It’s 10:30 a.m. on a Wednesday morning in Decatur. The sky is slightly overcast, and birds chirp overhead in a large residential subdivision. A quiet lull settles over the cul-de-sac.
But that wouldn’t last long.
A white F-250 with the words “GoGoJunkRemoval.com” in bright red, hauling a large dump trailer, came down the hill, stopping at a home. Tyron Holmes got out of the truck, greeted his client with a smile, and got to work.
“How you doing this morning?” Holmes said.
Holmes and his working partner, Zay, quickly cleared the debris from the client’s driveway, which included everything from old produce-filled grocery bags to an old ottoman.
Holmes told The Atlanta Voice that he’s not new to the junk removal business.
“Been running this business over eight years,” Holmes said as he and Zay drove the junk to the Seminole Landfill to recycle the abundance of throwaways in the back of his trailer.
For almost a decade, the company has been responsible for positively servicing metro Atlanta and surrounding cities across the state.
However, the concept of GoGo Junk Removal is one that even Holmes didn’t originally anticipate.
“I originally started out doing plumbing. I was a certified plumber,” Holmes said. “I was making a good amount of money plumbing.”
A native of Macon, Holmes learned the plumbing trade while incarcerated for ten years during his early 20s.
“I was young and just influenced by the wrong things in the street,” Holmes says with a grin on his face. Perhaps the smirk is driven by the fact that over 30 years after being out of jail, he’s made a good name for himself as a 54-year-old business owner.
“God really had to sit me down and get me back on the right path,” he said while reflecting on that period of his life.
After being released from jail in the late ’90s, at around the age of 22, Holmes would go on to use the skills he learned from plumbing while incarcerated to earn his state plumbing certification.
“I became one of the top plumbers in Macon,” Holmes said. Holmes’ credibility would soon be heard about by a plumbing company in Atlanta, bringing him to the city in the late 2000s.
It wasn’t until after over a decade of residing here in Atlanta that Holmes would birth GoGo Junk Removal.
“I noticed that after a lot of the plumbing repairs were done in houses, they needed someone to throw away a lot of the leftover trash,” Holmes said.
2017 marked the first year of business for GoGo Junk Removal, specializing in removing general junk, construction debris, and weather debris.
“It was OK at first starting out,” Holmes said, as the business was fairly small and had a well-established communal presence in Decatur.
“The more I started to grow and get commercial attention, my competition level went up,” Holmes said. GoGo Junk Removal began to face competition from large white-owned national junk removal businesses, with GoGo being one of the very few Black-owned junk removal businesses.
“This business has its ups and downs,” said Holmes. Matters such as down seasons, a website hacking attempt, unexpected repair costs of equipment, and false generalizations about being Black-owned are just a few of the obstacles Holmes faces as a business owner.
“Often people think because we’re Black, we’re going to slack,” said Holmes when reflecting on some of the common misconceptions he hears about Black-owned businesses.
“We been in business for over five years, and you know they say if a business makes it past five years, they’re likely to stay successful,” says Holmes, slowly followed by a mild chuckle.
Perhaps GoGo’s nearly decade of success comes as no surprise, as he prides himself on not just having a junk removal business to generate income, but to mainly help the community and those around him. A consistent churchgoer, Holmes mentions that he’s always giving free advice to the youth at his church on starting a business and the value of working for themselves.
“I try to give the people in my community an opportunity,” said Holmes.
This is something his employees can testify to as well. “I learned from Tyron how to professionally conduct yourself when doing business, even in your appearance,” GoGo employee Lazarian Bloodsaw said.
Holmes’ motive in the junk removal business is deeper than just collection and disposal. Most importantly, it’s about treating people with respect and setting a good example for those that work for his business.
“It’s my responsibility to keep the business going and organized for them. They have kids and families to feed just like I do,” Holmes said.