is still the template every franchise territory is run from.
The greatest measure of leadership is creating opportunities for other people to succeed.
Why VETS franchises at all, in the founder’s words.
The valuesare the system.
They mirror the Army Values because that is where they came from. They are presented as ours — VETS is not affiliated with or endorsed by any branch of service.
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Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless Service
How we treat customers, crews and each other.
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Honor, Integrity, Personal Courage
Including the courage to tell a candidate this is not a fit.
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Extreme Ownership and Transparency
Added for owners specifically. Nobody is coming to run your business for you, and we will not pretend otherwise.
Next step
Let us talkabout your market.
Tell us where you are looking. We will tell you straight whether the metro is open, what it would take, and whether we think it is a fit.
A person replies, usually within a business day
Not an autoresponder sequence, and not a call centre reading from a script.
Fourteen days with the FDD, minimum
Federal law gives you at least that long before anything can be signed. We treat it as a floor, not a target.
We will tell you if it is not a fit
Both directions. We are deciding too, and we would rather say so early than waste a year of yours.
PENDING COUNSEL. This is not an offer to sell a franchise. An offer is made only by a Franchise Disclosure Document, and only in states where VETS is registered or exempt.