Recycled Waste Facility Utilizes Local Resource to Find Funding

Poo-fessional Recycled Organics and Land Management of Hillsborough County

Kimberly Martin, a high school agriculture teacher, created her business, Poo-fessional Recycled Organics and Land Management, due to a complaint from a neighbor regarding her and her husband accumulating yard waste from trimming trees.

They were told they needed a permit.

“My husband and I looked at each other and said, ‘Do you want to get a permit?’ and that’s what we did,” Martin said. “It developed into a very successful green waste recycling facility from that neighbor complaint.”

Martin reached out to Florida SBDC at Hillsborough County business consultant Corey McCaster to help her with overall business management.

Having owned a business before, McCaster was able to help Martin utilize resources that were available to her that she wasn’t using before.

“He has been absolutely wonderful, and I can honestly say that if it hadn’t been for the guidance of Corey and the resources available through the SBA, I’m not certain that my business would still be open,” Martin said. “With his background in owning a business himself, he has really helped us to develop and be strong in this industry.”

On top of assisting with the company’s management, McCaster even had some ideas of his own for the business. Poo-fessional Recycled Organics and Land Management is now one of six worm farms in the state of Florida.

“It peaked my interest, and just from his one comment, we now have worms,” Martin said.

Martin’s biggest success so far is overcoming the day-to-day obstacles in this busy industry.

“One day you might have everything going well and then all of a sudden not one piece of machinery will be working, you have rain for two weeks, or an employee won’t show up,” Martin said. “So overcoming those daily obstacles, especially in an industry that is so crazy, has been our biggest success.”

Currently Martin is working on getting a 7a SBA loan, which will help the company purchase new equipment to further serve clients with even more dependable product deliveries. The company has already been able to use more than $100,000 in capital access throughout its course of business.

“Customers want to have a dependent supply, so we have to have dependable equipment,” Martin said. “Through the SBA 7a loan we will be able to replace everything we have and add a few things that will help us diversify in the industry. For example, we’ll be able to start bagging products.”

Currently the company has made contact with Scott’s Miracle Gro to be a potential vender for them. Further down the road, the company would like to be on the shelves of Home Depot and Lowe’s.

Poo-fessional Recycled Organics and Land Management is continuing to grow in their industry and will continue working with the Florida SBDC at Hillsborough County to further that growth.

“They have incredible resources, they have really good people, and there’s a lot of things that most companies don’t even know exist,” Martin said. “I contacted the SBDC about three years ago but never followed through. I ended up circling back around and getting connected with the SBDC, and boy has it made a difference.

“If it were not for the SBA, the SBDC, and my SBDC consultant, our company wouldn’t still be here.”