CLEAN SWEEP

Clean Sweep
09/ 27/ 2005
by Jodie Davis

Most entrepreneurs don’t think it’s good for business to hear reports of anthrax, terrorism and rising crime. Unless, that is, you’re Ron Gospodarski, a licensed paramedic and owner of Bio-Recovery Corporation, a professional crime-scene cleaner in Woodside, N.Y.While working as the operations manager for the New York City district attorney’s office, Gospodarski started researching potential businesses. "I remembered going to these crime scenes and seeing the paramedics throw their dirty gloves on the street after responding to an accident, and I thought, 'Somebody has to clean this up."Working out of an office in his bedroom, Gospodarski started Bio-Recovery Corp. in 1996 with less than a $10,000 investment. Today, he owns several cleaning trucks and has six full-time employees and a slew of part-time and on-call workers.So what’s a day in the life of a professional cleaner like? "We deal with a lot of gory stuff, from blood and body fluids to anthrax, bio-virus cleanups and mold remediation," says Gospodarski, whose revenues have risen by 450% since starting nine years ago.But cleaning isn’t limited to crime scenes anymore. Bio-Recovery Corp. also performs routine clean-room sanitation for surgical centers and does structural drying and mold remediation for flood-damaged buildings. He even cleans cruise ships contaminated with the Norwalk virus, a foodborne disease that can spread quickly on ships."We’ve expanded into markets we never thought we’d get involved in," Gospodarski says. “Our customers know we have the best knowledge base to handle almost any hazardous clean-up--so they use us instead of traditional remediation companies.“The best thing about this business is that it’s sort of recession proof,” Gospodarski says. “Whether the economy is up or down, there are always situations that involve dangerous bodily fluids, viruses and biohazards. And, there’s a sense of fulfillment that comes from the work. Someone’s got to snuff out nasty organisms that threaten the public.”