MEMBER PROFILE - Tovar Snow Professionals

Tovar Snow Professionals

PREPARING YEAR ROUND FOR EMERGENCY-STYLE SERVICE

By Paul Anthony Arco

Some people dread the arrival of winter and the mounds of snow that come with it. Not the folks at Tovar Snow Professionals. They live for it.

Tovar is a commercial snow removal company based in Dundee, Ill., with an office in Machesney Park that serves clients from southern Wisconsin to DeKalb.

Tovar Snow Professionals was founded in Elgin by Jeff Tovar in 1990. “Jeff first started a landscaping business and added the snowplowing business four years later,” said Tim Cassell, regional director of business development. “He eventually decided to pick one direction in order to better serve his clients, so in 2000 he sold off the landscaping business. Snow service is intensely involved, and you need a tremendous amount of preparation to provide emergency-style service. That’s what drove him.”

Tovar specializes in providing snowplowing services for more than 3,000 clients including healthcare, retail, financial institutions and corporate offices. It operates 11 offices in Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana and Iowa. UPS and Amazon are two of the company’s largest clients.

In 2020, Tovar merged with Aero Snow, a provider of municipal and facility maintenance services based in Westbury, N.Y. Aero Snow is known for serving some of the country’s largest airports. Thanks to the merger, the company now has 44 locations across the country.

“Jeff wanted to grow to a larger company, while maintaining the same core values,” Cassell said. “This merger is a stepping stone into different markets while maintaining our brand at the same time.”

Competitive Market

There is no shortage of competition in the snow removal business, which makes finding resources a challenge. “A salt shortage has impacted everyone,” he said. “We now purchase a large portion of chemical from Egypt and ship it here to the U.S. We still use local suppliers, but our goal is to have two seasons of chemical on the ground as part of our process.”

Tovar has 1,800 employees, including four full-time and approximately 140 seasonal employees in the Rockford area. The team includes human resources, administration and operational staff as well as seasonal laborers, managers, drivers and equipment operators.

“They are the backbone of our organization,” Cassell said. “We would not be where we are today without our employees. We have a very diverse group of employees with a core that’s been with us for more than 15 years.”

This Year Looking Up

Last year was a tremendous challenge for Tovar. The pandemic put a big strain on its labor force. Many of its clients switched to working remotely. While some companies remained at 100 percent capacity, other clients worked remotely, which meant not all parking lots needed to be salted and plowed at full capacity. Cassell sees a drastic difference this year, which has been evident in the seasonal hiring process. “We hired about 80 percent of our seasonal staff in October already. From a hiring standpoint, we are farther along than we have been in the past,” he said.

Tovar uses a variety of equipment including a large variety of salting capabilities, heavy equipment, snow meltors and specialized sidewalk equipment. “Big to small, we have it all,” said Cassell. The company manufacturers liquid out of its Elgin office and has snow melting capabilities as well. Tovar specializes in a treatment called Zero Tolerance™ a specialized service used by crews to pre-treat and maintain sites prior, during and after the start of a snow fall.

Cassell, who’s been with the company since 2007, predicts Tovar will continue to expand its footprint in the next several years, and he’s excited about the future.

“It’s about the people,” he said. “Tovar is like a second family to me. I’ve built strong relationships both internally and externally over the past 14 years. The intensity and preparation the winter brings, keeps my life full of excitement.”

TOVAR SNOW PROFESSIONALS - Tim Cassell, regional director of business development 10428 Product Dr., Machesney Park 847-695-0080 www.tovarsnow.com