Having served in the U.S. Army for 9 years, which included a tour in Bosnia, David Ingram moved his family to Ennis, Texas in 2005. As a new home owner, he had only two choices for trash collection, but neither one delivered what he considered an acceptable level of customer service. After paying in advance for services that weren’t provided, he recognized an opportunity to start his own trash collection service. David sent out 1,000 flyers to area residents and had 76 customers quickly respond. With only a truck and flat bed trailer, he started DCI Sanitation in December of 2005 as a sole proprietorship. In March of 2006, he purchased a retired waste collection truck from Southern Methodist University and began providing service to the city of Milford. A year later, he had a full time driver, two part-time throwers and was also servicing the city of Garrett.

David knew he would soon need more resources to expand services to other cities in Ellis and surrounding counties. Additional growth would require more employees and funding to purchase additional trucks. In December of that same year, the city of Palmer became his next customer.

During the following spring and summer, the company grew to six employees and revenues increased 120% as the cities of Alma, Frost and Bardwell came on board. Now an LLC, the company needed another truck and turned to the SBA for assistance in August of 2008. Bill Medina, SBA Project Officer for North Texas, referred DCI to the Navarro College SBDC where the company received counseling assistance to improve its financial position. By focusing on its financial performance, DCI was able to improve its cash flow. Then in October, Oak Leaf became a customer and DCI added recycling to its list of services. The City of Palmer had agreed to sell its recycling truck to the company, which allowed DCI to dedicate recycling services to one truck.

In early December of 2008, the company received a loan from Vintage Bank to purchase the truck from Palmer. David considered it an important step in maintaining the company’s reputation for exceptional customer service and positioning it for future growth. David credits the assistance provided by the SBDC as instrumental in recognizing the importance of using financial statements to monitor the health of the company and keeping it on target for sustainable growth.