Cleve Guinn, owner of Stinky Pinky, was born and raised in Clarksville. This week, he talks to Charlie about his family, learning to play golf from his father, and how he came to own the distinctive septic and trash service.
Clarksville Conversations with Charlie Koon
Cleve Guinn: Mr. Stinky Pinky
I've lived in Clarksville, Montgomery County, nearly my entire life, and I've seen a lot of growth and met some amazing people along the way. There's a lot going on in our community, and on this podcast, I hope shed some light of what's going on in Clarksville. I'm Charlie Kuhn, and this is Clarksville Conversation. Please go in. Welcome to Clarksville Conversations, how you doing, buddy? Doing really good. Thank you for having me on, Charlie. I appreciate it. It's very good to see you. I see you a lot on Sunday mornings at LifePoint Church. That's right. That's a good spot to find me on Sunday morning. I know. See, sometimes he's out directing traffic, and for some reason I always get stuck with the arm up, stopping me and letting everybody go. Can we solve that problem right now? Well, you've got to find somebody that looks, you know, friendly to stop. Oh, wow! You're the one. That's nice. You're the one. You've got to see me on Sunday, you know, and see me any other time of the week in the pink truck. Oh, that's right. Stinky Pinky. That's right. That's right. We'll get to what you do, but let's get to where you came from. So how long have you been in Clarksville? I've been in Clarksville all my life, born and raised. Before that, you know, dad was a dad from Clarksville. My granddad was from Clarksville. My mom's family from Germany and North Carolina. Milled Fort Campbell brought him here. Oh, really? In high school? And yeah, from Clarksville, born and raised, rare bird these days. So, you know, I know a little bit about you and your dad and your grandfather, and you guys have been in so many types of businesses. Your grandfather was big into the banking business years ago. And I kind of wonder, you know, I know you and your dad are really close, but did your grandfather really kind of mentor you or teach you anything about business? Yeah. I would say it kind of came more from the lessons, right? Spent a lot of time with my granddad, and we were on a personal level. We would spend a lot of time together. He would get to, you know, take us to do different things. I can remember a couple of times, you know, going to golf tournaments over the weekend. We'd drive up to Knoxville, and he'd, you know, follow me around, caddy for me, make sure, you know, we had everything we needed going into, going into the tournament, which was, which was really fun, where, you know, kind of more with my dad, obviously, a lot of relationship where, you know, nothing, anything I was interested in that, you know, he was involved with it was 100% open door. So get to experience, you know, kind of grew up in the business, speak a lot of different things we had. And with my granddad, a lot of life skills probably, you know, and how to treat people right, which correlates directly into business. And so I wouldn't see it as much. It wasn't like a corporate boardroom perspective, maybe when he was really coming up and running hard. But as he was, you know, in the retirement, managing some, you know, some different entities that he had, definitely get to spend a lot of time with him. Well, I would say to a lot of people that have been in Clarksville, Montgomery County for, for many years, Dotson Gwen is an icon in this community, and we were blessed to have him for sure. He, he helped a lot of people out coming up. Yeah. It was definitely, definitely a different time back then. There's a lot of stories told we passed coming up on about a year ago, where, you know, would, you know, call them to get a, to get a loan on a car or whatever it may be. And they just call the house and he'd say, yeah, go ahead and we'll, we'll write the check. We'll worry about when the check comes in. You know, it's not, not really how it works these days anymore, but I think, um, really the value of relationships is what, uh, is what my granddad thrived off of, you know, making those connections with people. And then just doing the right thing, and it's not much business or personal life. We can all learn a lot from that. I guarantee you, I learned a lot from my mother coming up in business too. So you, you learn those values and they tend to stick with you along the way. So you said something a minute ago about, um, your grandfather, Katie in for you. And so how did you get into the golf world? Yeah. So growing up, my dad was, uh, dad was a big golfer. He started a little bit late, but when he got the, he got the bug and hit him hard. Yeah. He played a lot of golf. My granddad started, uh, pretty late as well. And they got me into it young, played little league baseball that, that wasn't for me. And I was, I was ready to, uh, ready to do something else. Yeah. Nothing was not an option. Uh, I was too, too much of a busy body anyway. So we ended up, uh, landed on golf and spent a lot of time, uh, beating bags of balls at the, uh, at the driving range, trying to get better, yeah, playing golf, growing up. And so yeah, I just kind of spent that whole time played, uh, throughout middle school and high school, I had the opportunity to walk onto the team at Austin P and play there. Yeah. Um, you can definitely tell there's, uh, levels that separate people and that was, uh, you know, there was, that was, that was a level that I was probably not ready for there. Yeah. Those guys can play. You know, the Clarksville golf and the Gwen name are synonymous, right? Yeah. I mean, your father, Greg has, uh, been with the Clarksville Golf Association, right? Or um, teen years, and he has helped maintain that organization, supported it financially and with his time and where did, where did he get that passion? Is it you, I know you said he just jumped right into golf and stayed there, but is it just something that you know, I think it was really just a match made in heaven, right for how, how his personalities wired. He was, um, you know, it's heavily in sales, right in sales is that you kind of have like a hunting mentality, right? You go out and you, whatever you drag home, you get to eat, right? Yeah. So for him, uh, golf, I would assume a little bit, you know, more individual, right? You go out and it's all dependent upon you, whatever, whatever it takes to get it done. And he's very competitive. And so he, he enjoys that. I think he enjoys the, uh, the trash talk as much as he does, uh, actually, uh, actually playing, uh, actually getting out there and shooting a score. And he's won multiple city titles, different, I mean, from regular titles to senior titles to, you know, you're working on super senior here for a long, if he's not careful. He's not, he's not far off. I've got a, I've got a junior title still looking for that first, uh, still looking for the first, uh, city title. So do you remember, uh, the day you first beat him in golf? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. He's tore up. And you know, it was just like, man, it took me a long time, like a really long time. Uh, it should have been, you know, much sooner, but unfortunately it was not. And I remember he, he was kind of just like, he was moping around. It's terrible. When he was his old man, I'm his kid, you know, finally beat him. And I was like, dad, it's no big deal. I'm like one for a million. Yeah. You've beat me a million times. That's right. You know, the, the times finally come. And everybody knows if they're playing Greg Gwyn and golf, they better be ready. Absolutely. He's coming to win. Yeah. He doesn't, he might, he might have an off day, but mentally this, there's no off days for him. Oh, I, I guarantee you there's not, um, so, you know, you, you're family. It has been in multiple businesses in the community. And you guys have, have supported, uh, our community, uh, you know, I always say financially, but with your time and efforts and, and helped our community grow. Is there one business that you guys have been in that you liked more than another? Or is it just every day something new growing? Yeah. There's, there's always a lot of different things, uh, different things in the, in the, um, you know, the, the family melting pots who speak my, uh, my aunt and uncle, Dana and Trenton. You know, they have a lot of businesses. My aunt, Dawn, dad's, uh, dad's sister also, Dana and Dan, Greg's sister, Dawn. They have, you know, she's an entrepreneur as well. They have a lot of businesses. Yeah. Kids have businesses. Everybody seems to be doing something right for, for me and dad, it's always seemed to be sitting around wasting recycling, whatever that may be. I can remember as a kid, um, getting in the garbage truck after church on Sunday to go and, you know, dump a unloaded dumpster, I think we might have been going to Rafferty's, maybe they were just overflowing and pull up and dad goes in and he's like, "Handy, should you move this car?" And they're like, "Why would I move this car?" He's like, "Well, I'm your trash man." He's wearing like, you know, slacks and a, maybe a button and I'm like, "You're not our trash man." He's like, "Yeah. I'm your trash man." Actually, he's moved that car so he can dump that dumpster. That's right. And I, I can remember doing that as a kid and just seeing that opportunity to serve the community. That was something that's always intrigued me. And so we had an opportunity to partner with the, uh, the Lane family about a year ago and get involved with Stinky Pinky. And so that's, that's been about the last year. We've had the opportunity to work with them. And that's been really cool. And it's been, uh, a real opportunity right to see it where most of the businesses that I was involved with before, we were servicing large businesses or large conglomerate companies to where this is, it's, you know, is far down the chain as we're servicing, you know, one household. Yeah. It's one family at a time, uh, one can at a time. And so that, that's been really cool. And it's not, it's just, not just trash. You do septic stuff too, right? So we have to get as well septic and the portable toilets, uh, so we kind of have two divisions. We have trash division and the septic division. The trash does residential, uh, commercial for businesses and then industrial, you know, roll off and contractors. And then on the septic side, we have a portable toilet division where we send toilets out to job sites, events, and then on septic, you know, that's really how the, how the business was formed originally, uh, Michelle Lane was a plumber and a lot of customers needed help, you know, septic things. A lot of septic problems, um, of course, full is much, much more rural community, uh, 30 years ago. So, you know, just came after that, a septic truck to the mix. Yeah. So how did, how did that business relate to like the metal business you ran? Yeah. So dad originally, dad and Jeff Purvis and Eddie Pace is sort of garbage company when they were Austin P in 1979, uh, his queen seed disposal was the name of it. Um, Jeff ran another iteration of queen seed disposal again. In the, uh, 2013, maybe 2019 and they had started that business. And so when they, they sold that business to waste management, it had worked for them for a few years and then they had a bit of a parting of ways and it was kind of common at that time that a lot of the larger businesses that they would service, whoever made the call on the trash would also make the call on the industrial recycling as well. And so it's kind of the same roll of decks of people there. And so it fit very well to slide over to that and then they did that for 30 years. So, you know, it's, it's hard to believe because I've, I've known, uh, Jeff and Greg for a long time. It's hard to believe they started that 30 years ago. Yeah. Yep. I was three months old when I started it. Really? Yep. Three months old and then you probably had a plastic golf club when you were three months old. That's no telling. No telling. Yeah. I got hand, handprints on the concrete out there. So we, uh, we've been there for a minute. You know, I saw on, uh, one of the, uh, local TV station, the documentary of the, uh, the racetrack, Clarksville Raceway and I saw, I saw Greg and Jeff on there. Were you ever involved in any dirt car racing? No, I can remember when they did some, uh, I think they call it like legend car racing. I can remember it. Yeah. I don't really remember going. I know. And maybe 2000 like seven or eight, Jeff, Jeff did some dirt racing a lot of the speedway and some other spots and we would go out, uh, he was a young son Clay and I would go out with him all the time with cars, all the stuff. So that was, uh, that was about the most of my involvement. A couple of nights at the racetrack would probably, uh, not, not as many as they spent for you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I think about all the things that you're in, you guys are involved in and then you know, of course I see you all the time, but you continue to, uh, grow your education as well. You're not, you're not just sitting on, Hey, I've got a business. I'm trying to succeed. You're trying to gain more knowledge and you're going to Vanderbilt. Yeah. Yeah. So about a two years ago, kind of started that journey, uh, something that I really felt led to where to really have the opportunity to grow, grow my education right. I try to take it, uh, try to learn every day as a lens when I have the opportunity to learn from somebody where if someone's teaching willing to spend their time to teach me something today, I'm going to try to re-teach that to my team tomorrow, uh, just for the pure fact of, you know, Hey, I, I think it can be great, especially if we can take some of these theoretical concepts and bring it into small business America, you know, right here in Clarksville, Tennessee, there's no, there's no reason that we can't take the same type of tools that large corporations use and use them for, you know, the benefit of our community as well. I'm sure that helps you when you're out in our industrial park, trying to make partners or do business with people to kind of understand how big industries work. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. There, there's certain things that they're looking for a certain, there's a certain way they want to be told a story. Right? I think everybody has a story to tell and the better you can articulate that story is going to help you connect with somebody because it, it, it all comes down to the connection and the relationship. Yeah. And every day there's a new business out there. So you got to, you got a hustle. Man. Absolutely. We just, Ari, about one of our sales reps and myself just went and met with Josh Ward over there and they got a lot of stuff cooking over there. Yeah. Over to industrial development board. Yeah. They, and we do, we do some podcasts with them and every, every couple of months or few months, they'll kind of throw us a little nugget out there that we don't, we don't get to see, you know, see on Clarksville now to, we get, sometimes we get it before it gets printed on the online, but have you got some secrets? What you got? No secrets for me. No, no. We're not that close yet. Okay. All right. So, um, tell us about your family. Yeah. So married, uh, married my wife, we set and we met in high school. We were, uh, I was 15 and she was 16. We met. So she, she drove us on our first date and that's good. That's right. Yeah. So we've been, we've been together for a long time. We've got three kids, uh, Amelia Palmer and Sutton, which would be five, four, and one. So we're, uh, we're figuring it out, you know, step up the way. Growing. Yeah. So what, one thing I want to ask you about, you guys went through something a few years ago that, you know, everybody thinks everybody's got the perfect life, right? Yeah. But sometimes you don't. Yeah. And so you had an incident at your house. Tell us kinda. Yeah. What happened there? In 16, we were fortunate we were able to buy a home and we lived in a home and did a lot of renovation myself. Seems like everybody in Clarksville is either an entrepreneur or a, uh, you know, contractor flipping their house. And so we were doing that. We renovated it and one night, uh, we woke up the morning, the fire alarm and we actually, we lost our home to a house fire in 2018 and really coming out of that was a pretty unbelievable experience where we left the home on harm, um, we had, we had our daughter with us, Amelia and our, our dog, we just kind of walked out of the house, got in the truck, backed up, the fire department showed up and the house, you know, kind of was in a bit of a blaze and it burned down. And so it was considered a total loss, uh, but really what we learned out of that was how special this community is, where we had people from all over just showing us love and support like nothing we'd ever seen before. It was, it was absolutely unbelievable. You know, from the, from the phone calls to people sending things, make sure we had everything we needed to go into the rebuild where we were, uh, working with building and codes, you get the house rebuilt, just absolutely unbelievable experience where we had so many people that we talked about, you know, if people would treat each other, like they'd treat somebody after a natural disaster or just a disaster, um, it would be really, really different world. And I think we saw that again coming out of the tornadoes, uh, last December where so many people stepped up to support in ways that was just not what a lot of people expected. Yeah. I think, I think that's a big part of your testimony. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. I was really special. Um, that night, one of our, one of our neighbors just came up just, just to pray with me, you know, as, as we're watching the house and flames and it's just special known, just having that, having that piece of God there where we didn't have, we had our lives and everything else. We weren't, I wasn't even worried about it. You know, we can, we can rebuild it. We can, you know, find more and it was, it's pretty unbelievable where you do it in a spot where you lose everything and then a year later, we've got so much junk in the house. It's like, how did we, how did we, this much stuff, people were just giving us, you know, kids toys and all kind of, you know, clothes, whatever it may be. And she's like, I didn't, I didn't have as much stuff before guys don't. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. And you know, we, during the, after the tornadoes stuff, you know, our community and surrounding communities gave so much to people like Yaypac and, um, some of some other non profits, uh, that they were told, don't bring us anymore. Yeah. We can't, we can't use it all. Absolutely. And it's, I think it's shocking, right? When people, when people see that and when, and again, we have so many, you know, lucky resources that are part of this community and make sure stuff like that happens, like even, you know, of course, while now being able to tell these stories to people, because if the stories aren't told, it's really difficult to connect with the folks. And so Yaypac does a really good job. The local churches do a great job of getting that message out there and getting the help and support to those people. Yeah. We, we do live in a, a, an amazing community. If there was, if there was something in our community that you could, you know, wave your magic wand or something you'd want to see, what, what would you do? Not counting roads. Ooh. And I want to see a, I want to see a pink garbage can at every house. Oh, here he goes. And the sales big right into that, you know, loved, loved the opportunity to service more people in the community. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But, uh, man, you know, I don't know, I've, I've lived in big cities before. I had an opportunity to live in a, I really, well, largely, I, I obtained a live in New York city when I was in Austin, P. And I always said, it was so cool living up there where if you needed something, it was like subway right away, it was no time to get anything you possibly needed in the entire world as you can write within grasp, where now in Clarksville, I actually live here, it was wonderful. And there's not much I want if I need something, you know, we can drive the Nashville one out, Amazon, you just order it online to be here in two days. But I don't know, I would, I would, what I would want to see right is the community to keep growing as it's growing, which is rapidly growth is difficult, whether it's on a community level or a business level or a family level, whatever that may be, it can be really hard. And so on a family level, I would say it's really important to make sure you keep your core, your foundation, you know, for me and my wifely said that that's our faith. And so as we grow, we want to continue to be patient with our children and teach them and educate them in that way for our business. Again, it comes down to head where we want to do things that are going to allow us to be successful tomorrow. And so for the community of Clarksville, I would say I'd love to see it to continue to grow as rapidly as it has, but also be planning and making the, what might be a hard decision now for something in the future that's going to pay off and keep those, you know, I don't know what the projections are, but you had 20, 30, 40% growth in the next couple of years. Yeah. And if we ever lose that community support, like people showing up after a tornado, I'd say we've really lost our compass, but as long as, you know, the church is still growing and people are still coming to Clarksville and feeling the love of Clarksville, we're going to be just fine. Yeah. And you know, a lot of people complain and I probably do some, you know, about traffic and how, how quick we're growing and, and all those things, but there are communities across our nation that are dwindling in losing jobs and losing things. So we're definitely blessed to be in the region we're in. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Clarksville is actually the largest non franchise trash market in the country. So I'd say Clarksville is pretty fortunate that they have the service providers that we do because it all comes down to service at that point. Yeah. And if you have any bad service to stinky pinky, you can quit and sign up with somebody else. Somebody else is giving you bad service. You can quit. Yeah. And I'd love to come set you thin and bring that to you. So it's a full service dependent to more service dependent market where it's services king, right? If we don't provide good service, you can switch where in some other cities, the city bids a trash out and kind of stuck with, you're stuck with for, you know, five to 10 years. What about recycling? Like recycling pickup? I mean, is there services like that? There's a few smaller services for that. It's really difficult right now. Our local landfills manage really, really well, and they keep disposal prices down. So that makes it much more difficult to get things segregated where it's just a lot cheaper to bury it in a responsible way. And that's what I've told folks. I said, really, one of the best spots for waste to go is in a responsibly managed landfill where even by accounting now, you know, they harness the methane that comes off of that. Yeah. I get back onto the grid. It's a resource that we have in this community that's really, really good. And until something crazy happens with waste disposal rates, it'll be the best spot to go for a long time. Well, it's good to hear from a businessman that a function of government is operated well because, you know, the by counties been in the news over the years, you know, there's always something bad it seems like, but it's good to hear something nice about a government agency from someone that uses them. Yeah. They do really well. They manage it well and we just try to keep feeding them trash from the community. Well, I tell you, you know, I appreciate you coming and the Gwen family, you know, is very important to our community and I'm friends with your dad, even though he picks on me and I forgive him and all that. But, you know, I appreciate you taking time to come in, kind of tell your story and, you know, let us hear your vision. Hey, absolutely. Thank you so much for having us in. All right. Appreciate it.