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Lessons learned: Overcoming disasters in laundry September 2024 • Volume 50, Number 09
The Newspaper of Record for Laundry & Linen Management
Over four years, Childs Linen Service survived fire, pandemic, flooding through perseverance to serve its customers, employees BY MATT POE, EDITOR
T
he year was 1976. The United States of America celebrated its bicentennial. Jimmy Carter defeated Gerald Ford in the presidential election. And Barry Morrill’s future in-laws were growing Childs Linen Service in Auburn,
Maine. “At the time, they didn’t have the building or anything,” he shares. “They would drive around during the day to local customers they had in Lewiston-Auburn-Hicks. “They would sort at night in the driveway and then go into a laundromat overnight that they had an agreement with.” Eventually, the couple saved enough money for a building and commercial laundry equipment. But by the time Morrill married their daughter in the 1990s, his father-in-law had retired, and the operation wasn’t working to gain new clients or even retain customers. “I think we might have had around $196,000 in revenue when I bought it,” he says. “We turned it into running two shifts seven days a week within the first six months and just kept going from there because I went out did sales and grabbed everything I could. “We went in the direction of healthcare because healthcare doesn’t move up and down like restaurants do. They were only doing restaurants, and we expanded it.” Since then, Morrill has worked to grow the business, overcoming every laundry business obstacle. But he couldn’t foresee the run of disasters headed his way starting in 2019. Over about four years, Childs Linen Service endured, and overcame, fire, pandemic and flooding.
FIRE
The fire broke out on Jan. 4, 2019, on the side of the building with a wooden
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Barry Morrill, owner of Childs Linen Service in Auburn, Maine, cleans up after the December 2023 flood. (Photos: Childs Linen Service)
roof—and a lot of laundry equipment. “That whole wooden roof, about 3,000 to 4,000 square feet of it, was totally gone,” shares Morrill. “All that had fallen, collapsed right down onto my washers. I mean, it was just a mess, a nightmare.” The fire happened on a Friday. By Monday, Childs Linen Service was running trucks and delivering product. “It was a very busy weekend,” says Morrill. “I contacted one of my competitors up here on a Sunday afternoon. He was skiing and took my call, thankfully, and I told him what had happened. They said have your trucks come over. “We had a bunch of stuff that did not burn. It was more smoke and water on one side. Some stuff obviously did burn, but we just really needed to get product rewashed and reprocessed so we could get it out and start delivering.” Childs was able to replace the product that burned by purchasing it from its helpful competitor. “We just kept making deliveries and doing everything that we needed to do right from the get-go,” Morrill shares. “Thankfully, we didn’t skip a beat for deliveries even come Monday, even though we literally had no building or equipment or anything or inventory at that point. “It was a pretty trying time there, but it was key to have someone that you could call, especially up here in Maine.” The cause of the fire was an uncooled batch of restaurant towels placed in a cart
See Disaster on Page 6
LATE NEWS Wildman Business Group acquires Advantage Linen Supply WARSAW, Ind. — Wildman Business Group, a provider of uniform rentals, mats, cleaning services, and more, based here, reports that it has acquired Advantage Linen Supply in Ionia, Michigan. James Barna, owner of Advantage Linen Supply, was looking for a partner to help grow the business to the next stage and continue to offer the same level of care to customers. As both family-owned companies with like-minded values, Barna knew Wildman Business Group was the partner of choice because of its reputation and dependability. Advantage Linen Supply has been partnering with WM Uniform in Holland, Michigan, for laundry processing of its rental garments for the last 13 years, which made this next step of partnership the logical choice. “We’re thrilled to welcome the Advantage Linen Supply customers to our greater Wildman network and further help Michigan business leaders succeed by keeping their teams and facilities clean, safe and looking great,” says Josh Wildman, CEO of Wildman Business Group.
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