JDog Junk Removal & Hauling in Warren is starting small, but its local franchisees, Navy veterans Matt and Kay Holtyn, are thinking big, even if big only means helping other military veterans.
The Holtyns started JDog last October, remain its only employees, and have yet to break even on the balance sheet.
“(JDog) tells us that we’ll be doing $30,000 in sales every month during the busy season,” Matt Holtyn says. “Our goal this year is to hire and train two reliable employees, preferably veterans. We hope by June to have enough business to add a second crew and another truck.”
Although their balance sheet is in the red, JDog already has done important work for organizations like Vets Returning Home and Homes for Heroic Veterans. In one week, for example, the Holtyns delivered three cubic yards of clothing to Vets Returning Home.
“JDog is a for-profit company but its overarching mission, and its view on things, is what really attracted us,” Holtyn says. “Their first goal is to get veteran unemployment under 1 percent. You have to be a veteran or a child of a veteran to get a franchise. And veteran organizations get the right of first refusal on everything we pick up.”
The arriving material is either recycled, repurposed, scrapped, or sold on Facebook Marketplace at a rate of 60 percent to 80 percent; the rest of the picked up material is sent to refuse yards.
After careers in the military, service continues to be a theme for the Holtyns. The couple met while in the Navy. Kay was a hull maintenance technician and a recruiter, while Matt was a shipboard jack-of-all-trades. He’s currently a civilian firefighter at the U.S. Army’s TACOM facility in Warren.
With retirement looming for Matt, the couple wanted to find a new way to put their service skills to use in their community. That’s when they discovered JDog Junk Removal & Hauling.
Headquartered in Berwyn, Pa., JDog Brands was founded by Army veteran Jerry Flanagan, whose military nickname was JDog, and his wife, Tracy. The brand now has more than 300 franchisees from coast to coast.
“I love that JDog Brands is veteran-centric,” Holtyn says. “I also really love their philosophies and business model, because their main focus was similar to my own. As long as we stay true to our mission statement and goals, we’ll find success. I’m really excited about the giving back aspect of JDog ownership.”
