American Drycleaner - May 2024

© Copyright 2024 American Trade Magazines All rights reserved.

® MAY 2024

Recovering From – and Avoiding –

Disaster

WHAT DRY CLEANERS NEED FOR WHERE THEY ARE

AROUND THE INDUSTRY

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© Copyright 2024 American Trade Magazines All rights reserved.

May 2024

®

Vol. 91, No. 2

FEATURES

DEPARTMENTS

Pre-Inspection Looking Forward

MAY 2024

®

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Around the Industry

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Classified Ads / Ad Index (Photo: © ronniechua/Depositphotos)

Recovering From – and Avoiding –

6 Disaster

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Wrinkle in Time Stress, Silver Linings and Clearing the Air

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Recovering from — and Avoiding — Disaster

The difference between an event becoming a momentary inconvenience or a total disaster often boils down to having a plan to deal with it. What should go into a disaster recovery plan, and what are some steps dry cleaners can take to avoid needing to use the plan in the first place?

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What Dry Cleaners Need for Where They Are

When building a dry cleaning plant or expanding the equipment in the store, owners need to stop and take into account the physical area they are serving. How does the climate, the customers and the local industry impact the choices made in selecting the machines and chemistry to provide the best results?

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PRE-INSPECTION

Looking Forward “You can always amend a big plan, but you can never expand a little one. I don’t believe in little plans. I believe in plans big enough to meet a situation which we can’t possibly foresee now.” - Harry S. Truman While no plan can cover all the eventualities that a business will face throughout its years of operation, having no plans at all is blindly hoping for the best. As we move into an uncertain future, we’ll start knowing to ask better, more relevant questions, but the plans we have now allow us to take those initial steps.

In this issue of American Drycleaner, we’re looking at plans both for opening or expanding a business, as well as how to Dave Davis keep that business healthy even under difficult circumstances.

Our cover feature, “Recovering From — and Avoiding — Disaster,” examines the plans that need to be in place in case disasters such as floods, tornados or other natural events strike, or if fire damages a store or a plant. There are other kinds of disasters, of course, such as the illness, death or departure of a leader in the company, that also need to be taken into account. Even if the plan you have doesn’t cover the situation at hand 100%, it’s much easier to modify a plan than to craft one from scratch, especially during times of stress. Having a plan provides a path forward and is the first step in moving toward recovery.

Our second feature, “What Dry Cleaners Need for Where They Are,” examines what questions dry cleaners should have for their equipment manufacturers and suppliers to make sure they have everything they need to take care of the customers in their particular geographic area. When building or adding equipment to a plant, it’s important to take into account not only the region’s climate, but the activities of the local citizens, as well as the industrial makeup of the community.

American Drycleaner has been the companion to the drycleaning industry for more than 90 years, and we’re here to help you make the plans needed to move your business into the future. We’re looking forward to it!

American Drycleaner (ISSN 0002-8258) is published monthly except Nov/Dec combined. Subscription prices, payment in advance: U.S., 1 year $50.00; 2 years $100.00. Single copies $10.00 for U.S. Published by American Trade Magazines LLC, 650 West Lake Street, Suite 320, Chicago, IL 60661.

Periodicals postage paid at Chicago, IL and at additional mailing offices.

POSTMASTER, Send changes of address and form 3579 to American Drycleaner, Subscription Dept., 125 Schelter Rd., #350, Lincolnshire, IL 60069-3666. Volume 91, number 2. Editorial, executive and advertising offices are at 650 West Lake Street, Suite 320, Chicago, IL 60661. Charles Thompson, President and Publisher. American Drycleaner is distributed selectively to: qualified dry cleaning plants and distributors in the United States. The publisher reserves the right to reject any advertising for any reason. © Copyright AMERICAN TRADE MAGAZINES LLC, 2024. Printed in U.S.A. No part of this publication may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the publisher or his representative. American Drycleaner does not endorse, recommend or guarantee any article, product, service or information found within. Opinions expressed are those of the writers and do not necessarily reflect the views of American Drycleaner or its staff.

While precautions have been taken to ensure the accuracy of the magazine’s contents at time of publication, neither the editors, publishers nor its agents can accept responsibility for damages or injury which may arise therefrom.

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Publisher Charles Thompson Editorial Director Bruce Beggs 312-361-1683

bbeggs@ATMags.com

Editor Dave Davis

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Digital Media Director Nathan Frerichs 312-361-1681

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Production Manager Mathew Pawlak Advisory Board Jan Barlow Mike Bleier John-Claude Hallak Monika Manter Wesley Nelson Kyle Nesbit Fred Schwarzmann Vic Williams Wayne Wudyka National Sales Manager Linda Lee 218-310-6838 312-361-1682

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Recovering From — and Avoiding —

Disaster

Having a plan is key to cut down recovery time

By Dave Davis, Editor

A

n unfortunate event with a plan in place can be an inconvenience. That same event without a plan can turn into a business-ending disaster.

Even major incidents such as fires are survivable for a company if there’s a plan in place that allows business owners to get back up on their feet. Simply knowing what the next step is — or even the first step — is a great help in getting the wheels to recovery moving.

PREPARING FOR THE WORST

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“It’s working on plans before the event happens, and there are a lot of different disasters that require very different plans,” says Kermit Engh, owner of Fashion Cleaners in Omaha, Nebraska, and managing partner of the consulting firm Methods for Management (MfM).

“There are weather disasters,” he says. “There are mechanical disasters, such as a boiler blowing up or something else that prevents you from operating. There are fires and floods, of course, but I think an even bigger one is what happens if the owner is no longer available, or if they are injured to a point where they are unable to fulfill any functions? What happens if you get hit by a bus?”

Engh also points to “non-disaster” events, such as key leadership leaving the company; new regulations from Washington; pandemics; and other factors that can also impact the business — and do greater damage if there’s no plan in place.

“So, when you put all those different things together,” he says, “those really are different plans, and they need to be reviewed periodically to make sure that they’re still in place, and they’re still adequate to get you over the hump.”

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One action that owners should take is to make sure the one product they pay for but never want to use — insurance — is up to date and covers their current business situation, says Wayne Wudyka, CEO of The Huntington Company, which includes businesses such as Huntington Cleaners, Wesch Cleaners and the Certified Restoration Drycleaning Network (CRDN).

“From the business side, the most important thing they can do is to understand their insurance policy, and make sure that coverage is in no doubt,” he says. “Right now, it’s a hard market, and a lot of dry cleaners are getting declined. There are some major players like The Hartford exiting the space, and they were always one of the biggest carriers. So, understanding your policy is important.”

No single insurance policy covers every aspect of a business, Wudyka says, so owners need to look at their business at a granular level.

“In your policy coverages, there’s the structural, rebuilding side,” he says. “Then, there’s the equipment side — your personal belongings from boiler to presses to computers to counters and racks. And then there’s the bailee coverage, which covers the customers’ goods that you have in the store or plant.”

There are also “hidden” elements that might come as a surprise when the time comes to make a claim.

“Most of the policies today are going to exclude furs,” Wudyka says. “If you have a $10,000 fur in your possession and your building goes up, usually no coverage for that is included, unless you buy a rider. A leather jacket with fur trim would be excluded under most of the policies today, as well.”

Pickup and delivery — known as “goods in transit” to insurers — is also an element of the business that needs attention.

“Say you’ve got $50,000 worth of clothes in your van, and the van has a problem,” Wudyka says. “Sometimes, insurance will exclude goods in transit. So having insurance and then having the right insurance are two very different things. And most agents don’t understand our business to know what we need.”

The best time to determine what your insurance covers, Wudyka says, is well before it’s needed.

“Probably the most important thing someone could do right now is have their agent come in and have a review conducted,” he says. “If you own your building and you want to rebuild your property, you want the coverage to cover the cost of the construction today, because 8

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construction costs are 30% or 40% more than they were a few years ago. Most agents will just continue to renew your policy at the current levels. So, if you’ve got a 5-year-old policy, they might have put your building replacement at $125 a square foot, where today the cost might be closer to $250.”

For owners who lease their buildings, it’s important to take this into account, as well.

“If you’re leasing your property, you want to have rights to rebuild,” Wudyka says. “If you have a fire in your plant, and you’re going to be down, your policy should give you 12 months for the rent coverage, because the landlord’s not going to be very patient.”

Wudyka is well-versed in this area of the business, having recently conducted his own insurance review.

“We just went through a four-month renewal on my policies, and it was a job,” he says. “We had to split it up between multiple carriers. Find the right agents, first and foremost, who understand our industry. And then pay the extra money for the right coverage, because if you don’t, you’re out of business.”

MAKING A PLAN

When making a disaster recovery plan, or trying to determine weak points in the business, Engh believes owners should ask themselves a question that appears simple but is actually very complex: “What if?”

“I would come up with as many different ‘what ifs’ as I could,” he says. “What if this happens? What do we do? That has to come from primarily the owner, but it also needs to involve the management team. It may also require conversations with their attorneys, their CPAs and, probably most importantly, their banker.”

Having a good relationship with a banker, Engh says, is critical when the time comes to need their services.

“I have, for many years, always banked with more than one bank,” Engh says. “I wanted options and versatility. Each bank has its own vibe and its own way of doing things, and that became incredibly apparent during the first series of PPP (Paycheck Protection Program) payments.

Those of us who banked at small local or regional banks got our money processed very quickly. Those who were part of big national banks couldn’t even get the phone answered.”

Having a banker who will pick up the phone and is aware of your business can spell the difference between recovery and closing the company, Engh says.

“Having those relationships with bankers is crucial,” he says. “If it’s a catastrophe, it’s a matter of having

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ENSURING INSURANCE COVERAGE

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an adequate line of credit set up so that you can draw on it in a moment’s notice if that’s what’s called for.”

WHO TO CALL AND WHO MAKES THE CALL

When disaster strikes, everyone should know their roles, Engh stresses.

“The first step is to pull your plan off the shelf, open it up, and go step by step,” he says. “Here’s what we’re going to do first, here’s what we’re going to do next, and so on. Get your management team together. Everybody has their assignments. They have their responsibilities and their authorities. And then you get to work. You get on the phone and start prioritizing who you’ll be notifying first. There’s no hesitation. This is the time when leadership cannot panic.”

This not only includes contacting insurance companies but also outlining who will contact suppliers and customers.

“When it comes to suppliers, you’d rather have a supplier work with you than work against you,” Engh says, “so letting them know right out of the gate that you’ve got a problem will provide them the opportunity to work with you. If you just ignore them, pretty soon, they’re going to ignore you — and then you’re going to be in a world of hurt because you don’t have any supplies, and you have no method of getting any. Now you can’t produce. Have open communications with these folks. This requires having a good relationship prior to any type of emergency.”

As for customers, having cloud-stored contacts will save a massive amount of time and energy.

“You can communicate up front that this is what happened,” Engh says. “It’s been my experience that, when you do that, the vast majority of people will understand that things happen, and they’ll work with you. If you get your insurance company involved immediately and know that they are going to process any type of claim, then the customers can feel that they’re going to be made whole.”

WORKING WITH THE COMPETITION

In 1999, Wudyka had a fire in one of his plants that led to a roof collapse. Having a backup cleaner in place allowed him to keep his customers during the rebuilding process.

“We put a trailer on the property as a temporary call office,” he says. “We put a sign on it and had customers take their goods in and out while we basically wholesaled our work. This way, we kept our customers coming back. If a retail customer has to go somewhere else, they get a new pattern and wind up staying there.”

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Leasing a plant from a competitor during their downtime can be a lifeline in this type of situation.

“Talk to the guy down the street and say, ‘Look, I’ll run your plant from 2 in the afternoon until midnight,’” Wudyka says. “You work out rent, work out a utility split, and now you’re keeping your employees and the other guy is renting his plant on his downtime.”

The extra rent and utility costs associated with a plan like this should be covered by insurance, Wudyka says.

“When you have a claim, your business interruption insurance should kick in if you’ve got proper coverage.”

Again, having these discussions with competitors before disaster strikes is key to maintaining operations.

“It’s important to have a relationship with a vendor who can support you, and vice versa if they have an issue,” Wudyka says. “It can be profitable for them, too, because they’re going to offset their expenses as you use their idle plant time.”

AVOIDING DISASTER

While weather-related catastrophes are difficult to protect against — no amount of planning can deflect a tornado — owners and managers can take steps to lessen the chance of preventable disasters.

“Have normal maintenance procedures in your plant,” Wudyka says. “There are the obvious things, like dryer vents needing to be cleaned out daily. On/off switches on your irons and presses need to be checked. You leave an iron on sitting in a cradle overnight, that’s a problem. This happened in one of my plants. The presser left an iron on, and it overheated and caused a fire. Fortunately, it just burned itself off, but that could have been a major catastrophe.”

Wudyka suggests developing checklists that make standard preventative maintenance easier to follow: “A lot of times your issues are going to be just a lack of maintenance.”

Overloaded electrical service panels can also be a source of problems.

“If you add a steam tunnel or add a couple of washers and you don’t upgrade your panel, you can spark your panel up,” Wudyka warns. “A lot of cleaners will put a new washer or dryer in and just hope. Don’t assume anything.”

Lint buildup inside the building, he adds, can also be a fire flashpoint.

“I’ve seen a lot of fires happen as a result of lint on (Continued on page 20)

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What Dry Cleaners Need for Where They Are

Using the right tools for your region to best serve customers

By Dave Davis, Editor

W

hen deciding on equipment purchases for their drycleaning plants, or creating new plants, owners must keep many factors in mind, perhaps the most important of which is the geographic area that cleaner serves. By understanding the climate, demographics and industry around them, cleaners can ensure they are making the best choices possible for the future of their business.

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(Photo: © maxxyustas/Depositphotos)

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WHAT IS THE CLIMATE?

Temperature and humidity are two of the biggest environmental factors to consider when operating a drycleaning plant, says Christopher White, executive director of industry consulting and plant design firm America’s Best Cleaners (ABC).

“The drycleaning process needs a certain degree of moisture, so one of the challenges that you face coming out of winter, for example, is that it’s very dry.

And when it’s dry, you create a lot of static in your plants. With that static comes a lot of lint that affixes to garments that’s very hard to process and take off.”

White says that consulting with vendors and experts can help alleviate problems in this area.

“Work with your chemical partners for whatever drycleaning chemistry you’re using,” he says. “Making sure that you’re using the right dosages of detergents with a certain degree of moisture will not only help with stain removal but also help control the seasonality of that static buildup in your drycleaning machine that causes a lot of linting issues.”

Humidity in the finishing process, as well as in washing, is also an aspect that needs to be factored into calibrations.

“In the South, in the middle of the summer with 90% humidity, look at the flexibility of that finishing machine in being able to control the amount of steam and heated air you use,” White says. “If the garments are already at a saturation point of moisture, then I don’t need to run live steam on that garment — it’s already damp. I’m using more dry, heated air at a longer period to get the final finish.”

“As far as the machinery goes, we don’t have machines made for warm climates or cool climates — the machine is the machine,” says Vic Williams, Eastern sales manager of equipment manufacturer Union Dry Cleaning and the owner of Impressive Cleaners and Formal Wear in McDonough, Georgia.

But there are certain features, such as solvent heating and cooling, that can be useful depending on the cleaner’s climate.

“You’re not going to use heating as much in South Florida because you might wake up and it’s 80 degrees,” he says. “In upstate New York, though, it might be 50 degrees in the plant in the morning. In that case, solvent heating can maintain a better cleaning process.”

When the solvent is around 85-90 F, Williams says, it produces better, more reliable results: “Being able to heat and cool the solvent during the day allows you to maintain the same temperature from the beginning of the day until the end.”

Climate also plays a role in the preservation functions that many dry cleaners market, such as caring for wedding gowns.

“Say you’re in Seattle, where it’s super damp, and you are processing a silk wedding gown,” White says. “You go ahead and box that in your factory plant, where it’s humid with steam everywhere, and you are trapping a lot of moisture into that acid-free box. You should consider having a room that is airconditioned and climate-controlled with the relative humidity that you want for optimal preservation of those garments.”

Of course, a lack of humidity can be its own issue, White says, referring to an ABC affiliate in Las Vegas.

“They still do tons of furs in Las Vegas, in the desert,” he says. “They have a climate-controlled vault where it’s perfectly stabilized all year round to maintain these expensive furs and leathers. They also process, clean and box wedding gowns in there, too, because it is so climate-controlled.”

WHO ARE YOUR CUSTOMERS?

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(Photo: © Dink101/Depositphotos)

Knowing your customers and understanding their needs is crucial in understanding what you’ll need in your plant, Williams says.

“There are just different types of clothing in different parts of the country,” he says. “In South Florida, you’re going to be dealing with summer clothes more often than you are in Maine, where you’ll have thicker garments. Same thing in Seattle versus San Diego.”

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“When you’re in high-moisture areas, like the South when it’s hot, your garments are coming in from your customers with a lot more perspiration on them,” he says. “So, being able to properly use and understand the advantages of professional wet cleaning in those regions to help break down that staining will be more effective and provide more consistent, clean garments with less labor involved.”

There are also discussions counter staff can have with customers to help them make decisions.

“For the question, ‘How often should I clean a suit?’ the answer is that it is relative to where they live and how often they wear it,” White says. “If an attorney in Louisiana wears a suit once a week in the summer, that suit is going to need to be cleaned more often than an attorney in Boston during the same period, where it’s not as humid.”

WHAT ARE THE DEMOGRAPHICS?

The other factor dry cleaners looking to start or expand their business should consider is the demographic makeup of their service area. Is the plant located in a rural, urban or suburban location?

“In general, in urban settings, you tend to see more sensitive fibers and garments coming in — such as silks, wools and designer brands — so your equipment and your formulations need to be set to properly process those types of garments,” White says. “People in rural settings tend to be a lot more flexible in the types of garments they bring in.

You’re still going to see wools and silks, but not to the degree you’ll see them in the urban setting.”

Dry cleaners who operate in more remote areas might need to cultivate a broader menu for their clients.

“A rural cleaner often needs to provide more services because they might be the only garment care provider in a large region,” White says. “They might need to be more flexible and doing wash and fold or cleaning household items in their own facility, because outsourcing is just not feasible.”

The simple physical realities of space available also will determine what type of equipment is possible in a plant, Williams says, and that is often magnified when comparing urban to rural businesses.

“In a big city, sometimes it’s more difficult to put big machines into the space that’s available, so many people go with multiple smaller machines because the installation is easier,” he says. “In a rural

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This becomes a factor when it comes to machine capacity.

“If you’ve got an 80-pound drycleaning machine, 80 pounds of shorts and 80 pounds of coats have a very different volume,” Williams says. “We have marks in the drum for the maximum level of garments, but you can’t put that many coats in because you’re not going to have any airflow in the drum.”

This can factor into what kind of machine, or how many machines, make sense for the plant.

“In Florida, you might be able to get by with a 40-pound machine, but if you’re cleaning bulkier clothing, that’s not going to cut it,” Williams says.

“You may have to increase the size of your machine or get numerous machines, depending on what you’re actually cleaning.”

New technology allows drycleaning machines to take the requirements of various garments into account, Williams says, but there are limits.

“Most machines have an automatic dry control that will dry the garments depending on the amount of solvent coming out of them,” he says. “So, the thicker the garment, the longer the drying, and the thinner the garment, the quicker. The machine should adjust to that, but if you’re in a really cold climate, and you have big, thick garments, you might have to run a re-drying cycle sometimes. You also don’t want to overload the machine, because that throws off the calibration and the dry control sensor doesn’t work properly at all.”

The activities of the consumer also come into play when cleaning their garments, White says.

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4/22/24 10:34 AM

plant, you’ve got more room, and you might even have a couple of big roll-up doors in the back, so installation is not a problem. In a city storefront, you might have to shut the road down and take apart your storefront to fit a big machine in.”

If there is a dominant industry in a cleaner’s service area, that will also affect the day-to-day processing the plant will undertake.

“In Alberta, Canada, the southern part, like Calgary, is pretty much a white- and blue-collar workforce,” White says. “But once you get north of Red Deer and Edmonton, most of the economy is built around the oil industry. So, in addition to regular retail dry cleaning, they perform a lot of heavyweight industrial coverall cleaning. These are Nomex® or cotton full-body coveralls that are covered in crude oil, salt or diatomaceous earth used in the industrial application.”

Seattle also faces this type of industry-specific work.

“The retail dry cleaners offer the diversity of offerings, including regular dry cleaning and wash-and-fold services,” White says, “but then they also take care of the waterproofed, storm weather gear for the people on the shipping boat fleets.”

And, if the industry is there to support it, dry cleaners can develop a niche of their own that can be of great help to their bottom line.

“In Louisville, Kentucky, we have an affiliate who not only offers regular retail dry cleaning but, because of the UPS and FedEx hubs, offers repair and refurbish for garments coming in from China and Asia,” White says. “They may have odor on them from the

www.americandrycleaner.com

shipping containers, for example, where they need to be cleaned before they are sent out and distributed to the retail stores.”

Knowing their area, White says, allows these cleaners to not only serve their customers better but to make sure they have the machines they actually need to

take care of the garments coming across the front counter.

“We’re seeing some big shifts in our industry, whether it’s from consolidation or post-pandemic client demands,” White says, “but you need to pay attention to equipment, processes and technology to best serve your customers.”

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REVIEW THE PLAN

(Continued from page 10)

rafters and suspended light fixtures,” he says. “Lint builds up over time, and boom, a fire can just take off immediately. We have circulating fans in our plant that go on every night for about two hours. They are turbo fans on a 360-degree rotating head and basically knock down the dust. Lint is just very dry cloth. Put that on top of an 8-foot fluorescent strip that’s not sealed entirely, and you’ll have something that can easily arc.”

For cleaners who have vans, there’s a simple step that can save a building, and potentially lives, in the event of a fire.

“If you store vehicles inside your building,” Wudyka says, “leave the keys in the van. If you have a fire, the fire department will need to get the van out of there — if not, now you’ve got a fuel fire. They can’t be finding keys when it’s mayhem. That can also negate your coverage. If you don’t take these precautions and a claim happens, you could be declined.”

Disaster plans should be living documents, Engh says, because as your business evolves, so should your recovery strategy.

“I would suggest (reviewing) at a minimum once a year, because over a year’s period of time, things do change,” he says. “Your management structure may change, your market may change, and you need to stay on top of it. Don’t be in a position where you pull that plan off the shelf and it’s got an inch of dust on top of it because you haven’t looked at it. I would at least have the owner in the management team look at it, even if it’s just a 15-minute review, every six months.”

Wudyka agrees with this timeline.

“Once a year, at least,” he says. “Reconstruction is a lot more expensive now than it’s ever been — I don’t care what you’re building. So annually, at a minimum, you should sit down with your agent, go through your policy and shop it. Get educated on what’s covered and what isn’t, especially in today’s market.”

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AROUND THE INDUSTRY

Rothmann Retires from Tuchman Advisory Group

Daughter of organization’s founder served as president for a decade SAN FRANCISCO — Ellen Tuchman Rothmann, president of the Tuchman Advisory Group (TAG), recently announced that she is stepping down and retiring from the organization.

“One of the great joys of my life has been my involvement in the drycleaning industry,” Rothmann says in a statement. “I will cherish the relationships and friendships with my esteemed colleagues which I know will continue for many years to come. It has been an honor to be part of a team of exceptional business professionals.”

The organization is currently in the process of discussing what it will Rothmann do going forward, but nothing has been decided at this point.

Growing up in the drycleaning business, Rothmann worked in numerous capacities at Tuchman Cleaners, the Indianapolis business started by her father, Sid Tuchman, who would later go on to found TAG. She also held sales positions at Apparelmaster and Tuchman Cleaner’s Home Carpet and Drapery businesses. Rothmann earned her B.A. in marketing from Indiana University.

“The members of TAG group are deeply grateful for Ellen’s steady guidance for the last 10 years,” says Michael Jones, owner of Louisville, Kentucky-based Highland Cleaners. “Her warm and intelligent leadership of the group was a fitting legacy to her father. We wish our friend a happy and well-deserved retirement.”

“As a TAG Member, I can definitely say that Ellen has been truly dedicated to us and the industry,” says Ben Combs, owner of Judi’s Cleaners in Sacramento, California. “During the early months of COVID, she instituted weekly Zoom meetings and was genuinely concerned about the progress of each member. She tracked each member’s progress on PPP applications, sales progress, etc. I can genuinely say that without her weekly call, realizing we were in this together, it would have been so much more difficult.” www.americandrycleaner.com

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DEADLINE: Ads must be received by the 1st of the preceding month. For example, for a June ad, the closing date is May 1st.

PAYMENT FOR CLASSIFIED ADS: Must accompany order.

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WRINKLE IN TIME

Stress, Silver Linings and Clearing the Air 10 YEARS AGO. Stressful Times — Drycleaning machines going down were a factor in the blood pressure readings of many owners, according to the American Drycleaner Your Views survey, with 34.5% reporting that such occurrences caused their BP rates to rise “a bit,” and another 21.4% saying their rates “soared” during such times. Front-counter staff showing up late or missing shifts caused the BP rates of 25% to rise a bit, and 17.9% to enter the “soar” zone. Such instances were not a concern for 41.7% of respondents, saying that this was “rarely if ever a concern” for them. “The best way to deal with stress is to be prepared with a backup plan for every situation that you think will give you problems,” one respondent noted.

25 YEARS AGO. Hilfiger Joins the Fold — In the wake of negotiating a $300,000 settlement with the Federal Trade Commission over alleged violations of the Care Label Rule, sportswear manufacturer Tommy Hilfiger joined the IFI and NCA-I. Membership in the industry organizations was aimed at helping the company meet record-keeping and reporting requirements stipulated by FTC in the settlement. Hilfiger approached IFI for help first, joining as a textile manufacturer.

IFI’s labs were familiar with Hilfiger’s woes, having tested more than 300 Hilfiger garments and reported results to the FTC.

24

50 YEARS AGO. Silver Linings — The drycleaning industry was on the move again, reported the California Fabricare Institute (CFI). The organization noted that 57 brand-new drycleaning plants were licensed in California the last six months of 1973, and business was picking up throughout the state.

While energy shortages were causing changes in plant operations, the CFI said, it predicted that, in the long run, it would prove a boon to the industry.

The elimination of waste of all kinds was a desirable end, and the energy crunch was forcing businesspeople and owners everywhere to increase the efficient use of energy and other

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natural resources.

75 YEARS AGO. Clearing the Air — When Cozad Model Cleaners in Newton, Iowa, installed some air filters in their tumblers, they decided to convert the new filters into good advertising copy. This was the heading for an ad: “The air you breathe is not good enough to dry your clothes at Cozad’s.” The off-the-cuff marketing outreach turned out to be a good call. Landon Cozad reported that the ad brought in a lot of white work.

— Compiled by Dave Davis, Editor

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