National Clothesline

Nearly 100 industry members gathered in Appleton for the 2010 Wisconsin Fabricare Institute winter convention and trade show to “Feel the Magic” and talk shop.

The festivities commenced with the Friday night dinner, where four door prize winners received $50 cash prizes. The winners were Conner Cass, Mitchell Cass, Karolyn Upham and Jan Barlow. Conner and Mitchell were part of the large contingent of Martinizing representatives, Karolyn is from Choice Cleaners and Jan is from Jan’s Cleaners in Clio, MI.

The after-dinner hospitality event, sponsored by allied trades members, created another opportunity for mingling and discussing the issues faced by drycleaners in a slowly recovering economy.

Karen Swink of Lindemann’s Cleaners began Saturday morning’s business sessions with a summary of her experiences at Drycleaning & Laundry Institute’s School of Dry Cleaning Technology in Laurel, MD. She was awarded a Fitzgerald scholarship at WFI winter convention last year.

Her presentation included photos she took during her week-long course, including historical/outdated laundry and drycleaning equipment, as well as students receiving hands-on experience for the lessons they learned.

“I found that this learning experience was enlightening as well as educational,” she said. “Brian Johnson of DLI was great at showing the class some new techniques for tying shirts for laundering and giving a review of sorting basics.”

In a marketing presentation, consultant Jan Barlow broke the audience into groups to discuss which marketing ideas are working in their businesses. An abundance of ideas were shared between the cleaners.

“Some newspapers have web sites that offer reasonable costs to advertise, so don’t give up entirely on newspaper advertising,” Barlow said.

“One way to get free publicity from the local press is to conduct a prom dress drive for disadvantaged girls,” she suggested. “Coats for Kids and food drives for the local food pantry are another way to do this.”

One WFI member mentioned that October is Down’s Syndrome Month and that they raise money and awareness for the cause by tying the event into a special offer for down-filled products like comforters, winter coats and pillows. A portion of the proceeds from that special offer was donated to a Down’s Syndrome charity.

“You can set up a Customer Appreciation Day that includes a discount on drycleaning linked to donations for a local food pantry,” Barlow said. “To tap into the economic stimulus movement, another member cleaner offered a $10 coupon for drycleaning on the condition that the recipient had to put the $10 back into the local economy.”

A list of ten ways to improve your business that she provided included:

• Finding what sets you apart from your competition.

• Marketing to your clients.

• Knowing where you are and planning where you want to be.

• Measuring your progress.

• Communicating with your team what you are measuring.

• Being aware that you are only as good as the people who surround you.

• Embracing new technology in your plant.

• Stretching your imagination and using the Internet.

• Visiting new places.

• Repeat as necessary.

After lunch, allied trades members exhibited their products and services during the tabletop dessert reception where attendees enjoyed desserts while visiting the displays and networking with the exhibitors, and drycleaners.

The Saturday night auction was a success, bringing in $21,945 to help fund WFI and member programs and services.

Auctioneers Charlie Cass and Brian Swingle were as entertaining as they were effective, soliciting bids on more than 100 items generously donated by members.

At the end of the auction, WFI member Joe Leroy exclaimed that he and his business benefit so much by having an active and successful association serving the industry in Wisconsin. He indicated that perhaps there were those in attendance who did not have a successful bid but wanted to make a donation or add an amount to their auction billing.

People responded by shouting out their donation amounts ranging from $20 to $100. When all was said and done, $1,275 was added to the auction total.

At the banquet that evening, Joe Leroy of Stannard Cleaners and Sandy Mielke from Quick Cleaners were presented with several awards.

Leroy was recertified as a Certified Environmental Drycleaner (WI-CED) and his operations plant renewed its Five-Star status, while Mielke was certified as a Professional Wetcleaner (WI-CPW) and recertified as an Environmental Drycleaner (WI-CED) and Professional Drycleaner (CPD).

Mielke’s plant also renewed the Four-Star designation in the Five-Star Environmental Recognition Program.

The audience, especially the children, enjoyed entertainment provided by comedian and magician Lou LePore. His mix of magic and comedy enthralled the children and kept the adult audience chuckling.

Hall of Fame Chairman Tom Grimm then took the stage to introduce the 2010 WFI Hall of Fame inductee, Jim Fitzgerald, Jr. (See link.) After the banquet, the festivities continued at the hospitality event to close out the evening.

“In a nutshell, drycleaning is transferring soil from the garment to the solvent and safely removing the soil from the solvent,” said R.R. Street’s Nick Gagliano at the first Sunday morning business session.

The differences in the physical nature of the soils dictate the precise manner in which they are effectively removed from the garments, he explained.

“Those differences also dictate how the soils will be controlled to avoid damage to garments during the drycleaning process,” Gagliani said. “There are three types of contaminants that we need to address here — solvent soluble, solvent insoluble and water soluble. Solvent soluble contaminants are those with cooking oil, body oils, lubricating oils, greases and waxes.”

When they are left uncontrolled, he added, solvent-soluble contaminants can impart odors on garments. Because the soils are in solvent, they cannot be removed by mechanical separation.

He also went into some depth about solvent soluble dyes and the color fading that occurs if the amount of solvent used is not precisely controlled.

“Solvent soluble dyes are controlled by a sufficient of activated carbon adsorption,” Nick said. “They can be supplemented with an appropriate amount of distillation.”

Other types of contaminants were also given a thorough review.

The detailed coverage of contaminants dovetailed with the talk by Jon Beard of Solvair LLC., who introduced the Solvair System as an environmentally friendly alternative to conventional drycleaning processes.

“Solvair is a dual process solvent that uses DPnB in conjunction with liquid CO₂ and utilizes a revolutionary heatless drying process,” he explained, adding that the entire cleaning process takes between 38 and 42 minutes.

Solvair came about when R.R. Street’s was asked to develop a detergent that could be used effectively in a CO₂ machine, but was not able to make it clean as well as current industry standards, he said.

“We discovered a solvent with great cleaning properties, but it was very difficult to dry the garments,” he said. “We had to take the next step — developing and rigorously testing a Solvair machine — to take advantage of the new solvent.”

The prototype for a production machine was built and tested for two years before full-scale manufacturing of the machine was started and distribution was begun in 2007.

The Solvair machine goes through five steps in the cleaning process and three stages of filtration.

The machine features a high-speed Internet connection that lets Solvair technicians continuously monitor 132 data points to ensure proper operation of the unit. As software program updates are developed, Solvair can easily upgrade client’s machines remotely.

Steve Henshaw from Enviroforensics completed the lineup of speakers and told attending members that there are at least six events that threaten the financial future of drycleaners:

• You have received notice of contamination.

• You want to sell your business.

• You want to re-finance your property.

• You have been sued by a third party.

• You want a clean property.

• You want to retire.

If you have received notification of contamination on your site, Henshaw said concerns you may have include the cost of investigations and remediation, the cost of legal services, disruption to your operations, lost property values, a negative public image and exposure to third-party lawsuits.

“We help you pool together the available resources to manage these issues,” he said. “The Drycleaning Environmental Response Fund (DERF) is a great way to get reimbursed for at least some of the costs of remediation. We also look for historical insurance policies you may have had when the contamination was occurring, we look at state and local grants that may help with payment and, finally, we help obtain loans if necessary.”

There are ways to minimize financial obligation for cleanup activities, he added.

“Identifying past owners and/or drycleaning operators, evaluating neighboring site activities, evaluating accidental releases of chemicals and locating old insurance policies can all contribute to reducing your direct liability for the contamination,” Henshaw advised

The convention closed with a champagne brunch in a private room that provided a final opportunity to mingle and discuss the newly obtained strategies and informative advice given by the speakers the past two days. Armed with this new knowledge, drycleaners and allied trades members headed home to start implementing some of the guidance learned at the convention.