On busy days, Joe Lusso works the screen instead of the truck. “Sometimes when the days are busy I’m the one behind the computer just making sure everyone is updated,” he says. The point is to keep jobs moving on time, and he says the company has “a good system” for it.
For a business called Junk Dispatch, the seat fits. Lusso, who owns the Saugus junk removal company by himself, calls it “your local first responders to junk,” and the name carries a plan. He wants to take the company nationwide and staff it with the people the name borrows from: firefighters, police officers and dispatchers who need extra work.
The connection is already part of how the company runs. Lusso says it gives a little of its proceeds to local first responders. The company’s own pages add discounts for active and retired military, firefighters, police and EMS, and describe the name as a standard to live up to, the way first responders show up, size up the situation and get to work.
Dispatching is also the daily job. Reliability is the first thing Lusso names, and to him it mostly means keeping people informed. He credits his past experience for the habit. “Even if we are going to be late, at least telling them and just giving them an update is better than nothing,” he says. Crews wear uniforms and are expected to arrive on time. Lusso says he leads by example, which on the busiest days puts him at the computer.
A customer who hired the company to clear a large pile of construction debris saw that system from her side. She had sent photos, then added to the pile before the crew came. The two workers arrived knowing exactly what was new, and they settled on a new price with her before starting. In her account, the property was cleaned up in less than two hours.
The work Lusso most wants to be known for is apartment cleanouts and commercial warehouse cleanouts. He talks about those jobs in terms of the people standing behind the customer. “If you’re a realtor, then we take care of your clients professionally,” he says. “If you’re a property manager, then we also take care of your tenants professionally.”
Not everything goes to the dump. Lusso says that if something can be donated, it will be. The company lists Savers, the Salvation Army and Cars 4 Kids as donation partners and asks customers to set aside reusable items before the crew arrives. Electronics go to e-waste recyclers, and only what is left ends up at a licensed disposal facility. The trucks cover Essex and Middlesex counties and Boston.
It started with a single pickup truck and a single request, when someone asked Lusso to come haul away some junk. He kept adding trucks from there.
The long-term goal, he says, is to go nationwide while staying “your local first responders to junk.” The plan is to “hire local first responders that need extra work to join and run the company and be a first responder first company, firefighters, cops, anything related to dispatchers,” Lusso says. “That’s why the name is Junk Dispatch.”