Published: July 14, 2007 11:09 pm            

Faces of the Flood: Business was born in midst of disaster

Latest in a series on the 1977 Johnstown Flood.

In July 1977, Gary Poborsky was living in a mobile home with his wife and five children.

He had just lost his job.

And then a flood struck Cambria and Somerset counties, leaving a trail of destruction.

“I drove around and saw the devastation,” Poborsky said. “I knew there was a need for a lot of cleanup and a lot of work to be done.”

In the midst of a disaster, he spotted a glimmer of opportunity. Poborsky approached his former employer and somehow, with a minimal down payment, secured the rights to a septic-tank pumper truck.

He had 90 days to come up with the rest of the cash, or he risked losing the vehicle.

So Poborsky offered his services at downtown Johnstown’s former Swank Building, where officials had set up a temporary headquarters after the flood.

“Basically, they said, ‘Have it here tomorrow morning,’ ” he said.

A business had been born, but Poborsky did not know it yet. He simply was trying to put food on the family table and pay his bills on time.

Poborsky hired a small crew and dived into his work. There was no shortage of flooded, muck-filled homes and businesses.

“We would meet down there at 7 a.m. and probably quit around midnight every night,” he said. “That went on for months and months.”

Money remained a problem, though, since no one initially paid Poborsky. He gathered as much cash as he could from everyone he could think of, attempting to keep his truck running.

Finally, he landed a $10,000 loan – basically by borrowing against the value of work he already had performed. It was, Poborsky said with a grin, like suddenly having access to “all the money in the world.”

The operation snowballed from that point. Poborsky began to buy more equipment as his business moved beyond flood-related tasks.

It was on-the-job training, with Poborsky and his crew sometimes learning how to use machinery after they had purchased it.

“We went wherever we had to go to get work,” he said.

Poborsky and his wife, Rose, dubbed the company GAP Pollution and Environmental Control Inc. From its humble beginnings, the company now is a multistate operation employing about 175 people.

In 1989, Poborsky decided to begin building his own pumper trucks. GapVax, based in the city’s Moxham section, has about 70 workers and last year produced 60 trucks.

In addition to those two businesses, Poborsky and his wife own a car dealership, GAP Chevrolet.

In fall 2005, they decided to give something back after watching images of Hurricane Katrina flooding New Orleans.

“It just took me right back to 1977,” Poborsky said.

GapVax constructed a $250,000 pumper truck with assistance from a community fundraising campaign, then donated the vehicle to beleaguered officials in the Big Easy in early 2006.

It was a gift that would have been impossible to imagine in 1977, when Poborsky was struggling to make ends meet in the midst of a tragedy.

He credits his success to the support of his family and employees. But there also was the good fortune of being in the right place at the right time with the right equipment.

“It was hard work and a lot of luck,” Poborsky said.

        

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