February 18, 2025 • 29 mins
"We've designed the bathroom to be agnostic to the environment in which it goes. There are certainly other operational considerations the further out you go, but there's really no fundamental limitation as to where we put a throne."
Bathrooms in parks are rarely the focus of innovation, but I was eager to dive into this unexplored territory with guests Jessica Heinzelmann and Fletcher Wilson from Throne Labs. Together, they are revolutionizing bathrooms, transforming them from mundane necessities into seamless, data-driven experiences for park visitors. Read the blog for more from this episode about how they are helping rethink park restrooms.
Notable Moments
06:21 Rethinking Bathroom Infrastructure
08:04 User-Driven Feedback Systems to Ensure Cleanliness
11:16 Addressing the Needs of Women and Families
15:57 Creating a Quick, Hassle-Free Bathroom Solutions
20:20 Smart Bathrooms Enhance Experience and Opportunities
22:29 Automated Park Lockdown System
Connect with ThroneLabs
LinkedIn Jessica Heinzelman
LinkedIn Fletcher Wilson
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Welcome to the Park Leader Show where we are changing the landscape
of leadership in parks and conservation. I'm your host,
Jody Mayberry, and I have two guests with me this
time, which isn't common. But we have a very
important topic to talk about, and that is bathrooms.
And that's such a big topic we needed two people. We have
(00:25):
Jessica Heinzelmann and Fletcher Wilson from
Throne Labs. You'll find out soon enough about Throne Labs. But,
Jessica, let's start with you. First, hello. And second,
tell us about your history with the outdoors. Oh,
well, I've always loved the outdoors. I grew up
in kind of suburban area that, you know, an
(00:47):
afternoon was going out for a walk up, what we called Windy
Hill, and it was, you know, one of the places that we could
go spend time and be together as a family. So,
yeah, that pretty much sums it up. Yeah.
Well, it's wonderful. The the the one of the reasons I asked that
even when it's not a park professional on, is just
(01:09):
to show that we all have some story of
being connected to the outdoors, and and I I
think that will come across as well when we talk about this. So, Fletcher,
what about you? What is your history with the outdoors? Well,
my father was an Eagle Scout, so he he would bring I grew up in
in Virginia, and he would bring us camping in various locations.
(01:31):
And I think maybe felt that his camping
skills were even better than they really were due to his background in in as
an Eagle Scout. So we got into some tricky situations with bears
or setting up a tent in the rain, But mostly, I just remember
fond memories of fly fishing and long hikes with my
dad. So I I think he he brought me up kind of admiring the
(01:53):
outdoors and sleeping outside. And I now have some young children, and I'm waiting for
them to get about a year or two older until it's time to take them
as well. And one quick recommendation. I feel like one
of my most traumatic memories of childhood was my
mom sent me on my first backpacking trip with my father when I was about
eight years old. And pertaining to this conversation,
(02:15):
no one yet had taught me how to go to the bathroom outdoors, and my
father was not equipped to give me advice. And I'll
spare the audience the details, but it didn't end well.
We've all been there. Who would have known that that little
incident at eight years old would lead you to what you do
now? My goodness. That's true. Well,
(02:38):
every park has one thing in common, and that's
a bathroom, a comfort station, a CXT, an outhouse,
a pit toilet, a porta potty. In some form or
another, we all have bathrooms or restrooms,
multiple forms of them. Our friends in Canada
often call them washrooms, which we tend to call
(02:59):
them restrooms in the state. But I've spent a lot of time in Canada
in 02/2024, and and I picked up some of their lingo.
So I'm almost bilingual now, being able to speak Canadian
and American. Well, so let's talk about
so Throne Labs makes the throne
bathroom. And I mentioned all these other forms of
(03:22):
bathrooms that we have. What is different about a throne
bathroom? Yeah. So, yeah, we we wanted to add
another option on that list that you just mentioned and to solve a couple
particular problems. But to paint a picture, the throne is
a really nice indoor bathroom that you might find, say, in a
hotel lobby, but it can be placed anywhere and,
(03:45):
very quickly and flexibly. So it's not connected to infrastructure.
It doesn't need to connect into waste and water systems. It's solar
powered for all the the power needed to run onboard, and it's
smart. So another piece of what we do is leverage modern
technology and sensors to monitor the health of the throne so
that our team can make sure the throne is functioning properly
(04:06):
wherever it is. And the other thing we do is we leverage
real time feedback from the users using it to tell us when it
needs to be cleaned or if there's other issues. And so Throne, the company,
is providing all the services required to keep a bathroom
functioning and clean and allowing someone maybe running a
park to place these single use bathrooms. So it's not a a
(04:29):
facility of multiple bathrooms. It's a single use a fully ADA
compliant bathroom that can be put anywhere, and you can put multiple
across a park and distribute them as needed, for kind of your foot
traffic needs. But Thrown takes care of everything. And for the user,
flushing toilet, running water sink, mirror, lights,
HVAC, and even music and touchless entry
(04:52):
and exit. So all these nice features that keep, you know, folks in your
park there longer, happy. You know, parents with children can come
in and use them. We have a baby changing table. We provide other amenities,
often free menstrual products, and really just try to make it a
really familiar indoor bathroom experience, but take the hassle
of installing capital equipment out of the hands of of
(05:14):
someone maybe running a park or or other municipal agencies. What this
reminds me of a little bit is at Walt Disney World, they
have sensors in all of their trash cans, so
the custodial cast members can just pull up an iPad
and see which trash cans need the bag
changed. And it saves, one, it it saves a lot of time
(05:35):
because they don't have to go check everyone. They know, and it happens so much
quicker. And we don't have a whole lot of examples yet
of that sort of technology entering into parks, but I
can see where a thrown bathroom is a
step in that direction. Technology helping
serve our visitors and keep bathrooms clean and and
(05:57):
just to serve better because we bathrooms are always a
challenge. Parks are more popular now than they have been in
a very long time, and we have more visitors in the same amount of
bathrooms. Where did this idea come from? What
problem did ThroneLab set out to solve?
I'll let Oetcher take this on it. It's his it's his brainchild.
(06:21):
Well, I think the it's also it was my problem, originally that
got us thinking about it, which was I'm one of those people that
just, often finds myself out and about and needing to use a bathroom. Let's just
leave it at that. And my I like to say my my GI system is
my worst system. So I'm the Larry David of the group, always sort of out
and about, kinda complaining about whatever bathrooms are there and and
(06:42):
really felt that you know, you look around at porta potties
or other bathroom options, and it it felt to me that some
combination of of modern technology and modular manufacturing
could allow us to to really rethink bathroom infrastructure
in a more flexible and kind of user centric way. I think
that the traditional portable sanitation industry has solved the flexibility
(07:06):
part, but we believe has sort of left the user out of the
equation as an important stakeholder. And so we've we really do
everything we can to make the bathroom experience great for the user because, you
know, it really started from a place of knowing what it's like when
you really need a bathroom and and one's not there, or you really need a
bathroom and one is is so terrible to use that you're, you know, not happy
(07:28):
to go in. Yeah. And I think, you know, when I heard this idea from
Fletcher, I was really intrigued. Other than my early
issue in the outdoors and the desolation wilderness in the
Tahoe area, I've had a pretty easy time with bathrooms throughout
my life. I'm not particularly fickle. I have a fairly strong
bladder, but did start talking to a number of friends
(07:51):
and realized what a problem it was for people. And I think there's been a
lot more interesting research since then. You know, forty four percent of
people feel anxious when they have to use the restroom outside of other
home. And so really just got interested in that. And I had worked
on how to use primarily communication technologies
to solve the world's big problems, a lot of
(08:13):
work in international development and social media, and
really saw this opportunity. And I think one thing that I love about what
we've built with Thrown is it's not only the the smart sensors that we have
on board, but that when somebody enters, we actually ask
them for a cleanliness rating and give them the opportunity
to tell us about their experience and what might need
(08:35):
improvement. And what that also does is make every user
a partner in the eyes of Thrown. So we're able to
integrate that in information from our users real time
into our operations. And I'm sure every park manager
knows this, but people want to tell you when there's something wrong. They're
not gonna spend twenty minutes of their day at the park trying to find
(08:58):
somebody to tell them. But if the opportunity is presented to
them, say, on their phone to give input, they will. And
sometimes we get excruciating detail that that may
that makes our Slack channels and our communications very interesting.
But, yeah, generally, like, I think that is one of the pieces
that's really wonderful about what we've built is we're actually making the
(09:20):
user a partner of ours in maintaining the cleanliness
and delightfulness of their bathroom experience. Well, you've touched on
something that I think actually can make a difference.
In people feeling comfortable using the
outdoors and therefore making the outdoors more accessible.
I recall a time a park I was at. We were
(09:44):
planning a Hispanic heritage celebration,
and the local paper was getting involved. They were sponsoring.
They were gonna be there to cover it. They were so they sent someone
out, and we were I was showing her where
everything was going to be. And I just remember how
disease she was about being in the outdoors and thinking,
(10:06):
oh, I don't think she had ever been for a hike before. So to
me, that's kind of exciting to introduce someone to the
outdoors. And, yeah, I do recall she made a
comment about we just had one
CXT building with two doors. So one cedar on each
side, and she just found that very unappealing.
(10:28):
And I I think that would have made it less likely that she
would recreate in that area of the park knowing that
was the bathroom facilities. And I never really
put these pieces together until I was introduced to the throne
bathroom thinking, I wonder if someone like that who's used
to the city, who doesn't come to the outdoors often, if that
(10:51):
would make her more comfortable recreating
in the outdoors just knowing Jessica mentioned forty four
percent of people feel anxious when they have to use the restroom
outside of of home. So does that mean those people
don't recreate for that very reason? Maybe. And this could help
with that. So that was something I never thought of until I started
(11:13):
reading about the throne bathroom. Yeah. And I think it's interesting when you
look at you look a little deeper into the demographics of that, of who it
is that feels the most anxious or anxiety. And
one of the things that I'm really passionate about as a female
myself or a sitter, if you will, in the bathroom space
is that I do think we get a lot more positive feedback
(11:36):
from women or people who sit in the bathroom because it
just matters a little bit more. We pay a higher price for a less
clean restroom. It's a little grosser, a little bit more of an ick
factor. And then I think that extends to people with young
children. One of our goals is to have, you know, a a space
where if you bring in your toddler, you feel okay if they touch all the
(11:58):
walls or, you know, somebody with medical issues that might
require more frequent or more frequent
bathroom visits or a cleaner space. We've had lots of conversations
with, you know, people with colostomy bags that actually really value the
cleanliness because they're actually able to do the changing that they
need in a throne restroom that they wouldn't feel comfortable doing in
(12:21):
a in a place that felt a little less sanitary. Well,
Jessica brings up a good point. When Fletcher and I have to
use the restroom outdoors, it's much lower stakes than when she
does. Yeah. So when Yeah. When
we're talking about thrown restrooms, is this only
for city parks? Is that the setting we're looking at?
(12:44):
Can it be in in more rural areas? Yeah. So it can it can
we've really designed the bathroom to be agnostic to the environment in which it
goes. You know, there are certainly other operational considerations the
further out you go, but there's really no fundamental limitation
as to where we put a throne. So we've got thrones in
various types of city parks, and we've we've definitely done
(13:07):
experiments and put thrones temporarily in more, like, in
Charlottesville, Virginia and in parks kind of more in the outskirts. And so,
yeah, they really can go anywhere you might need a bathroom, and, certainly,
we we work to then fit the operational plan around that.
There's a county park that is close to my house. I walk there with
my dog all the time, and there is a single stand
(13:30):
alone porta potty that's the only facility there.
So if a county park let's say it's my county,
and they they're thinking of revisiting what
they do for facilities and how they do it, What is the
benefit of choosing a throne bathroom
over the classic porta potty? Oh, so
(13:52):
many. I think we're in a a class all around in the portable,
space. But I think just the feeling of it,
it feels like a really nice indoor bathroom as as Fletcher
mentioned and is completely touchless and
has the running water sink and flushing toilet so people can wash their
hands. We do have sensors on that, so we know when
(14:15):
wastewater is filling up or fresh water is running down, and so we're able
to actually get out and service it out of any sort of need. And then
I think also the data informed operations that help us
really keep it clean and nice and the ability for users
to provide direct feedback, people love that. They
love giving their opinion, whether it's, hey. This needs
(14:37):
attention or, you know, this was a great experience. And then I think the
other thing that that we're just really proud of as well is the meaningful
difference in access and the equity in access.
So in the portable space, there are what they call, like,
disabled porta potties, but they're not truly accessible.
They don't meet ADA requirements where we've very consciously
(15:00):
designed the unit to exceed federal ADA standards
and really be able to be used by anybody that needs
it. And then offering those additional little things
like free menstrual products that just continue to make public space
welcoming and available to all. Well, I'm gonna take it up
one more level. So if a park system
(15:23):
is considering or realizing porta potty doesn't
work, we get too much visitation, we can't keep up, it's not
the facility or the image that we need for our park. And so
I'm in the Western United States where CXTs
are very popular, which is a concrete outhouse. Jessica, being
in the West, perhaps you've seen them if you've gone to Forest Service or
(15:46):
some other park. So what what is the benefit
over a throne bathroom compared to a
concrete outhouse like a CXT? Yeah. I
think there are two main ones. Number one is just time to get it down.
So if you have a mandate to drastically improve bathroom access and
you you kind of start drawing up architectural plans and permitting to kind of build
(16:09):
a CXT versus drone, which, you know, we can
place in a couple hours, a variety of bathrooms, and they're just operational.
So really quick to get down without that really large upfront
payment. That's the other big piece. And I think the second piece, which Jess touched
on, is if you wanna focus your activities on
other aspects of making a park a great place for folks but don't really wanna
(16:31):
have to worry about bathrooms, I think that's really Thrown's primary
benefit is we can kind of take all the hassle of bathrooms
from cleaning, maintenance, supplies, etcetera, but also
user complaints. That's a big one that we hear, like, sort of users
we disintermediate the the little complaints about, hey. The toilet paper is
out and take that on. And so, basically, quick access to
(16:54):
to bathrooms without the upfront cost and taking the hassle of
providing bathrooms off the hands of of folks who wanna kind of focus
on other things more core to sort of the park experience. I think, additionally,
like, the flexibility. So unlike a built bathroom,
a throne can be moved, and we are collecting data
on how many uses a day, what time of day, day of week these uses
(17:16):
are happening. And very, very few people actually have
data on bathroom use. I've talked to so many parks, so many cities, so
many transit agencies, and none of them really know how many times
a day their bathrooms get used. And so we've actually worked
with customers. One example is the parks and rec in Fairfax,
Virginia. We've placed five thrones
(17:39):
throughout that city, and we've actually moved them over time
because where it was originally thought they might be useful,
turns out, you know, it was getting less than, you know, three uses a
day. We were able to kind of move that throne to a little league field
and see that jump to an average of 45 uses a day.
So really being able to monitor what value you're providing
(18:01):
to your visitors. And if it's not providing the value you're aiming for,
actually, like, moving it and testing it. We're also doing that in Ann
Arbor. Interestingly, we had a ton of drones in
their parks during the summer. Obviously, a very cold
climate where parks visitation is going down in the
winter, and we were able to move them more into the downtown
(18:23):
or to warming shelters that were experiencing
overflow in their restrooms during the cold months. So we're actually
able to also kind of help adapt either seasonally
or as the, like as learning happens around the the true
dynamics of bathroom need. Well, I I've always been a fan
of CXTs, but Jessica and Fletcher
(18:46):
have hit on something here, and that is the flexibility. Once you have
a CXT in place, you always have that CXT in place.
You can't change with park use patterns,
seasonality changes. You can't adjust to any of that, but yet
you you can with a throne
bathroom. And this, I don't remember if I mentioned it at the
(19:09):
beginning, but I rarely have episodes
of the show about products. Only if I feel,
okay. This is something innovative enough that we need to
talk about it on the show. And I just really like the idea
of rethinking park bathrooms.
For the most part, they've been the same for decades,
(19:31):
whether it's a a porta potty, an outhouse, a pit toilet,
or a classic park bathroom. They have
more or less been the same for decades, and I thrown
bathrooms are one of the first that I've found that
is rethinking it and doing something different and adding flexibility
and moving it towards, okay, our budget
(19:54):
calls for installing a restroom facility to how
can we use this restroom facility to best serve
visitors and adjust as that changes over time. I think
that one of the things that really caught me about this is
is a CXT, wonderful product.
But if you put it at a trailhead and then maybe a road
(20:16):
gets closed, you still always have that CXT there. And I think
one other kind of fun part about Thrown, sometimes I think things
in this world get made smart, and they don't really need to be made smart.
I think with bathrooms, it just unlocks all these little opportunities. An
example would be hours of operation. Right? Throne can just have
the the bathroom you tell us when you want the bathroom to open and close
(20:38):
so you don't have sort of, I don't know, after hours, nefarious activity
concerns, or the concern of the, you know, the person on shift having to go
lock the throne you know, the bathroom up at the end of the day. Announcements.
Let's say you have specific events at parks. We can kind of work
announcements into the into the throne. There's and and, you know, custom graphics if
you wanna promote something or take credit for something on on these big we use
(21:00):
these beautiful kind of vinyl printed, surfaces on the inside and outside. And so
I think there's just a lot you can do when you have this company just
focused on bathrooms and leveraging kind of technology, you
know, to solve other little problems of around, day to day around bathrooms.
Fletcher, you touched on one of the things I wanted to ask
that you can set hours for open and close. And this is great
(21:22):
for two ways. If my county parks, the county I
live in, we have some fantastic parks that,
like many county park systems, are way understaffed.
And they have to usually just leave the
restroom open twenty four hours a day because they don't have the staff to send
through the whole county to open and close. Well, this solves that problem,
(21:44):
and you will get because I've had this at
parks I've worked at, that sometimes you will get people even
sleeping in bathrooms if you don't close them. Yeah.
Because when it gets colder, sometimes people will just show up. I've
even had people make fires in
bathrooms because it was open. And and so
(22:06):
thrown if you are understaffed, thrown bathrooms, being
able to open and close at certain times, it's like having
a seasonal parkade that can just go and open and close all of your restrooms,
which I think is a wonderful feature. And I think importantly simultaneously.
So it all happens at once. If you want it closed at sunset,
(22:26):
every throne is going to close at sunset. Mhmm. And so we can do
that. I think the other thing I've heard from a lot of parks is, you
know, part of that process is checking that no one's in there, that you're not
locking anybody in who's hiding and trying to stay overnight. And
so the way that our system works when it does go off for the
evening is it will you know, the time
(22:48):
we've set ends, and then we have occupancy sensors
inside. So there's really nowhere to hide. So we know if someone's in there. If
someone's in there at the time of close, it actually waits until
they've exited and will then go off
for the evening. If they are trying to stay, we have sensors. We have a
ten minute limit is our standard, and our remote
(23:11):
monitoring team gets a note that somebody stayed over the ten
minutes. Our exit methodology kicks in,
tries to move them along. If they're still not moving, then we know that,
and then we can communicate that to your team so that that they can go
out and deal with it as needed, but don't need to be there doing the
rounds every night and every morning. Well, you mentioned a couple of
(23:32):
cities that you're in, like Ann Arbor. What has
the feedback been? And in that, have
you had real use situations where they're being used
in a city park and you get feedback and say, okay.
Now we understand better. We and made a change based
on park usage. Well, the feedback is excellent. In a number
(23:55):
of cities, we've actually we have signs on the outside that
we've partnered with the city on
collecting feedback. DC is one of them. We actually have them one kind
of on the edge of DuPont Circle. We have one kind of on the edge
of National Park on the mall. Those are very
popular ones, and we're able to kind of
(24:17):
pull consistently, like, 80 to
92% of people love or like
thrones and really think that it's a great bathroom solution
compared to what is oftentimes either no bathroom solution, porta
potties, or restrooms that are kind of
not clean to the level that they would like. And I think
(24:38):
another great point has been in Ann Arbor and and our
partner there who oversees parks and rec. I think I had a quote saying
in my twenty five years of overseeing different projects,
municipal projects throughout parks and and housing development, Thrown is the biggest
success we've had yet. I think there was a lot of skepticism going
into launching both in cities and parks within Ann
(25:00):
Arbor around, you know, bathrooms that are going to serve
both folks shopping around town, but also folks experiencing
homelessness, also folks recreationalists. And I think what
they kind of came back with is just sort of this this feeling that we've
never seen one product that serves so many different types of people so well. And
certainly, you know, folks in Ann Arbor would, I think, be happy to kinda take
(25:23):
any sort of preference calls on this. I think, yep, as for
specific examples of a feedback we've gotten within parks,
I think most of it has to do with this flexibility and the ability to
kinda move things around and see both seasonally and and really, like,
okay. We tried this trail header. Even sometimes we've done a couple smaller moves where
it's just this side of a field versus that side of the field totally changes
(25:45):
things. So I think it's that flexibility has been particularly useful
in parks and keeping, you know and I think another area where it
works really well are situations where there are maybe monthly
large events sort of nearby where maybe there's a
promenade or an area at the core of a park where they're likely to throw
events. So it serves as a general use bathroom, but then can also serve more
(26:06):
as an events bathroom in some of those situations. Yeah. And I think
decoupling restrooms as well. Oftentimes, if a park is
doing plumbed restrooms, the distance from the
sewer and water to the location where you're putting the restroom
costs a ton of money, so you're not always in the optimal spot. And
we've worked with the city of Hyattsville in Maryland where we've actually had one
(26:29):
thrown near one field, another thrown near another field, and it
really cuts down on the need for somebody to walk. So if you think about
it practically, what that means is a parent might miss,
you know, less of their kid's game because they didn't have to walk seven
minutes across numerous fields to get to a restroom, but
they're able to actually spread it out across the the entire
(26:51):
area to have more accessibility. Yeah. I think that's a really
good point where why throne works especially well in parks and it has to
do with, you know, we didn't choose to come up with this block of bathrooms,
but it allows these island bathrooms because parks do tend to be
more distributed use cases, right, where you don't have a hundred people
in 10 by 10 foot areas where maybe you do want higher
(27:13):
volume kind of access. But by being able to place these island bathroom
facilities strategically at the trailhead, at the parking lot, you
know, at these different locations, I think you can just you'd be surprised
how grateful people are for that sort of, you know, convenience. I
was at a city park not long ago where they chose to
just close their permanent restrooms
(27:35):
that staff had to clean and maintain and just put up,
I think, four or five porta potties in its place. That
is, from what I've seen, ideal use case for
a thrown bathroom. Yeah. I'll tell one quick story. I remember very early on, we
were testing things out at a park in Virginia, and it was a
snowy day. And we put one of our early primitive thrones
(27:57):
down about 10 feet from a bank of porta potties. And the coolest
thing ever is, you know, we were able to look at this experiment based on
footprints in the snow as to who's going to throne versus the porta
potties. And, let's just say our our trail was a little, more
heavily trodden. Well, that's that's great. And I think there
are some features of throne that were just casually
(28:19):
mentioned, the the technology, the data, the smart
features, the music. The inside can look
different based on your needs. So there is so much more.
So, Fletcher, Jessica, if we've
heard all of this and say, oh, we need to find out a little more.
This might fit our needs. Where can we find out more about Throne?
(28:41):
Yeah. Come to our website, which is thronelabs.co.
So
thr0nelabs.co.
Alright. Well, I appreciate you two taking the time to come
and talk bathrooms with me. It's not often I get to just sit
and talk bathrooms for this long. We love we love talking to
(29:01):
kindred bathroom spirits and appreciators. Wonderful.
Well, hopefully, we'll run into each other in in a park and perhaps
in line for the bathroom. Great. Alright. Looking
forward to it. Thanks for having us, Jetty. Wonderful. Thank you so much. And thank
you for listening to the Park Leader Show.
Welcome to the Park Leader Show where we are changing the landscape
of leadership in parks and conservation. I'm your host,
Jody Mayberry, and I have two guests with me this
time, which isn't common. But we have a very
important topic to talk about, and that is bathrooms.
And that's such a big topic we needed two people. We have
(00:25):
Jessica Heinzelmann and Fletcher Wilson from
Throne Labs. You'll find out soon enough about Throne Labs. But,
Jessica, let's start with you. First, hello. And second,
tell us about your history with the outdoors. Oh,
well, I've always loved the outdoors. I grew up
in kind of suburban area that, you know, an
(00:47):
afternoon was going out for a walk up, what we called Windy
Hill, and it was, you know, one of the places that we could
go spend time and be together as a family. So,
yeah, that pretty much sums it up. Yeah.
Well, it's wonderful. The the the one of the reasons I asked that
even when it's not a park professional on, is just
(01:09):
to show that we all have some story of
being connected to the outdoors, and and I I
think that will come across as well when we talk about this. So, Fletcher,
what about you? What is your history with the outdoors? Well,
my father was an Eagle Scout, so he he would bring I grew up in
in Virginia, and he would bring us camping in various locations.
(01:31):
And I think maybe felt that his camping
skills were even better than they really were due to his background in in as
an Eagle Scout. So we got into some tricky situations with bears
or setting up a tent in the rain, But mostly, I just remember
fond memories of fly fishing and long hikes with my
dad. So I I think he he brought me up kind of admiring the
(01:53):
outdoors and sleeping outside. And I now have some young children, and I'm waiting for
them to get about a year or two older until it's time to take them
as well. And one quick recommendation. I feel like one
of my most traumatic memories of childhood was my
mom sent me on my first backpacking trip with my father when I was about
eight years old. And pertaining to this conversation,
(02:15):
no one yet had taught me how to go to the bathroom outdoors, and my
father was not equipped to give me advice. And I'll
spare the audience the details, but it didn't end well.
We've all been there. Who would have known that that little
incident at eight years old would lead you to what you do
now? My goodness. That's true. Well,
(02:38):
every park has one thing in common, and that's
a bathroom, a comfort station, a CXT, an outhouse,
a pit toilet, a porta potty. In some form or
another, we all have bathrooms or restrooms,
multiple forms of them. Our friends in Canada
often call them washrooms, which we tend to call
(02:59):
them restrooms in the state. But I've spent a lot of time in Canada
in 02/2024, and and I picked up some of their lingo.
So I'm almost bilingual now, being able to speak Canadian
and American. Well, so let's talk about
so Throne Labs makes the throne
bathroom. And I mentioned all these other forms of
(03:22):
bathrooms that we have. What is different about a throne
bathroom? Yeah. So, yeah, we we wanted to add
another option on that list that you just mentioned and to solve a couple
particular problems. But to paint a picture, the throne is
a really nice indoor bathroom that you might find, say, in a
hotel lobby, but it can be placed anywhere and,
(03:45):
very quickly and flexibly. So it's not connected to infrastructure.
It doesn't need to connect into waste and water systems. It's solar
powered for all the the power needed to run onboard, and it's
smart. So another piece of what we do is leverage modern
technology and sensors to monitor the health of the throne so
that our team can make sure the throne is functioning properly
(04:06):
wherever it is. And the other thing we do is we leverage
real time feedback from the users using it to tell us when it
needs to be cleaned or if there's other issues. And so Throne, the company,
is providing all the services required to keep a bathroom
functioning and clean and allowing someone maybe running a
park to place these single use bathrooms. So it's not a a
(04:29):
facility of multiple bathrooms. It's a single use a fully ADA
compliant bathroom that can be put anywhere, and you can put multiple
across a park and distribute them as needed, for kind of your foot
traffic needs. But Thrown takes care of everything. And for the user,
flushing toilet, running water sink, mirror, lights,
HVAC, and even music and touchless entry
(04:52):
and exit. So all these nice features that keep, you know, folks in your
park there longer, happy. You know, parents with children can come
in and use them. We have a baby changing table. We provide other amenities,
often free menstrual products, and really just try to make it a
really familiar indoor bathroom experience, but take the hassle
of installing capital equipment out of the hands of of
(05:14):
someone maybe running a park or or other municipal agencies. What this
reminds me of a little bit is at Walt Disney World, they
have sensors in all of their trash cans, so
the custodial cast members can just pull up an iPad
and see which trash cans need the bag
changed. And it saves, one, it it saves a lot of time
(05:35):
because they don't have to go check everyone. They know, and it happens so much
quicker. And we don't have a whole lot of examples yet
of that sort of technology entering into parks, but I
can see where a thrown bathroom is a
step in that direction. Technology helping
serve our visitors and keep bathrooms clean and and
(05:57):
just to serve better because we bathrooms are always a
challenge. Parks are more popular now than they have been in
a very long time, and we have more visitors in the same amount of
bathrooms. Where did this idea come from? What
problem did ThroneLab set out to solve?
I'll let Oetcher take this on it. It's his it's his brainchild.
(06:21):
Well, I think the it's also it was my problem, originally that
got us thinking about it, which was I'm one of those people that
just, often finds myself out and about and needing to use a bathroom. Let's just
leave it at that. And my I like to say my my GI system is
my worst system. So I'm the Larry David of the group, always sort of out
and about, kinda complaining about whatever bathrooms are there and and
(06:42):
really felt that you know, you look around at porta potties
or other bathroom options, and it it felt to me that some
combination of of modern technology and modular manufacturing
could allow us to to really rethink bathroom infrastructure
in a more flexible and kind of user centric way. I think
that the traditional portable sanitation industry has solved the flexibility
(07:06):
part, but we believe has sort of left the user out of the
equation as an important stakeholder. And so we've we really do
everything we can to make the bathroom experience great for the user because, you
know, it really started from a place of knowing what it's like when
you really need a bathroom and and one's not there, or you really need a
bathroom and one is is so terrible to use that you're, you know, not happy
(07:28):
to go in. Yeah. And I think, you know, when I heard this idea from
Fletcher, I was really intrigued. Other than my early
issue in the outdoors and the desolation wilderness in the
Tahoe area, I've had a pretty easy time with bathrooms throughout
my life. I'm not particularly fickle. I have a fairly strong
bladder, but did start talking to a number of friends
(07:51):
and realized what a problem it was for people. And I think there's been a
lot more interesting research since then. You know, forty four percent of
people feel anxious when they have to use the restroom outside of other
home. And so really just got interested in that. And I had worked
on how to use primarily communication technologies
to solve the world's big problems, a lot of
(08:13):
work in international development and social media, and
really saw this opportunity. And I think one thing that I love about what
we've built with Thrown is it's not only the the smart sensors that we have
on board, but that when somebody enters, we actually ask
them for a cleanliness rating and give them the opportunity
to tell us about their experience and what might need
(08:35):
improvement. And what that also does is make every user
a partner in the eyes of Thrown. So we're able to
integrate that in information from our users real time
into our operations. And I'm sure every park manager
knows this, but people want to tell you when there's something wrong. They're
not gonna spend twenty minutes of their day at the park trying to find
(08:58):
somebody to tell them. But if the opportunity is presented to
them, say, on their phone to give input, they will. And
sometimes we get excruciating detail that that may
that makes our Slack channels and our communications very interesting.
But, yeah, generally, like, I think that is one of the pieces
that's really wonderful about what we've built is we're actually making the
(09:20):
user a partner of ours in maintaining the cleanliness
and delightfulness of their bathroom experience. Well, you've touched on
something that I think actually can make a difference.
In people feeling comfortable using the
outdoors and therefore making the outdoors more accessible.
I recall a time a park I was at. We were
(09:44):
planning a Hispanic heritage celebration,
and the local paper was getting involved. They were sponsoring.
They were gonna be there to cover it. They were so they sent someone
out, and we were I was showing her where
everything was going to be. And I just remember how
disease she was about being in the outdoors and thinking,
(10:06):
oh, I don't think she had ever been for a hike before. So to
me, that's kind of exciting to introduce someone to the
outdoors. And, yeah, I do recall she made a
comment about we just had one
CXT building with two doors. So one cedar on each
side, and she just found that very unappealing.
(10:28):
And I I think that would have made it less likely that she
would recreate in that area of the park knowing that
was the bathroom facilities. And I never really
put these pieces together until I was introduced to the throne
bathroom thinking, I wonder if someone like that who's used
to the city, who doesn't come to the outdoors often, if that
(10:51):
would make her more comfortable recreating
in the outdoors just knowing Jessica mentioned forty four
percent of people feel anxious when they have to use the restroom
outside of of home. So does that mean those people
don't recreate for that very reason? Maybe. And this could help
with that. So that was something I never thought of until I started
(11:13):
reading about the throne bathroom. Yeah. And I think it's interesting when you
look at you look a little deeper into the demographics of that, of who it
is that feels the most anxious or anxiety. And
one of the things that I'm really passionate about as a female
myself or a sitter, if you will, in the bathroom space
is that I do think we get a lot more positive feedback
(11:36):
from women or people who sit in the bathroom because it
just matters a little bit more. We pay a higher price for a less
clean restroom. It's a little grosser, a little bit more of an ick
factor. And then I think that extends to people with young
children. One of our goals is to have, you know, a a space
where if you bring in your toddler, you feel okay if they touch all the
(11:58):
walls or, you know, somebody with medical issues that might
require more frequent or more frequent
bathroom visits or a cleaner space. We've had lots of conversations
with, you know, people with colostomy bags that actually really value the
cleanliness because they're actually able to do the changing that they
need in a throne restroom that they wouldn't feel comfortable doing in
(12:21):
a in a place that felt a little less sanitary. Well,
Jessica brings up a good point. When Fletcher and I have to
use the restroom outdoors, it's much lower stakes than when she
does. Yeah. So when Yeah. When
we're talking about thrown restrooms, is this only
for city parks? Is that the setting we're looking at?
(12:44):
Can it be in in more rural areas? Yeah. So it can it can
we've really designed the bathroom to be agnostic to the environment in which it
goes. You know, there are certainly other operational considerations the
further out you go, but there's really no fundamental limitation
as to where we put a throne. So we've got thrones in
various types of city parks, and we've we've definitely done
(13:07):
experiments and put thrones temporarily in more, like, in
Charlottesville, Virginia and in parks kind of more in the outskirts. And so,
yeah, they really can go anywhere you might need a bathroom, and, certainly,
we we work to then fit the operational plan around that.
There's a county park that is close to my house. I walk there with
my dog all the time, and there is a single stand
(13:30):
alone porta potty that's the only facility there.
So if a county park let's say it's my county,
and they they're thinking of revisiting what
they do for facilities and how they do it, What is the
benefit of choosing a throne bathroom
over the classic porta potty? Oh, so
(13:52):
many. I think we're in a a class all around in the portable,
space. But I think just the feeling of it,
it feels like a really nice indoor bathroom as as Fletcher
mentioned and is completely touchless and
has the running water sink and flushing toilet so people can wash their
hands. We do have sensors on that, so we know when
(14:15):
wastewater is filling up or fresh water is running down, and so we're able
to actually get out and service it out of any sort of need. And then
I think also the data informed operations that help us
really keep it clean and nice and the ability for users
to provide direct feedback, people love that. They
love giving their opinion, whether it's, hey. This needs
(14:37):
attention or, you know, this was a great experience. And then I think the
other thing that that we're just really proud of as well is the meaningful
difference in access and the equity in access.
So in the portable space, there are what they call, like,
disabled porta potties, but they're not truly accessible.
They don't meet ADA requirements where we've very consciously
(15:00):
designed the unit to exceed federal ADA standards
and really be able to be used by anybody that needs
it. And then offering those additional little things
like free menstrual products that just continue to make public space
welcoming and available to all. Well, I'm gonna take it up
one more level. So if a park system
(15:23):
is considering or realizing porta potty doesn't
work, we get too much visitation, we can't keep up, it's not
the facility or the image that we need for our park. And so
I'm in the Western United States where CXTs
are very popular, which is a concrete outhouse. Jessica, being
in the West, perhaps you've seen them if you've gone to Forest Service or
(15:46):
some other park. So what what is the benefit
over a throne bathroom compared to a
concrete outhouse like a CXT? Yeah. I
think there are two main ones. Number one is just time to get it down.
So if you have a mandate to drastically improve bathroom access and
you you kind of start drawing up architectural plans and permitting to kind of build
(16:09):
a CXT versus drone, which, you know, we can
place in a couple hours, a variety of bathrooms, and they're just operational.
So really quick to get down without that really large upfront
payment. That's the other big piece. And I think the second piece, which Jess touched
on, is if you wanna focus your activities on
other aspects of making a park a great place for folks but don't really wanna
(16:31):
have to worry about bathrooms, I think that's really Thrown's primary
benefit is we can kind of take all the hassle of bathrooms
from cleaning, maintenance, supplies, etcetera, but also
user complaints. That's a big one that we hear, like, sort of users
we disintermediate the the little complaints about, hey. The toilet paper is
out and take that on. And so, basically, quick access to
(16:54):
to bathrooms without the upfront cost and taking the hassle of
providing bathrooms off the hands of of folks who wanna kind of focus
on other things more core to sort of the park experience. I think, additionally,
like, the flexibility. So unlike a built bathroom,
a throne can be moved, and we are collecting data
on how many uses a day, what time of day, day of week these uses
(17:16):
are happening. And very, very few people actually have
data on bathroom use. I've talked to so many parks, so many cities, so
many transit agencies, and none of them really know how many times
a day their bathrooms get used. And so we've actually worked
with customers. One example is the parks and rec in Fairfax,
Virginia. We've placed five thrones
(17:39):
throughout that city, and we've actually moved them over time
because where it was originally thought they might be useful,
turns out, you know, it was getting less than, you know, three uses a
day. We were able to kind of move that throne to a little league field
and see that jump to an average of 45 uses a day.
So really being able to monitor what value you're providing
(18:01):
to your visitors. And if it's not providing the value you're aiming for,
actually, like, moving it and testing it. We're also doing that in Ann
Arbor. Interestingly, we had a ton of drones in
their parks during the summer. Obviously, a very cold
climate where parks visitation is going down in the
winter, and we were able to move them more into the downtown
(18:23):
or to warming shelters that were experiencing
overflow in their restrooms during the cold months. So we're actually
able to also kind of help adapt either seasonally
or as the, like as learning happens around the the true
dynamics of bathroom need. Well, I I've always been a fan
of CXTs, but Jessica and Fletcher
(18:46):
have hit on something here, and that is the flexibility. Once you have
a CXT in place, you always have that CXT in place.
You can't change with park use patterns,
seasonality changes. You can't adjust to any of that, but yet
you you can with a throne
bathroom. And this, I don't remember if I mentioned it at the
(19:09):
beginning, but I rarely have episodes
of the show about products. Only if I feel,
okay. This is something innovative enough that we need to
talk about it on the show. And I just really like the idea
of rethinking park bathrooms.
For the most part, they've been the same for decades,
(19:31):
whether it's a a porta potty, an outhouse, a pit toilet,
or a classic park bathroom. They have
more or less been the same for decades, and I thrown
bathrooms are one of the first that I've found that
is rethinking it and doing something different and adding flexibility
and moving it towards, okay, our budget
(19:54):
calls for installing a restroom facility to how
can we use this restroom facility to best serve
visitors and adjust as that changes over time. I think
that one of the things that really caught me about this is
is a CXT, wonderful product.
But if you put it at a trailhead and then maybe a road
(20:16):
gets closed, you still always have that CXT there. And I think
one other kind of fun part about Thrown, sometimes I think things
in this world get made smart, and they don't really need to be made smart.
I think with bathrooms, it just unlocks all these little opportunities. An
example would be hours of operation. Right? Throne can just have
the the bathroom you tell us when you want the bathroom to open and close
(20:38):
so you don't have sort of, I don't know, after hours, nefarious activity
concerns, or the concern of the, you know, the person on shift having to go
lock the throne you know, the bathroom up at the end of the day. Announcements.
Let's say you have specific events at parks. We can kind of work
announcements into the into the throne. There's and and, you know, custom graphics if
you wanna promote something or take credit for something on on these big we use
(21:00):
these beautiful kind of vinyl printed, surfaces on the inside and outside. And so
I think there's just a lot you can do when you have this company just
focused on bathrooms and leveraging kind of technology, you
know, to solve other little problems of around, day to day around bathrooms.
Fletcher, you touched on one of the things I wanted to ask
that you can set hours for open and close. And this is great
(21:22):
for two ways. If my county parks, the county I
live in, we have some fantastic parks that,
like many county park systems, are way understaffed.
And they have to usually just leave the
restroom open twenty four hours a day because they don't have the staff to send
through the whole county to open and close. Well, this solves that problem,
(21:44):
and you will get because I've had this at
parks I've worked at, that sometimes you will get people even
sleeping in bathrooms if you don't close them. Yeah.
Because when it gets colder, sometimes people will just show up. I've
even had people make fires in
bathrooms because it was open. And and so
(22:06):
thrown if you are understaffed, thrown bathrooms, being
able to open and close at certain times, it's like having
a seasonal parkade that can just go and open and close all of your restrooms,
which I think is a wonderful feature. And I think importantly simultaneously.
So it all happens at once. If you want it closed at sunset,
(22:26):
every throne is going to close at sunset. Mhmm. And so we can do
that. I think the other thing I've heard from a lot of parks is, you
know, part of that process is checking that no one's in there, that you're not
locking anybody in who's hiding and trying to stay overnight. And
so the way that our system works when it does go off for the
evening is it will you know, the time
(22:48):
we've set ends, and then we have occupancy sensors
inside. So there's really nowhere to hide. So we know if someone's in there. If
someone's in there at the time of close, it actually waits until
they've exited and will then go off
for the evening. If they are trying to stay, we have sensors. We have a
ten minute limit is our standard, and our remote
(23:11):
monitoring team gets a note that somebody stayed over the ten
minutes. Our exit methodology kicks in,
tries to move them along. If they're still not moving, then we know that,
and then we can communicate that to your team so that that they can go
out and deal with it as needed, but don't need to be there doing the
rounds every night and every morning. Well, you mentioned a couple of
(23:32):
cities that you're in, like Ann Arbor. What has
the feedback been? And in that, have
you had real use situations where they're being used
in a city park and you get feedback and say, okay.
Now we understand better. We and made a change based
on park usage. Well, the feedback is excellent. In a number
(23:55):
of cities, we've actually we have signs on the outside that
we've partnered with the city on
collecting feedback. DC is one of them. We actually have them one kind
of on the edge of DuPont Circle. We have one kind of on the edge
of National Park on the mall. Those are very
popular ones, and we're able to kind of
(24:17):
pull consistently, like, 80 to
92% of people love or like
thrones and really think that it's a great bathroom solution
compared to what is oftentimes either no bathroom solution, porta
potties, or restrooms that are kind of
not clean to the level that they would like. And I think
(24:38):
another great point has been in Ann Arbor and and our
partner there who oversees parks and rec. I think I had a quote saying
in my twenty five years of overseeing different projects,
municipal projects throughout parks and and housing development, Thrown is the biggest
success we've had yet. I think there was a lot of skepticism going
into launching both in cities and parks within Ann
(25:00):
Arbor around, you know, bathrooms that are going to serve
both folks shopping around town, but also folks experiencing
homelessness, also folks recreationalists. And I think what
they kind of came back with is just sort of this this feeling that we've
never seen one product that serves so many different types of people so well. And
certainly, you know, folks in Ann Arbor would, I think, be happy to kinda take
(25:23):
any sort of preference calls on this. I think, yep, as for
specific examples of a feedback we've gotten within parks,
I think most of it has to do with this flexibility and the ability to
kinda move things around and see both seasonally and and really, like,
okay. We tried this trail header. Even sometimes we've done a couple smaller moves where
it's just this side of a field versus that side of the field totally changes
(25:45):
things. So I think it's that flexibility has been particularly useful
in parks and keeping, you know and I think another area where it
works really well are situations where there are maybe monthly
large events sort of nearby where maybe there's a
promenade or an area at the core of a park where they're likely to throw
events. So it serves as a general use bathroom, but then can also serve more
(26:06):
as an events bathroom in some of those situations. Yeah. And I think
decoupling restrooms as well. Oftentimes, if a park is
doing plumbed restrooms, the distance from the
sewer and water to the location where you're putting the restroom
costs a ton of money, so you're not always in the optimal spot. And
we've worked with the city of Hyattsville in Maryland where we've actually had one
(26:29):
thrown near one field, another thrown near another field, and it
really cuts down on the need for somebody to walk. So if you think about
it practically, what that means is a parent might miss,
you know, less of their kid's game because they didn't have to walk seven
minutes across numerous fields to get to a restroom, but
they're able to actually spread it out across the the entire
(26:51):
area to have more accessibility. Yeah. I think that's a really
good point where why throne works especially well in parks and it has to
do with, you know, we didn't choose to come up with this block of bathrooms,
but it allows these island bathrooms because parks do tend to be
more distributed use cases, right, where you don't have a hundred people
in 10 by 10 foot areas where maybe you do want higher
(27:13):
volume kind of access. But by being able to place these island bathroom
facilities strategically at the trailhead, at the parking lot, you
know, at these different locations, I think you can just you'd be surprised
how grateful people are for that sort of, you know, convenience. I
was at a city park not long ago where they chose to
just close their permanent restrooms
(27:35):
that staff had to clean and maintain and just put up,
I think, four or five porta potties in its place. That
is, from what I've seen, ideal use case for
a thrown bathroom. Yeah. I'll tell one quick story. I remember very early on, we
were testing things out at a park in Virginia, and it was a
snowy day. And we put one of our early primitive thrones
(27:57):
down about 10 feet from a bank of porta potties. And the coolest
thing ever is, you know, we were able to look at this experiment based on
footprints in the snow as to who's going to throne versus the porta
potties. And, let's just say our our trail was a little, more
heavily trodden. Well, that's that's great. And I think there
are some features of throne that were just casually
(28:19):
mentioned, the the technology, the data, the smart
features, the music. The inside can look
different based on your needs. So there is so much more.
So, Fletcher, Jessica, if we've
heard all of this and say, oh, we need to find out a little more.
This might fit our needs. Where can we find out more about Throne?
(28:41):
Yeah. Come to our website, which is thronelabs.co.
So
thr0nelabs.co.
Alright. Well, I appreciate you two taking the time to come
and talk bathrooms with me. It's not often I get to just sit
and talk bathrooms for this long. We love we love talking to
(29:01):
kindred bathroom spirits and appreciators. Wonderful.
Well, hopefully, we'll run into each other in in a park and perhaps
in line for the bathroom. Great. Alright. Looking
forward to it. Thanks for having us, Jetty. Wonderful. Thank you so much. And thank
you for listening to the Park Leader Show.
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