National Clothesline

Last month, I presented my annual Tailwind Systems Manager of the Year 2012 award. This is usually the time that I put together an announcement for this publication, saying what I have to say and augmenting it with excerpts from the owner of the plant. They have always put in their two cents, so to speak.

Well, today is evidently my day off. The letter that I got from the owner of Quest Cleaners in Waltham, MA, is so thorough, well written and professional that I submit it to all of you, unedited. It sounds like a cliché, but I truly could not have said it better myself.

Ladies and gentlemen of the industry, I proudly present to you this year’s Tailwind Systems Manager of the Year, Ed Laffey.

Brian Meckel writes:

Don,

I am really excited to learn that you have chosen Ed Laffey as the Tailwind Systems manager of the year. While I do not have the contact with the hundreds of operators each year that you do, I can really say that I could not think of a better candidate for this honor.

You asked me to write a story of why I feel that Ed is deserving of this honor. In order to do so, I must first start with a bit of history. Ed has had a history of at least four decades of running successful small businesses. His family business when growing up was the drycleaning business. Although part of his career was spent starting, running, and selling successful restaurants, I believe that he would consider his business passion to be drycleaning.

Ed’s career in the drycleaning business involved taking over his family business. He also opened, purchased and sold many retail establishments over his four-plus decade career.

I know what you are thinking… four decades, shouldn’t this guy be living in Florida? That’s what I thought when I agreed to meet him to discuss an open plant manager position at Quest Cleaners in Waltham. In 2008, Ed sold his retail drycleaning business and planned to retire. Fortunately, for Quest, Ed became bored with retirement very quickly and decided to look for opportunities within the industry he knew best.

Quest Cleaners is a business that I acquired in September of 2009 with my partner Mark Birchem. Mark was operating two successful drop stores in greater Boston and we became acquainted because of the desire of the former owners of Quest Cleaners looking to sell, while I was seeking growth opportunities. Quest was Mark’s wholesale drycleaning provider.

As anybody who has operated a drycleaning business in the greater Boston market without owning their own plant knows, finding a good wholesaler can be a huge challenge. During this process, Mark and I identified a need for a stable, quality drycleaner to enter the hotel drycleaning business, so that is what we did.

As we began operating the Quest plant, we quickly realized that the business needed a manager with the ability to drive quality and profitability and to lead the great people that worked in the business to achieve success.

In November of 2009, we presented an offer to Ed Laffey to join our team in that capacity. Ed came on board and made continuous improvements in quality, yet we were still lacking in the profitability department. We understood that the sector of the business that we were operating in had much thinner margins than the typical drycleaning business and that we had to do something to save on our largest expense, labor.

We investigated all of the automated assembly systems that were on the market, but the investment would have been considerable in order to attain the savings. I have always read the industry magazines and remembered the many stories that I read by Don Desrosiers over the years, so I decided to contact him to see what his system could do prior to making a large capital investment.

The day that I met with him I decided immediately to bring him in to implement the Tailwind System. In hindsight, I definitely should have included Ed in this discussion and decision as our plant manager.

Ed knew that we were going to make a major change to the operation that he was in charge of about a week before the change was meant to take effect. To say that he was worried is an understatement. As any manager would be, I’m sure he was thinking, “Why do they need a consultant when they have me?”

Day One of our transition came and Ed was cautiously optimistic. While Ed has always had a positive, can-do attitude, by the end of the first day he saw the benefits the system would bring us and he was 100 percent on board with the implementation.

The comment that Ed made that day, that I will never forget, and that Don will want all of you to remember was, “Wow, I wish I knew about this system when I ran my business!”

Since our transition, Ed has continued to manage the plant to perform above expectations, which has enabled us to raise our expectations and work towards our overall business goal of continuous improvement.

The reason that Ed deserves this award is his ability to put his many years of experience and knowledge aside and to recognize that just because something worked in the past does not mean that there is not a better way to do things today. Anybody that says that you cannot teach an old dog new tricks has not had the pleasure to meet Ed Laffey. Ed continued to exceed both my and Don’s expectations after implementing the system and according to Don, Ed’s results are in the top one percent of all plants that he has seen.

This all started back in 2009,. Today it is late 2011, and both Mark and I are proud to say that Ed Laffey is now our business partner. Through his open mind to new systems and his dedication to excellence, Ed has taken an ownership stake in our firm.

Sincerely,

Brian Meckel, Quest Cleaners

I have said many times that the hardest people to sell on the idea of the Tailwind System are the older folks — those that have been around a long time and have seen it all. When they finally see and interact with the Tailwind System, they realize how special it is and become its most devoted, diehard fans.

Ed Laffey personifies this. He struggled daily running a busy plant that was hard-pressed to make a profit. Enter Tailwind and he soon invested considerable personal resources because he knew that it was the key to a profitable company. Ed routinely operates the drycleaning department at a stunning 20 pieces per labor hour and the shirt department at an equally outstanding 30 PPLH. Very impressive.

And since the point of the Tailwind System is to run a smooth plant with the best possible quality and the lowest possible labor cost, it is only logical that Ed Laffey, the manager of Quest Cleaners, be the Tailwind Systems Manager of the Year.