After graduating from high school, Brian Olson did not want to continue on to
college. With nothing better to do, he ended up buying a drycleaning plant at
only 18.
“My brother-in-law had opened a cleaners and laundromat in a small town in
eastern Colorado,
” Brian recalled. “His plan was to get rich being a drycleaner.”
Unfortunately, it didn’t take long before Brian’s older sister and her husband were in over their heads. The business, called
The Wash Tub, had become a financial liability.
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“My brother-in-law wanted to get rid of it so badly he said, ‘I’ll sell it to you for the payoff on the equipment’,” Brian recalled. It was insanely low. I ended up buying the business for $2,700.”
Brian had no actual business experience himself, but he had learned a bit from
his parents, who worked in the movie theater chain business.
At that time, it was common for theaters to add more screens to supplement their
earning potential. If one movie didn
’t pull customers in, perhaps another one would. Brian applied the same lesson to
his business.
“I added a self-service car wash on the side of the building,” he said.
Brian worked hard to keep the business earning its potential, but after five
hard years, he had burned out.
“I got in too deep,” he said. “At that age, it was too much. It was a burden. I had no life. I was doing it all
— everything — and the business had pretty much done the maximum it would do. So, I put it up
for sale and moved back to Oregon.
”
Brian had grown up in Portland, so an old friend working at a local cleaners
made sure there was a presser
’s job waiting for him upon his return.
When Brian arrived in town, one of the first things he noticed was an old,
dilapidated drycleaning business on the side of the road.
“I drove by this little run-down cleaners and it caught my eye,” he said. “I knew that day when I drove into town that that would be my cleaners one day. I
intuitively knew. What a dump it was, but that didn
’t matter. I could see a diamond in the rough.”
After Brian tucked that thought into the back of his mind, he went back to his
life as a presser and enjoyed a lack of responsibility for a change.
It didn’t keep. He found himself working as a manager in 1981 for Classic Cleaners.
While there he butted heads with the owner frequently.
“I was still young and full of ideas,” Brian noted. “It was clear that I wasn’t the owner, but I wanted to be. The man who signs the paycheck always wins.”
After leaving Classic Cleaners, Brian bounced around from job to job in the
industry. Sometimes he
’d press or inspect; other times he would be promoted to management. He wasn’t always happy in his jobs, but he always tried to learn from each one.
In 1991, while working for Five-Star Cleaners in Portland, Brian overheard his
bosses having a conversation. It was not about him, but it would change his
life drastically nonetheless.
“My bosses were talking about a cleaners a few miles up the road. They bought it
out of bankruptcy,
” he recalled. “I asked them ‘What cleaners?’ They said, ‘45th Ave. Cleaners.’”
It was the same cleaners Brian had noticed when he first moved back to Portland.
Since it didn’t fit with the Five-Star business model, they planned on fixing it up and
selling it.
After he asked his bosses how much they’d sell the business for once they fixed it up, he made an immediate offer for
the amount. Naturally, he was rejected. They didn
’t want to sell it to him just so he could steal away customers.
However, a month later, they changed their minds. It seems the business had
become a financial liability.
At this point, Brian had never even walked inside the cleaners. He also had no
money. Such details did not deter him from his goal.
“I had no idea where the money was going to come from,” he laughed. “I don’t know why I made the offer. I just knew I had to have the store.”
Brian wanted the store so much that he signed the papers on Friday, Dec. 13,
1991. Most people would hesitate from the unlucky Friday the 13th date, but
Brian thought it was a good sign.
Of course, when he opened the front doors to the plant for the first time, he
may have reconsidered that notion. It was worse than he thought.
“The first time I walked into 45th Ave. Cleaners, my heart stopped because it was
a total dump,
” he said. “It was just horrendous. It was so filthy that you had to wipe your feet on the
sidewalk when you came out the door. It was just gross.
”
He may have had his work cut out for him, but Brian still saw potential.
“I looked at these pre-World War II presses and this ancient boiler and the grody
walls
— and half of the lights were burnt out — and thought, you know what, it’s all doable,” he said.
On his first day of business, Brian had only five customers. That was fine,
though, because he knew he needed time to clean, paint and fix the plant up.
45th Ave. Cleaners had been around in 1948 and it definitely looked the part.
When Brian owned a plant at 18, he simply was not ready. However, after spending
over a decade at various cleaning plants, he knew how to do things the right
way.
He also knew he could produce better quality than his competitors, but that wasn’t enough. He also wanted to run his business profitably and ethically.
“I worked at all these other stores and watched what was going on,” Brian explained. “I would see stills emptied and the black muck thrown into the garbage bag and
put into the can sitting on the curb, leaking all over the place. I looked at
that and said,
‘We’re going to pay for this.’”
At the time, such practices were legal. But, though there weren’t any industry regulations at the time, Brian did not want his business to
become an environmental liability someday.
“I’m not a tree hugger,” he said. “I live in the real world. I can be green until I’m bankrupt. I can easily do that. I’ve got to find a balance that makes me profitable but still makes me accountable
ethically.
”
One thing Brian hopes to avoid is having his business expand to the point where
he can no longer have one-on-one interaction with his customers. Brian does a
little bit of everything at his plant and prefers it that way.
It may be small, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t made a huge impact.
The wall by the front counter of the plant is covered with environmental
designations and awards.
Not only is Brian the only CED in Oregon (and has been since 1994), his plant is
one of only 15 Model Cleaners Award recipients in the entire country. It is
also the only winner in the Northwest, the region which is considered home for
the award
’s creators, the National Waste Prevention Coalition.
It was not an easy honor to achieve. Brian had to fill out about two dozen pages
for the application form and undergo a grueling auditing process. Still, it was
all worth it. Eventually, it helped lead to more honors and, ultimately,
positive publicity.
Since then, Brian has also received an Evergreen Award from the EPA, a Mayor
Spirit of Portland Award, and even ODCA
’s prestigious Tom Mosher Award, among others.
Brian sees the awards as something that can establish credibility in the eyes of
his customers. However, he has always believed there is a better way to go
about that for the industry.
“I’ve been an advocate for licensing drycleaners since I’ve been in the business,” he said. “The person who cuts my hair has to be licensed by the state. I think it’s fair that drycleaners should have to have that proof. I want a required,
state-mandated program. By doing so, we will weed out the bad operators, and we
will elevate the industry.
”
Brian, who has served as president and district director for ODCA, believes his
association has helped elevate the local industry tremendously.
“I believe what the drycleaners in Oregon have done is remarkable,” he said. “We put together the regulations that mandate every cleaner in the state be green
and environmental. They
’ve been in place for ten years. We created them.
“It wasn’t the DEQ coming to us. No other industry in Oregon has ever done that. Ever. We
still are being attacked because we
’re not green.”
As difficult and time-consuming as it is being a drycleaner, Brian still finds
time for a more challenging
“hobby” at his congregation, Beit Haverim. For three years, he has chaired the cemetery
committee, a post that is as arduous as it sounds.
“One of the responsibilities is meeting with families at the time of death,” he said. “I answer their questions. I’m their salesman. I’m their counselor. I give them all the advice and guidance I can.”
Brian decided to take the position after he went through the mourning process
himself. His partner, Andy Hamon
— the person who introduced him to Judaism — died in 2003. Brian was able to get through the tragedy with the help from Beit
Haverim counselors, which is why he decided to return the favor to others.
“What I have found is, while it is the single most difficult thing I’ve ever done in my life — being there for people at that time — I have never felt anything more rewarding,” he explained. “It’s amazing. I have seen more of life through someone’s loss and through death than I have ever seen in any other aspect of my life.”
