Justin Abercrombie
Former Air Force Jet Mechanic Soars with New Business Venture
story by JEANNE REYNOLDS photos by JOHN WOLLWERTH
People become entrepreneurs for many reasons: the chance to earn more, hold the reins, or fill a market need. For Justin Abercrombie, it was all that — plus a song by country music artist Cody Johnson and a life-changing serious illness.
A little more than a year ago, Abercrombie discovered he has ulcerative colitis after months of pain and a 30-pound weight loss. Soon after his diagnosis, he was driving down the road when Johnson’s “’Til You Can’t” came on the radio. The song’s lyrics about chasing your dreams while you can — struck a deep chord with Abercrombie. He enjoyed his job as operations manager for a waste company in Greenville, South Carolina — “I treated the company like it was my own,” he says — but he realized there was no opportunity for advancement.
“Several members of my wife’s family had moved to Beaufort, and there were two things I’d always told her: I’ll never own my own business, and I’ll never live in Beaufort,” he says. “But I went home and talked with her, and she was 100 percent supportive. We sold our house in one day, moved to Lady’s Island, and started a business from scratch with zero customers.”
Last October, Abercrombie launched a residential and commercial waste removal and dumpster rental company he named River Bend Waste, a nod to his own surname, a Scottish term meaning “mouth of the bendy river.” The company provides waste and recycling removal from homes or businesses on a weekly basis; junk removal; dumpster rentals for homeowners doing renovations or garage cleanouts, and contractors with new construction, remodels, and roofing jobs; and landscaping material delivery such as mulch, rock, and sand.
“I knew this area was growing, and there was opportunity here,” Abercrombie says. “It was very scary, but I felt it was time to try it.”
FLYING BLIND
Becoming a small business owner for the first time with a wife and four small children to support isn’t the first step into the unknown for Abercrombie. He enlisted in the Air Force straight out of high school in the summer 2001 — just before the September 11 attacks. A few weeks later, he found himself doing basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas.
“There was a sense of urgency because of 9/11,” he recalls. “I was scared, leaving home for the first time. As civilians, we have no idea what’s involved in war. I was kind of in shock.”
After additional training in Texas and Arizona, Abercrombie returned to the Palmetto State for his first duty station at Shaw Air Force Base in Sumter, where he served as a Senior Airman mechanic for F-16 fighter jets. He describes his military career as a series of constant changes, being outfitted for a station in Alaska one day, only to be told the next that his unit was going to Saudi Arabia instead.
“No one in our unit had ever been to war. We were all going in blind,” he says. “We went from working eight-hour days to 12- to 16-hour days in 130-degree heat. I wasn’t in a combat zone, but just not knowing what’s going to happen next was hard.”
“You give up your life for a certain period of time, but you get so much,” he adds. “The team building is huge. It’s a brotherhood. You’re part of something bigger than yourself, you’re rallying around your team for a shared cause. You’re doing a job, so these conflicts don’t come to our homes, our families, and our communities.”
After four years, Abercrombie took advantage of a program for service members who want to change branches or leave the service for college. He attended night school at Southern Wesleyan University near Clemson while working as a children’s pastor at a T-shirt printing company, and finally at Carolina Environmental Systems, where he learned the waste management and trash truck business.
In 2008, he married his wife, Jordan. They’re now raising four children: son, Hudson, 9, and daughters Charlie, 6; Lena, 3; and Remi, 1.
River Bend Waste has been a family business from the start, operated together by the husband-and-wife team. But the family ties don’t stop there.
“My mother-in-law gets up at 3 a.m. on Mondays to ride in the truck with me and help me with the trash route,” Abercrombie says. “I also worked with my father-in-law’s construction company, Precision Design, for a few months while we got the business off and running. I certainly wouldn’t be doing so well if not for his help.”
Now open for less than a year, the company has 75 customers so far and relies on positive word-of-mouth advertising to grow.
“I have personal relationships with our customers. They’re not a dollar sign, they’re like family,” Abercrombie says. “People need to know they have options. We want to give customers a ‘Chick-fil-A experience.’ We want people to have peace of mind. When you become a customer, that should be the last time you think about your trash. You can give people more than you promise, but you can never give less.”
LOVING THE LOWCOUNTRY
Despite his earlier reservations about living in Beaufort, the Lowcountry lifestyle now appears to have a firm hold on Abercrombie and his family. “We have a boat and love to be out on the water,” he says. “We love Hunting Island and anything outdoors. There’s so much here you can do for free.”
Renovating their fixer-upper home in the Royal Pines neighborhood is another active pursuit —one that could someday lead to yet another business opportunity of flipping homes, Abercrombie says. In fact, the willingness to step out of his comfort zone seems to be a common thread throughout his career and his life.
“I’m not a ‘trash man.’ I’m just a person who saw an opportunity in the industry,” Abercrombie says. “This industry will go beyond hard times because there’ll always be a need for it. We’re growing something honest and know God will bless us — and he already has.”
For more information about River Bend Waste visit riverbendwaste.com or call (843) 962-2033.
The Abercrombies were dressed for the photos in this story by Blush Room Boutique, shopblushroom.com.
