When I was traveling for business via the airways on Southwest from Los Angeles to Las Vegas I had a very interesting traveling partner next to me. You know how it’s always a given that you are going to speak to your neighbor when you are on a plane. I noticed that the guy next to me was reading an interesting book that caught my attention. The book was about environmental hazards. Well that raised an eyebrow on me and I couldn’t help but ask him what the book was about. Of course, it was the perfect opportunity to ask when the flight attendant had come by to check on us. He was really kind and explained that he works in the asbestos abatement industry here in Los Angeles. I had a bit of an internal laugh as I had no clue what the heck was asbestos abatement. It was if he was speaking a foreign language to me.
Well, he must have noticed the “dear in the headlight” moment that I was having and he graciously put his book down and began to entertain a conversation with me. He dove right in and asked me if I knew what asbestos abatement was? Of course, I said I didn’t have a clue. That got a laughing response out of him and now the conversation started. He started first by educating me on what exactly asbestos was and where and how it could be found. I was so set back by all the information that he provided me that I now felt as if I was an asbestos abatement expert.
I guess really the first question after all that explanation that came to my mind was how the heck did you get into the asbestos abatement industry. I figured it must have been some sort of family business or something like that. The explanation that he gave me about going into the asbestos abatement industry was quite interesting and just goes to show you that everything happens for a reason. He went on to explain that he was attending the prestige UCLA (University of California Los Angeles) to become a doctor.
As he was going through the idea of becoming a doctor he explained that through that process you have to attend classes that don’t really make sense about the major. Of course, he was in his first 4 years of college and hadn’t gone to medical school just yet. He explained that in one of his biology classes he was assigned to an environmental hazard waste removal company and do a research paper about the business.
As he was visiting the hazardous waste removal company he stumbled on to the asbestos abatement team that was just completing an asbestos project on an older building downtown in Los Angeles. He got to see first hand how all the samples from the asbestos abatement project were gathered and processed. He also was curious to find out how much these individuals that collected the asbestos were being paid. It was there that he found out that the majority of all of the hazardous removal jobs were covered by insurance and their salaries were pretty large. He also found that the jobs were in access of $10,000 minimum all the way into the hundreds of thousands. After asking such detailed questions, he then realized that maybe this was the way to go rather than to pursue a hefty school loan debt from becoming a doctor. With his current education, a career in asbestos abatement was well within reach without such staggering cost’s.
I have to say that I was totally impressed with the conversation that I had with this gentleman and his decision to go into the asbestos abatement industry. When we were getting ready to get off of our short flight, he handed me his card. To my surprise, he is owner and operator of Environmental Pros in Los Angeles. Glad he followed his dreams.
If you want to know additional information on asbestos abatement in Las Vegas, you will find this article extremely interesting.