Even the biggest dreams can start off on the smallest of scales. When Greek
immigrant Charles Antonopoulos first opened up a humble little business
originally called Highland Cleaners in Lowell, MA, the year was 1913. That was
the first step.
“My grandfather came to this country via Ellis Island and was a tailor by trade,” explained Charles Anton. “He started taking in ancillary services like laundering and drycleaning. He
eventually had two other stores that he opened and he had four sons. As was
customary, they came into the business.”
Two of the siblings decided to stay on board and comprise the second generation
of the Anton family to run the business: Socrates and Arthur, Sr., father to
the two men who would eventually represent the third generation — Charles and Arthur, Jr.
In 1957, the company was renamed Anton’s Cleaners. Socrates and Arthur, Sr. decided to build on their father’s legacy and aggressively branch out the business in a most impressive fashion.
“I think when they took over the business there were three stores,” Charles noted. “They expanded the business to about 100 stores. We had locations in the
Washington, DC/Virginia area. We had locations in the Michigan/Toledo, OH,
area. We actually had a location in the Pentagon building for 18 years. They
built up the business through the 1960s and very early 1970s, and then that’s when polyester entered the marketplace. I think a third of the drycleaners in
the country went out of business.”
In order to keep the business running through the 1970s, the Anton family
diversified with uniform rental, drapery manufacturing and coin-op laundries,
but the family changed its strategy again when the 1980s rolled around.
“When I came into the business with my brother in the early 1980s, we decided we
wanted to focus our attention on retail drycleaning,” Charles recalled. “We sold our uniform rental to Cintas. We sold all of our laundromats. We started
to change the focus to doing everything via a package plant, then producing
there. We wanted to have a strong focus on retail and our customers.”
Oddly enough, Charles and Arthur, Jr., did not grow up around the family
business.
“We were exposed to it, but we both went away for school,” Charles said. “We went away to boarding school and then we went to college. We weren’t really around it.”
Arthur attended Harvard University while Charles chose Tufts University, then
Boston University School of Law and graduate school for business.
Having a law background turned out to be quite a resource for Charles who came
into the industry at a difficult time in 1982.
“That was at a time in the post-1970s when a lot of cleaners were coming out of
polyester times and were beat up by it, then all of a sudden you had all of
these environmental regulations that were promulgated,” he said. “At that point, I said I can serve the industry because I can navigate through
the regulations pretty easily, or much more easily than the people who were
operating drycleaning plants.”
Before long, Charles joined the North East Fabricare Association and headed a
subcommittee that focussed its energies on environmental laws and issues.
“I negotiated a deal with Safety Kleen, a transporter of hazardous waste. I
convinced them in my office to invest — I think it was 20 million dollars at the time — in this industry,” Charles said. “I sort of said I will promise you that I will do everything in my power to
deliver New England to you via NEFA because we had these hazardous waste
regulations and there was no place for these people to dispose of it.”
From that point on, Anton’s strived to be a leader in the industry for being environmentally responsible.
Charles spent a lot of time leading lobbying groups that would speak on behalf
of cleaners. Early on, he realized the best way to work with regulators was to
simply earn their trust.
“In Massachusetts, we developed some programs where, rather than fight them, we
would go to the legislators and say, ‘We want to join you. We want to improve on it,’” he said. “And we created some programs that got us recognized throughout the state for
being innovators and good business people. So, what then happened as a result
of that is we became very credible and then when we needed the government to
work with us in the future, we had a history — a track record — of doing the responsible thing.”
The work carried on into the 1990s, when Charles became involved in the creation
of the Massachusetts Environmental Results program.
“My thumbprint is on the laws that are being used today in 2010,” he noted. “I helped write them in 1996 or 1997.”
With a total of 44 locations throughout eastern Massachusetts and southern New
Hampshire and approximately 350 employees to oversee, the Anton brothers each
focus on a different aspect of the family business.
“Arthur is operation focussed. I’m administrative focussed,” Charles said. “He’s the chief operating officer. He’s constantly trying to elevate the bar on quality and efficiency and operation.
We’re a good team, as we’re my dad an my uncle.”
The company has grown substantially since it started, but the Antons remain
driven to succeed even further. One way to accomplish that is to keep in close
contact with customers.
“My brother doesn’t sit in an ivory tower,” Charles noted. “He’s out there with our people in the stores constantly and that’s how you check the quality and listen to what the customers are saying. We’re surveying them daily via web site surveys or through our marketing agencies
to listen, learn and improve. That’s the key. When I see other people who are smaller in size than we are, they
say, ‘Oh, I can’t do that because you guys are so big.’ We work harder than them and there’s more on our plate.”
Even the biggest projects can start off on the smallest of scales. Because the
public has been so kind to the Antons over the years, they are always looking
for ways to reciprocate.
In 1995, Anton’s kicked off its inaugural year of Coats for Kids. Back then, it was still a
learning process. The initial results were modestly successful.
“There have been other cleaners ahead of us who have done Coats for Kids. I
observed them all and said, ‘This is a way for our company to leverage what we do to help the community, but
how do we do it the right way?’” Charles recalled. “So, the first year we partnered with the Boston Bruins. We got 2,190 coats.”
That number seemed like a lot to the Antons for a first-year effort, but they
felt that they could do much better so they changed strategies a bit.
“We found the more appropriate media for us to use,” Charles added. “We went from the Boston Bruins to cable TV and Comcast and Fox TV became a part
of what we do. Then we went out to grade schools and elementary schools. What
we said is, ‘Let’s teach the kids how to be philanthropic.’ It’s much more powerful to ask a kid who is growing like a weed to take something
off their back and give it to another individual, as opposed to getting ten
dollars out of their parent’s wallet.”
To motivate kids, Anton’s offers contests where the school that collect the most coats per capita can
win prizes such as ice cream parties and money to buy books for their school.
Last year, Anton’s collected about 60,000 coats for its annual drive, bringing up its overall
total to over 620,000.
While the Coats for Kids drive only gathers winter garments for three months of
the year, the program itself starts back in July because the Anton family have
to start solving the logistics of distributing tens of thousands of garments to
those who need them.
It occurred to Charles that the company still had a few months early in the year
to devote to another cause.
While at a board meeting for Groton School, the boarding school alma matter for
him and Arthur, Jr., Charles overhead a discussion about the ridiculous costs
of prom gowns and how many young girls were intimidated and stressed by the
spectacle it has become.
So, in 2005, Anton’s created the Belle of the Ball program and asked its customers to donate their
extravagant prom gowns, most of which were only worn once for that special
night.
Once collected and cleaned, the company offers a boutique so teenage girls who
qualify can shop for their dream dresses.
“Rather than just find distribution channels, we have a local women’s college in Boston called Simmons College where they gave us the use of their
athletic facility for the weekend,” Charles said. “Then, we outfit about 400 girls. If you could see this event, it would blow your
mind away.”
Since the program began five years ago, over a thousand girls altogether have
received beautiful dresses.
Between the Belle of the Ball program and Coats for Kids, Anton’s has literally donated millions of dollars of time and service to give back to
the community, but the feeling of satisfaction it creates has been worth far
more.
After all, even a company that is 97 years old needs to keep challenging itself
in order to become better.
“Part of our culture, even when things are good, is to not let our feet hit the
ground,” Charles said.
