National Clothesline

Of course, no one person can control the direction of an entire industry by himself, but a lone individual can certainly leave his own imprint and help navigate such a body into safer waters.

In his own way, Chris Tebbs has spent about 40 years attempting to guide the drycleaning industry in a positive direction, sometimes on a national level, other times on a more global scale.

That is not to say that Chris believes he is somebody who can alter the destiny of the industry; rather, he sees himself as a man who is simply trying to make a difference for as many drycleaners as he can.

In order to accomplish such a feat, a person has to develop the right mindset first. While many feel that drycleaners are plagued with an unending stream of problems, Chris doesn ’t see it that way.

“There is no such thing

as a problem,” he explained. “There is only a challenge.“

Perhaps Chris developed such an attitude by spending over three decades in the service of the United Kingdom ’s Royal Naval Reserve (RNR).

Being born and raised in Harrogate, a town in Yorkshire in the north of England, Chris was fascinated with his native country ’s rich seafaring history and longed to go out on the sea himself.

Over the years, he focussed his RNR training on two specific areas: communications and as a seaman navigation officer. He spent a lot of his time on smaller “minesweeper” ships that belonged to the Reserve.

Chris was fascinated with navigating and communications because they proved to be demanding fields of study.

“There is a challenge in that you are engaged in the sea and the sea is something that you cannot control, ” he noted. “Therefore, you have to learn how to work with it. Certainly, as a navigator, one of the most exhilarating things is actually getting where you intended to get at the minute that you actually said you would be there... against all of these elements. You ’ve got wind. You’ve got tides. You’ve got bad weather and the like.”

Though he was quite fond of traveling far away at sea during the RNR aspect of his life, Chris remained close to his hometown for the beginning of his drycleaning career.

In 1967, he was hired to do administrative work for the Dyers and Cleaners Research Organization (DCRO) at their facilities near Harrogate.

“The only knowledge of drycleaning that I had at that point was that I took my clothes there and that was about it, ” he recalled. “I had an interest in the technology side of the industry. In the 1960s, things were starting to change rapidly, I think, and I found it all quite interesting. ”

Over time, his job duties shifted over to a more “technological” role as Chris engaged in research work, closely examining the new developments in drycleaning machinery and the rise of fluorocarbon solvents.

Some of the most rewarding work for him, however, came later on when DCRO decided to take on the responsibility to ensure that drycleaners in the UK received proper training and fully understood safety procedures.

“I suppose health and safety regulations have always been fairly strict in the UK, ” he said. “I got involved fairly early on with an industry committee that we had set up to work with the government health and safety executives, from which we developed a whole code of practice that the industry could abide by and the regulators could abide by. ”

The complex project lasted about eight years beginning in the mid-1980s, covering things like what to do in case of a plant emergency to how to fire up a boiler without causing an explosion. The idea was to make sure employees were certified in their chosen fields and educated enough to adhere to the proper health and safety precautions. The laborious work was ideal for somebody who enjoyed meeting challenges head on.

“I think in some ways it all comes down to the training I received in the Naval Reserve where you must stay on the ship, ” he explained. “You can’t just call for help. You have to deal with the problems then and solve them. One of the things that always struck me was firefighting has a totally different meaning when you ’re on board a ship because if you don’t put the fire out, you go down with the ship.”

While creating a code of practice for drycleaners was nowhere nearly as stressful as life on a ship, Chris still found achieving results very satisfying.

“At the end of the day, we had a comprehensive code of practice that was accepted by the Health and Safety Executive and by their inspectors, so it eliminated a lot of problems in the industry as long as a drycleaner was conforming to that code of practice, ” he noted.

In addition to making drycleaning jobs safer, the project also tried to find ways to make cleaners better at their jobs. Topics such as proper stain removal and pressing were high on the list of priorities.

“We put together a whole package of vocational qualifications for the drycleaning industry, ” he said. “Now, that was quite exciting. It was the first time that anybody had ever done an in-depth analysis of all the jobs that were done in a drycleaning establishment. ”

Chris’s reasons for advocating proper training are really quite simple.

“You don’t let anybody drive a car without passing a test in the first place,” he said. “One of the reasons I’ve always been keen on the training and certification side of it is that I really do feel that a cleaner should at least be trained and have some form to prove that he is capable of operating a drycleaning machine. At the end of the day, he ’s using a toxic solvent that could cause death in the wrong circumstance.”

After spending well over three decades in the service of DCRO, he was forced to leave his post there in 2001 after the organization closed down.

Since then, he has moved to Calgary, Alberta, in Canada and now works with the Alberta Textile Care Association in addition to his capacity as IDC executive director. He also works with CINET (International Committee for Drycleaning) and is still trying to help the industry on a global level.

His latest project involves modifying the use of care labels on garments. Ideally, CINET would like to see a form of universal care labeling, though the task itself seems nearly impossible.

“At the moment, there is an international system, but the USA and Japan don’t use it and there are a couple of others who don’t,” he said. “It’s difficult because in some countries care labels are mandated; in some countries they are not. ”

The problem is also compounded by the fact that each country has its own interpretation of what should be on a care label.

“I’m still a bit confused by the US system,” Chris admitted. “As I understand it, if a garment will not dryclean, you have a responsibility to tell the customer it will not dryclean, but if it will dryclean, you don ’t have to tell anybody that it will dryclean if it will also wash, as well. You could put on a preferred process, but the cleaner should be aware of any garment that will not dryclean. However, in most of the European countries — and certainly in the UK — if there is no care label on the garment, then the cleaner is responsible for that garment whatever happens. ”

According to Chris, the key to trying to resolve such a problem lies in the industry ’s ability to share information amongst itself.

“I think we’ve got a global industry,” he said. “I think that we can learn from each other. I’ve always thought that information, to a certain extent, is power. You need that information and can never stop getting enough of it. ”

Of course, sometimes sharing information can contribute to other problems, especially when it comes to regulations. With communication methods being so advanced, each country instantly knows which new regulations are being adopted abroad and often wants to raise the bar higher domestically.

“One thing that worries me a bit is that there is always a tendency for people to want to do something better or stronger than somebody else. They all want to make their own mark, ” he noted. “We have to make sure that it doesn’t all keep escalating.”

Having spent a long time studying the industry throughout his career, Chris enjoys dispensing advice to cleaners in order to help navigate them toward a successful path.

“I think the most important thing is quality of service,” he said. “You have to give good service or they won’t come back, but worse than that, they’ll tell their friends and colleagues.”

In terms of global success, Chris believes the entire industry must work on polishing up its tainted image.

“One of the things that we have a problem with is that we don’t get enough publicity about the good things that happen in drycleaning,” he added.

Part of the problem stems from poor communication, a subject with which Chris has plenty of experience from his days at the Reserve when he had to transmit messages at the slowest possible speed to make sure the recipient got them.

“All sorts of things come into your head at the time when you are thinking about communicating and what you ’ve got to do,” he explained. “You have to make sure that the other person not only actually receives the message, but understands the message in the same way that you sent it. The same thing applies to drycleaners, as well. A drycleaner has to get the message to his customer of what he ’s offering and they’ve got to understand what he is really offering.”