Stephen Ard In nearby Lee County, railroad cars constantly carry garbage from New York and New Jersey for burial in the Allied Waste landfill near Bishopville. Solid waste management is big business in South Carolina, big enough to sell access out of state.

Stephen Ard works in solid waste management, but he picks up his waste in greater Columbia, and he dumps his waste in the Waste Management landfill near Elgin.

Ard was born in Columbia's Baptist Hospital. His father started Ard's Sanitation in 1960, serving mostly Lower Richland. For most of Ard's childhood, the family lived behind the Veteran's Hospital. Ard's mother was the company bookkeeper when he was a toddler, but she branched out into insurance when he was a teenager.

Ard's older sister by one year, Debbie, lives in Wisconsin. And his older sister by three years, Lisa, works in accounting at First Citizens Bank in Columbia.

Ard began school at Kirkland Kindergarten in Olympia. He began elementary school at Meadowfield and continued at Sandhills and Heathwood. He attended two years at Hand Jr. High and another four years at Dreher High School.

At age 13, Ard began helping in the family sanitation business, mostly hauling trash cans. At age 18 he began driving a truck full- time. He worked an average of 45 hours a week in the all- residential side of the solid waste business.

Ard's Sanitation had usually four or five drivers and about 20 employees. They served 9,000 homes per week, dropping by different times for garbage, recycled waste, and yard debris. Ard's Sanitation took the homes on one side of the railroad tracks and Bluff Road, and Johnson's Garbage took care of the other side.

In 1993, the rules changed somewhat, and Ard had to get a commercial driver's license suitable for his industry.

When he turned 30, Ard had to make a transition from the family business to his own operation. Ard's Sanitation, his father's firm, lost its contract with the 9,000 homes in Lower Richland to Southland Sanitation. Ard's father retired comfortably, and Ard took a vacation to clear his head for new directions.

Ard married Jessica, a Richland One pre- kindergarten school teacher. Their daughter Kathryn is seven years old and entering the second grade this fall.

Ard returned to school at Midlands Tech to study business management and marketing. He finished school and founded his business, Ard's Container Service, which was targeted at the commercial and industrial sectors, none of the residential he learned with his father.

To study his potential market, Ard surveyed 50 prospective customers, and just about all of them were unhappy with their waste pick- up services, particularly with the unexpected add- on charges for fuel, environmental factors, and administrative overhead. In other words, many waste haulers could win the bid with a low- cost offer, but then the add- ons would surface, something like new annoying change orders in construction after the winning low- ball bids.

Ard operates his business from his office at 1220 Laurel Street, the home of the USC/Midlands Tech business incubator. He's on the ground floor about where the city's water department used to be. It's a two- year program, and Ard has had his two years, so he can continue to pay rent and prepare to move whenever the need for his space is announced.

Working 65- hour weeks, Ard has little time for recreation. What time he can spare, he shares with his family.

A big shift is about to hit his business on September 1 when the City of Columbia discontinues its front- loader waste pick- up service for the private sector. Columbia City Council recently determined it was losing too much money for too many years providing the dis- count service to private customers. The city will auction off six or seven trucks, keeping two for its own needs.

A new front- loader can cost $250,000, and the city's used trucks should find eager buyers at auction prices. Ard has been distributing marketing materials to the city's customers ever since the announcement came down the city was getting out of the business.

During the course of

the interview with The

Columbia Star, Ard took a call from a homebuilder in Lugoff. The builder wanted a roll- off container with 30 cubic yards of waste capacity left at his construction site for a week, maybe ten days at the most. He expected Ard to pick it up at that time and dump it. How much? $325 all- inclusive, or all- in, as they say at the poker table.

Deal, said the builder.