National
Clothesline
Before reading any further, it’s a
good idea not to assume anything about drycleaner Martin Young.
He simply doesn’t like that.
“I tell people that I would prefer
that they compare others to me, rather than comparing me to
others,” he said. “I’ve given a lot to
learning as much as I can about fibers, fabrics, dyes,
construction, textile chemistry... I think it is my job and my
brother cleaners’ job to know more than the consumer. The
problem is that many of the plants that I go into, the people
owning the plant sometimes don’t even know as much as the
consumer.”
For Martin, his knowledge of the industry
wasn’t something he acquired overnight. In fact, as owner
of Young’s Cleaners in Concord, NC, for the past 25
years, it’s been a daily challenge to take as much
drycleaning knowledge to heart as possible.
It hasn’t always been easy, of
course, but his father before him served as a good example that
anybody can overcome hardship and excel at what they do —
if they only work hard enough toward that goal.
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Upon returning home, M.L. (Luke) Young
was too embarrassed by the accident to go back to school, so he
worked full time at a drycleaning plant that had hired him the
previous year in 1930.
After marrying Martin’s mother,
Anna, in 1939, M.L. was enlisted to manage a drycleaning plant.
Initially, things didn’t work out in Salisbury, so the
Young family opted to move the business 30 miles south to
Concord.
“Over my desk is a contract where
they bought out their partner four months after they opened
there,” he said. “My dad’s salary in the
contract was $12.50 a week. You know how much they paid their
partner for his half of the business? $350.”
In the beginning, it wasn’t
drycleaning that kept the plant in business. During World War
II, the Youngs offered another service.
“Dad always said he made more money
during and after World War II by dyeing clothes, especially
Army clothes,” Martin recalled. “These guys would
bring their nice clothes home and, instead of keeping them
khaki, they would dye them brown or navy or black.”
In April of 1951, Martin was born, and,
as he puts it, he “grew up in a laundry basket.” He
worked part time at the plant as he got older, but chose a
different direction after high school.
After graduating from the University of
North Carolina - Charlotte with a degree in sociology, Martin
wanted to change the world.
“I got out of college and worked
with the Department of Social Services for about three years. I
did eligibility for aid to families with dependent children. I
determined who got checks and how much they got,” he
said.
The job had its frustrating aspects, but
Martin left mostly because he wanted to start his own family,
and, ironically, he could not support one on the salary he
obtained for helping other families. Next, he applied for a job
at a restaurant at the Charlotte Douglas Airport.
“Food service is the only thing
worse than drycleaning,” he dryly noted.
While he was fortunate to meet his wife,
Zelda, at the job, it didn’t take long for Martin to
become burned out.
Around Thanksgiving in 1980, M.L. Young
had been trying to sell the family business. At the same time
Martin was coming to the conclusion that he did not like to
work for others. It was a perfect fit for both.
When Martin assumed ownership of Young
Cleaners, he was fully prepared in all aspects of the business
except perhaps the most important: spotting.
“I had an advantage though,”
he explained. “My cleaners was set up and laid out for a
one-armed man. Everything was laid out well and easy to get to,
with very few steps in-between. Also, Daddy has this fire. He
trained me to do it right. That’s the reason I continue
to do it right. In a world of processors, I consider myself an
artist.”
Young’s Cleaners had always
fostered a good reputation for being a quality cleaners and
Martin restlessly spent years training with his father so that
he could preserve it.
“I knew I had finally made it as a
cleaner when Dad starting letting me spot red silk,” he
laughed. “I knew I was over the hump. By that time, he
had taught me pretty much all that he could teach me and I
needed to go find other people to learn from.”
In the mid-1980s, Martin participated in
a “train the trainer” program from IFI, learning
from some of the best minds the industry had to offer: Norm
Oehlke, Everett Childers, Jane Zellers, Kenney Slatten and Fran
Sadler, among others.
Martin’s great passion for
drycleaning can be traced to one simple reason. “I think
it’s the reward of accomplishing something on a daily
basis,” he said. “Like the lady who brings in the
wedding dress that had been in an outbuilding where a limb fell
through the roof and it laid out there for six months with
crepe paper fading on it and mold and mildew and tree sap
— exposed to all of the elements. What can you do to
help? Those types of things.”
For Martin, cleaning and restoring
garments meets only part of his job description as a cleaner.
He also believes all cleaners should give back to the industry
and help each other when in need.
To that end, he participated in a
letter-writing campaign to inform others of the Dry-Cleaning
Solvent Cleanup Act Program back in 1995.
From his efforts there, he earned a spot
on the board for the North Carolina Association of Launderers
and Cleaners. He currently is serving a term as president of
the organization.
Martin is also quite proud of his work a
few years back on an important perc and alternative solvent
study in North Carolina.
“We did a very even-handed
analysis,” he explained. “Out of that came a
statement from the North Carolina Epidemiology branch, and
I’ll paraphrase: ‘Perchloroethylene as it is used
in the drycleaning industry today poses no significant risk to
the general public.’ At that point in time, I asked the
facilitator of the meeting if I could kiss each one of the men
from the Epidemiology branch. We were in the middle of a storm
at that time.”
When IFI announced its Award of
Excellence program at the last Clean Show, Martin liked the
idea immediately. In fact, he was in the first group of nine
cleaners to meet the program’s criteria. He is proud of
the accomplishment.
“Anybody that can pass the Stain
Removal Test and the Cleaning Performance Test is in decent
shape,” he said. “When IFI set up the Award of
Excellence, they were looking for indicators of how someone is
conducting business. These things in and of themselves,
singularly, aren’t that great, but taken as a whole, it
is a pretty good indication of how you run your
business.”
Already, Martin has qualified to be in
the program for 2006. It’s an honor that he believes
can’t be bought, but, instead, has to be earned —
much like the knowledge he gained working with his father, who
still serves as a strong inspiration today.
“I am six feet tall, 250 pounds
with two strong arms and a college education,” he said.
“I have all of that going for me and I’m doing my
best to hold onto what a one-armed man with a seventh-grade
education built.”
Martin has done quite well with the tools
at his disposal. After all, he has raised and provided
education for his two children, Bryon and Michelle, and has
been an industry consultant for many years. Somehow, he has
managed to work side by side at his plant with his wife, Zelda,
too. She takes care of the front counter so he can take care of
garment stains in the back. Martin believes handling clothes is
a big responsibility.
“Garments are a very personal
thing,” he said. “People come in with clothes all
wadded up and in trash bags, but when they pull them out and
start laying them on the counter, they stroke them. Clothes are
a very personal, emotional thing.”
Perhaps that is why Martin is frustrated
by the diminishing unity he’s witnessed among drycleaners
recently.
“The atmosphere among cleaners has
changed in the last 25 years,” he said. “When I
started in 1981, we were a close-knit group here in my
hometown. My brother cleaners knew that my dad was the most
experienced cleaner in town and he was more than happy to help
them keep from having to pay a claim.”
Unfortunately, a lot has changed since
then, and not for the better.
“Now, it’s become
cutthroat,” he said. “The pie has been sliced so
small that people are very hostile toward one another and will
cut each other’s throat and then sit on the curb and see
who is going to die first.”
As Martin sees it, cleaners would be a
lot smarter to work together, rather than against each other.
“We’re all restoring textiles
to please the customer,” he said. “We’re
trying to override regulation. It has nothing to do with the
solution that you immerse or don’t immerse the garments
in — or whatever. If we would all unite under that
banner and that attitude, it would be a much better
world.”
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