New Orleans's Sidney Torres IV is an artist
when it comes to making garbage disappear.
BUZZING AROUND the French Quarter in his tricked-out Polaris
Ranger, Sidney Torres IV - his film-star good looks as notable as
his familial Roman numeral - is chasing garbage trucks. "There it
is!" he shouts, throwing pedal to the metal. "That's one of ours!"
As we approach the back of the vehicle, its chrome wheels catch the
sunlight and its pristine black exterior gleams like a freshly
polished grand piano. The signature bull logo (Torres's ancestors,
he tells me, were bullfighters) along with the initials SDT, for
Sidney Donecio Torres, can be spied from several key angles. It's
unlike any garbage truck I've ever seen. Then again, Torres is no
ordinary waste-management CEO.
Just back from vacation in
the Bahamas (something he rarely takes),
his skin glowing behind black Armani sunglasses, Torres is doing
for garbage what CNBC's "Money Honey,"
Maria Bartiromo, did for
Wall Street: making humdrum work - and in Torres's case, downright
dirty work - sexy.
When I cease being distracted by this improbable scenario, I begin
to notice what Torres has brought me out here, at six a.m., to see:
absolutely nothing. Not a cup. Not a piece of paper. No indication
that we are in the heart of the postweekend French Quarter in a
city that still suffers in reputation - often unfairly - for being
filthy and unsafe.
Torres's metamorphosis into Mr. Clean emerged out of equal parts
necessity and entrepreneurial spirit. A
real estate hotshot and the
owner of three hotels when Hurricane Katrina hit in August 2005,
Torres was facing a growing mountain of garbage in the aftermath of
the disaster. When he researched much-needed waste pickup for his
hotels in the absence of government service, he found "the prices
were insane," he says So, he bought his own truck. Upon discovering
that people were desperate for efficient, affordable garbage
collection, he soon purchased another truck. Then he submitted the
winning bid to collect garbage in
New Orleans's neighboring St.
Bernard Parish. Before he knew it, his SDT Waste and Debris
Services had secured an annual $9 million, 10-year city contract
for the French Quarter and beyond.
Torres's unabashed enthusiasm surely plays a role in his success.
"I love the garbage business," he blurts out merrily. "We're adding
class to trash!" Torres's newfound passion is even more incongruous
given his youth (32) and his résumé: In his late teens, he led a
rock-and-roll lifestyle as personal assistant to music legend Lenny
Kravitz.
"For Kravitz it was a business," explains Torres, "but for me it
was a nonstop party. I hit rock bottom and knew I had to stop." So
Torres went straight, turning his attention away from drugs and
toward mentoring atrisk youth and purchasing real estate.
I FIRST MET TORRES in 2000, when he was just opening a second
boutique hotel, Hotel Royal, an 1827 Creole town house in the
French Quarter. I was staying at his other property, Melrose
Mansion, an impeccably restored Victorian manor where a
six-foottall, tuxedo-and-ball-gown-wearing papiermâché couple greet
you at the entrance and a life-size wooden farmer lurks in the
hallway. I was immediately struck by Torres's style - elegant with
unexpected flashes of whimsy. Torres was one of several young
businesspeople accenting a city reputed for its traditional jazz
roots and old-world charm with a more youthful, hip vibe.
Post-Katrina, Torres is among a group of young residents committed
to a new vision for their city - only today the challenge is to
reinvent New Orleans's image rather than bolster it. Nicolas
Perkins, a 36-yearold Tulane University graduate and serial
entrepreneur who brokered a deal selling his last employer to
Microsoft for somewhere in the hundreds of millions, chose to base
his revolutionary new online trading company, the Receivables
Exchange, in New Orleans. And real estate mogul and hotelier Sean
Cummings (owner of the International House and Loft 523) is
overseeing a massive new waterfront project aimed at reconnecting
the iconic
Mississippi River to New Orleans and its residents.
Linked by a dedicated vision, these businessmen are also
perfectionists. Torres runs his company with the precision of a
German- Swiss watch and virtual omniscience, thanks to a $500,000
custom surveillance system that lets him track just about every
discarded to-go cup and beaded necklace in the Quarter. "At first
my staff was wary of the system," admits Torres, "like they were
being watched. But I explained that it wasn't about spying on them
- it was about doing the best job possible."
Maintaining a crew of supervisors to oversee the street sweepers,
garbage collectors, pressure washers, and hand crew, Torres likens
his methods to doing battle. "If you listen to the radio, everybody
is in communication. The supervisors are constantly talking and
know where everyone is. It's like fighting a war - positions are
known at all times." So much so that SDT's new corporate
headquarters in St. Bernard Parish houses a war room armed with 20
flatscreen monitors displaying everything from the
GPS surveillance
system to weather and traffic channels. The command center is even
capped off with a rooftop helipad. "It looks like you can launch a
space shuttle from there," laughs Torres.
A decidedly atypical garbage kingpin, Torres is also far from the
typical boss. Listening to him do shout-outs to his workers, who
don stylish uniforms - black pants, SDT-logo tops, and an SDT hat
(Torres insists that his garbage staff display the same polished
look as his hotel staff ) - he seems more like a musician
connecting with his band members (okay, maybe sound crew) than like
a garbage boss surveying his staff. Torres emanates - on the
surface, at least - a "we're all in this together" vibe, insisting
he will never ask a staff member to perform a task he himself is
not willing to do.
"You just don't expect to see a guy who looks like that and is
worth all that money being out there on the garbage trucks," says
George Segers, co-owner of Tommy's Flowers. "But he is, and he's
doing a fantastic job. The French Quarter has never been cleaner -
and that includes pre-Katrina!" It's a sentiment shared by most
French Quarter residents and shop owners, as well as by the city
itself, which made Torres grand marshal of a Mardi Gras parade
honoring SDT and others for their behind-the-scenes work for the
city.
Though he collects the kudos, Torres knows good people are
essential to his success. Every month, he runs an ad in the local
paper to highlight the employee of the month - an honor that comes
with a $500 bonus. His staff earn more than they would at any other
waste-management company in the state. And virtually every employee
is local. "They approach their jobs," says Torres, "as an
investment in the city's rebirth." To that end, Torres is now
recycling at his transfer station and is in the process of testing
a biodiesel truck. If it's a success, the entire fleet will go
green.
Another key to Torres’s success is that he exceeds expectations. “The industry standard is to do the bare minimum,” he says. “If a company empties a trash can and drops a bottle in the process, odds are they’ll leave it behind. With us, we go the extra mile. In some areas we even power-wash the trash cans and spray them with a fragrant disinfectant. It’s not in the contract, but it makes a difference and people appreciate it. Do something because it’s the right thing to do, and it will come back to you tenfold.”
Torres’s mantra appears to be working. He’s expanding his company within
Louisiana and plans to go national in five years. When he’s asked how he could ensure the same meticulousness if he were to expand the company to that extent, he simply says, “That’s why they invented helicopters.