He said it’s not just hurricanes that can cause power outages, although they are probably the greatest cause; "but anybody who lives in South Florida knows we get thunderstorms all throughout the year." For that reason, it’s imperative that businesses properly maintain their fuel tanks and make sure they have sufficient fuel capacity.

 

As Watson said, few regulations had been in place until Hurricane Katrina hit and people understood that generators could fail. Regulations for hospitals increased after Katrina, but when Hurricane Irma came along, they realized it wasn’t just hospitals that needed guidelines. "Some of the rules and regulations that were initially geared toward hospitals have been extended out to other health care facilities, like nursing homes and rehab centers.

 

"They used to just focus on people who were on ventilators or medical-dependent equipment. But then they figured you might have a nursing home where nobody is on a ventilator, but you do have elderly people who are bedridden or ones who aren’t mobile, and you don’t have AC for three or four days in August in South Florida – and all of a sudden people realized a lot of different things go into being in a healthy environment."

 

These situations initiated many facilities being required to increase their back-up generator situations and their fuel storage situations. Some facilities needed to increase the generator size, which required more fuel, while some had sufficient generator size but didn’t have an adequate quantity of fuel storage to last for the extended amount of time now required.

 

GPS can make sure everything is in place and that businesses are compliant with the new regulations, but Watson clarified, "We aren’t the ones to say you need a certain size of tank for your facility; our area of expertise isn’t determining how long you have to have fuel for. A customer doesn’t come to us and ask, ‘what do we need’; the customer comes and says ‘I need this,’ and we provide it."

 

 Because it is a full-service company, GPS handles everything associated with fuel tanks, including installation, removal, repairs, cleaning, and inspections. Watson said, "We can help in many ways, we’re a turnkey fuel storage solution. Not only can we polish your fuel and have it tested by a third-party lab, but we can also do installation of the whole fueling system. So we know your tanks, we know your pipes, we know your pumps, we know your fuel, what you use fuel for, how much you use. We know the whole system from A to Z, which gives us an advantage when it comes time to clean the system because we know how it works."

 

Watson said probably their biggest advantage to the customer is their overall knowledge of the customer’s fueling systems. "It’s not that we come out to clean your fuel but don’t know much about the tanks, the pumps, the price. You can take care of everything with one company, or piecemeal it with other companies."

 

Watson said more and more businesses are realizing how vital it is to manage their fuel needs, and the industry as a whole doesn’t need as much education as it previously did. He said he used to call on a facility and they would say I don’t need to do that, my fuel’s never been bad, I’m not worried about it. "Lately you don’t get the flat-out refusal or the denial that the service is needed. So that’s a good change in the industry, and I think you see that on a lot of different levels, not just health care, but in every industry. There’s a lot more education available at people’s fingertips."

 

He added, "That’s good for us, because we don’t have to focus so much on trying to convince people of what they have to do; we are able to concentrate more on providing the service that they know they need. So we switched gears from trying to educate people, to providing good service and keeping in compliance, and making sure everybody is happy."