Veteran ownership
Purposeafter service.
For veterans and the people closest to them. Ownership is not limited to those who served.
Who can own one
VETS was founded by an Army Engineer Officer and is led by veterans. Ownership is open to veterans and to people closely connected to the veteran community — spouses, family, and civilians who operate the way we do. You do not have to have served to own a VETS territory.
- Who may own one
- Not limited to veterans
- Who leads the company
- Veterans
- Affiliation with the DoD
- None, and none implied
Why it fits
You have alreadydone the hard part.
It is a standards business, and everything that makes a standard hold is something you were trained to do.
-
You have led people who did not have to like you
Crew quality is the whole business, and crews take their standard from whoever is in charge. That is not a skill anyone picks up in a seminar.
-
You show up when you said you would
Most of this category is unbranded operators who do not call back. Being on time is a competitive position, which is a strange thing to be able to say about an industry.
-
You plan before you move
Routing, staging, equipment, contingencies. A day of hauling is a small logistics problem repeated, and you have run bigger ones.
-
You take care of your people
Retention is the difference between a crew and a rotating cast of strangers in customers’ houses. Looking after people is the job.
Who founded it
Led by someonewho served.
VETS was started by a veteran, and the Charlotte store he built from nothing is still the template every territory is run from.
-
Zack Willey, founder
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 instructing at West Point.
-
He started it himself, in 2020
One truck, in Charlotte, after a corporate job that looked right on paper. The corporate store there still runs the model the franchise is built on.
The greatest measure of leadership is creating opportunities for other people to succeed.
Why VETS franchises at all, in the founder’s words.
Worth knowing about
Programs thatare not ours.
These are run by the government and by industry bodies, not by VETS. We list them because they are useful, and we link to the source rather than summarising it.
-
SBA Boots to Business
Entrepreneurship training for service members, veterans and spouses, delivered through the Small Business Administration.
-
DoD SkillBridge
Lets transitioning service members spend their final months training with a civilian organisation.
-
Veterans Business Outreach Centers
Regional SBA centres offering business planning help and access to lending relationships.
PENDING COUNSEL. VETS Junk Removal & Dumpsters is not affiliated with or endorsed by the U.S. Department of Defense, any branch of service, or any military installation.
Be clear-eyed
Service does notmake this easy.
We would rather say this here than have you find it out in month eight.
-
Hiring civilians is not the same as leading soldiers. Nobody is assigned to you, and anybody can leave on a Tuesday. Most first-time owners say this was the hardest adjustment.
-
There is no staff section behind you. CentCom supports the parts it owns, but the admin after the last haul of the day is yours.
-
We make no promises about what you will earn. Our FDD has no Item 19, so we publish no such figures and we will not quote any. Ask every brand you speak to where their numbers come from.
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.