National Clothesline

David Dawson of R. R. Street & Co., Naperville, IL, became just the sixth person to receive the J. Morry Friedlander Award from the Textile Care Allied Trades Association during the association’s annual conference in Napa, CA, last month.

The award was established in 1994 in recognition of the dedication of Mr. Friedlander to TCATA for over 40 years. The highest award given by the association, it is presented only when an individual distinguishes himself by outstanding dedication and service.

In presenting the award, TCATA President Alex Atwater noted that Dawson is the type of member who keeps the Association strong by volunteering time, ideas and energy in spite of a demanding schedule.

“It would be difficult to find someone else who has given back more to the association than the person we honor tonight, ” Atwater said at the presentation.

“Our award recipient entered the drycleaning industry at a very young age when he and his brother helped out at their father ’s drycleaning plant,” Atwater continued. “Starting out as a salesman, he has worked his way up into senior management at one of the oldest and most respected companies in our industry. ”

Dawson has served in many positions in the association, including vice president of the supply manufacturers group, on the executive committee for five years, and on the board for 10 years, culminating with his election to president in 1998. He currently serves on the Health and Environmental Leadership Committee, as chairman of TCATA ’s Government Affairs Committee and on this year’s Business Program Committee. He received the “Young Timer of the Year” Award in 2001.

Also at the conference, TCATA presented an award to the P.B. Gast Co. of St. Clair Shores, MI, in recognition of the company ’s 50 years of membership in the association.

The P.B. Gast & Sons Company traces its origins back to the P.B. Gast Soap Company, founded in 1894 by a 20-year-old soapmaker named Peter B. Gast. Gast began his business by marketing his soap sticks, packed in open-top barrels, to some 20 steam laundries in Grand Rapids.

Like other housewives of the time, Emily Gast, Peter's wife, pared the soap sticks into small pieces that could be boiled with the family wash in a large copper tub. As the mother of seven children, she did lots of laundry and one day asked her husband why a machine couldn ’t chip the soap. He presented the problem to a machine shop in Syracuse, NY, and, in 1908, began marketing P.B. Gast Soap Chips, a soap industry first, according to members of the Gast family.

By 1922 two of his sons, Waldemar and Raymond, had joined him in the business, and the company name was changed to P.B. Gast & Sons. Four years later, faced with rising competition from such soap industry giants as Proctor & Gamble, the firm stopped making soap entirely, devoting itself instead to the distribution of janitorial and sanitary supplies.

The Laundry Division of P.B. Gast & Sons was established in 1949 by Frederick C. Gast, Sr. This division distributes commercial laundry equipment throughout Michigan and northern Ohio.

A third generation of the Gast family is now active in the firm's management. Peter B. Gast, based in Detroit, is corporate president and general manager of the laundry division. Frederick C. Gast, Jr., vice-president and chief operating officer, heads up the Grand Rapids office with responsibilities for administration and sanitation sales. P.B. Gast & Sons company is one of the largest distributors of its type in the Midwest.

The conference also saw the election of Rick Kelly of Pellerin Milnor Corp. in Kenner, LA as president-elect of TCATA. Kelly has been a member of the TCATA board since 2003 and serves as vice president of the machinery manufacturers group. He also chairs the advisory committee of member exhibitors.

Kelly’s two-year term as president will begin in May of 2008.

Other officers elected were: Dale Loomis, Loomis Bros. Equipment, Fenton, MO, secretary-treasurer-elect; Fred Schwarzmann, A.L. Wilson Chemical, Kearny, NJ, vice president of the supply manufacturers group; Rick Kelly of Pellerin-Milnor Corp., vice president of the machinery manufacturers group; and Lawton Jones of Phenix Supply Co. as vice president of the distributors group. Each serves a one-year term.

TCATA also elected the following to two-year terms on the board:

Bryant Dunivan of Energenics Corporation, Naples, FL; Phil Hart of Kannegiesser USA, Grand Prairie, TX; and Rick Kelly to represent the machinery manufacturers group.

Fred Schwarzmann, A.L. Wilson Chemical, Kearny, NJ, and Kevin Weir, Liberty-Pittsburgh Systems, Pittsburgh, PA, to represent the supply manufacturers group.

Kelly Kelleher, Kelleher Equipment Supply Co., Long Beach, CA, and D’Arcy McConvey, Dalex Canada, Inc., Concord, ON, to represent the machinery distributors group.

Lawton Jones, Phenix Supply Co., Decatur, GA, to represent the supply distributors group.

Bill O’Connor, Drycleaners News Corp., Waterbury, CT, to represent the trade journal group.

The next annual conference will be April 30–May 3 at the Hyatt Regency Lost Pines Resort near Austin, TX.