Our Story
Steve Davison always had an entrepreneurial spark. Growing up, Steve’s dad was an intelligence officer in the U.S. military and the family moved a lot. While deployed to Germany, an eight-year-old Steve climbed a tree one day near the Berlin Wall where he looked east and beheld a bleak landscape of cheerlessly silent streets, armed guards and bombed-out buildings. This was a stark and chilling contrast to the friendly, warm and bustling city of West Berlin. “It was like watching a black-and-white movie and then a color movie. From that moment, I vowed to do my best to take advantage of the opportunities I was given.”
After living most of his childhood abroad, Steve’s family finally settled in Warner Robins, Georgia. He graduated from local Northside High School and tried a few different jobs, including conductor for the Central Georgia line of Southern Railway. But Steve’s entrepreneurial spirit won out. At age 19, Steve started his first business: a short-lived detailing business for car dealerships. Four years later, he opened Mobile Wash of America, a small pressure washing operation.
Mobile Wash of America found early success and quickly expanded into duct and hood vent cleaning. Steve soon had multiple cleaning crews serving the middle Georgia area. Business was booming, but the cleaning products they used were difficult to handle. “We had these 55-gallon drums of cleaning chemicals that weighed about 500 pounds. While moving this drum of degreaser, a seam split and I got soaked.” Then the Eureka Moment.
Steve saw an opportunity to do things better. He contacted a friend, Cory Hammock, a local chemist. The duo spent weeks in brainstorming sessions and racked up development and testing hours in the lab in pursuit of the ultimate, super-concentrated cleaner. Cory finally perfected a concentrated formula that effectively cleaned, disinfected and deodorized all-in-one. The original OdoBan formula was born.
When people began asking to try the new formula, Steve began selling it in smaller containers. “OdoBan was an immediate hit with our customers. It cleaned and obliterated odors better than anything they’d ever used,” said Steve. “And our formula was concentrated, which brought down costs and made it affordable for everyone.”
With a winning product on his hands, Steve was determined to get OdoBan into retail stores. He was eventually able to contact a buyer for a large retail chain with a store in Macon. After wearing down the buyer, the local store agreed to sell one pallet of OdoBan. It sold out in three days. Then another pallet sold out in a week. Soon, other retailers were onboard.
With demand sharply rising, Steve made a big decision. He decided to move the entire production under one roof by building a 140,000-square-foot plant in Warner Robins, Georgia. “To deliver the highest quality, American-made products, I knew we needed complete control of the entire manufacturing process. Our Warner Robins plant and our amazing employees made it a reality.”
Over the years, Steve and the company have continued to roll out innovative new cleaning products, but the OdoBan mission has never wavered. “Our motto is ‘Make Life Fresh’. We believe in making really spectacular, innovative, environmentally sustainable, and affordable cleaning products. If we don’t love using it ourselves, we don’t make it here.”
Steve attributes the company’s ongoing growth to his Christian beliefs as well as his passion to provide innovative products for the industry.