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Perimeter Business | 5
JULY.22-AUGUST4,2016 ■ www.ReporterNewspapers.net
JOHN RUCH
Sandy Springs resident Wesley Bloeme, who started College Student Pressure Washing
in 2014 to help reduce college debt, plans on continuing the business after graduation.
Student’s pressure-washing
company cleans up college debt
BY JOHN RUCH
johnruch@reporternewsjjapers.net
In 2014, Sandy Springs resident Wes
ley Bloeme didn’t know much about
pressure washing. But he knew a lot
about the student debt facing him as he
attended Maryville College in Tennes
see.
Now the young entrepreneur has
turned a summer job into College Stu
dent Pressure Washing, a business that
employs two other students and has him
on track to graduate next year debt-free.
“I always wanted to have my own
business since I was a small boy,” said
Bloeme, a graduate of Buckhead’s Christ
the King School and Sandy Springs’ Riv-
erwood high school. In part, that was be
cause of his parents’ entrepreneurship:
Father Peter Bloeme is co-founder of the
Atlanta Rocks! indoor climbing gym,
and mother Lynn Duran is an indepen
dent public relations specialist.
In the summer of 2014, a friend sug
gested to Bloeme that they mow lawns
to make some cash. Bloeme figured that
most local homeowners already have
mowing contracts, and he wanted a lon
ger-term money-making opportunity.
He saw a market for pressure washing,
even though he knew nothing about the
machines, which use pressurized water
to clean outdoor surfaces.
Bloeme said that summer, he got a
small pressure-washer from a friend’s
aunt and found a first customer. “I
didn’t even know how to turn it on until
I got to the job,” he said.
Since then, Bloeme has learned a lot
more about the business and has been
successful enough to invest $20,000 in
equipment. Meanwhile, he’s made col
lege loans part of his sales pitch. The
company’s logo is a man using a pres
sure-washer to free his ankle from a ball
and chain labeled “student debt.”
During the summer, his busi
ness operates in Buclchead, Broolchav-
en and Sandy Springs. The compa
ny has cleaned entire neighborhoods
in Broolchaven and Sandy Springs for
homeowners associations, he said.
During the school year, Bloeme
doesn’t stop working; he just shifts busi
ness to the area of his college, which is
near Knoxville, Tenn. He cut a deal with
a local storage unit company to let him
keep his washing rig there in exchange
for cleaning the facility. Describing his
workload from earlier this year, Bloeme
made it clear a big work ethic is re
quired.
“I play on the college tennis team. I
had my full course load of classes and
was working 40 hours a week,” he said.
Even so, something had to give. It was
Bloeme’s position as placekiclcer on the
school’s football team. “It’s more impor
tant for me to graduate debt-free than to
be an all-conference player,” he said.
The booming business was one influ
ence on Bloeme’s choice of a major in fi
nance and accounting. He intends to put
those skills to use continuing the busi
ness after graduation next spring.
“I see myself continuing it on,” he
said. “I plan on coming back to Sandy
Springs, coming home, just growing the
business down there.”
But will it still be called “College Stu
dent Pressure Washing” when Bloeme is
no longer a student?
“I’ve thought about it. I want to keep
it,” he said of the name. “I want to con
tinue the mission of [hiring] guys who
can graduate without, or minimize, stu
dent debt.”
For more information about Bloeme’s
business, see collegestudentpressure-
washing.com.
►
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