VERO BEACH, Fla. Operating a motorcoach company is akin to running most any business.

You need good employees, computers and other specialized equipment, an office, a bank account, business licenses, regulatory approvals, industry specific knowledge, federal tax ID number, and, if youre lucky, a bookkeeper or accountant to help keep track of all your money.

Motorcoach companies, like trucking outfits, also have a handful of unusual characteristics, like requiring mammoth pieces of rolling stock that can cost an arm and a leg, and a place to park and maintain these behemoths.

But motorcoach operations have one unique requirement that practically no other businesses have: they must have a (legal) place where they can dump bus lavatories.

"I know of operators who do not own their own property, but have solved their parking situation by parking behind shopping centers, filling stations, or renting space in a storage yard -- whatever it takes," says George Childers, owner and operator of Magic Carpet Ride, a company he founded here four years ago.

"Finding a convenient and close-by location to dump is another matter."

After four years of continually dealing with parking and dumping issues, Childers acquired a 100 feet-by-100 feet parcel.

However, with a fleet of five buses, turning a coach around in his new yard because of its size -- was (quite obviously) out of the question. Consequently, all of Childers equipment had to be backed in.

That created another obvious problem: It increased the risk of damage that can come when backing up to a dump station, then moving the coach to a parking space.

"We solved this dilemma by constructing a bank of dump stations -- one for each of the six parking spaces we developed," said Childers.

"As sewer service was not available to the property, I had two 900 gallon storage tanks installed, tying them together and then running a pipe from the tanks (placed in the two middle spaces), to service the outside lanes.

"This arrangement may not be acceptable for everyone but for those operators with limited space and funds, it is a viable solution and something to consider," says Childers.