Newsmakers

Zoots, The Cleaner Cleaner has acquired the Connecticut based retail drycleaning and laundry related business of Unilever. Under the agreement, Unilever will take a minority shareholder stake in Zoots. Mark Landry, chief financial officer, and Alan Jope, chief operating officer of Unilever Home and Personal Care North America, will join Zoots’ board of directors.

The acquisition of stores and pick-up and delivery routes from Unilever will expand Zoots’ Connecticut foothold in the Fairfield County area, including the communities of Blackrock, Bridgeport, Easton, Fairfield, Norwalk, Redding, Southport, Trumbull, Weston, Westport and Wilton. Zoots services communities in ten states through retail locations and pick-up and delivery routes.

Zoots was founded in 1998 by Todd Krasnow and Tom Sternberg, founder of Staples. Krasnow commented: “Unilever has grown its retail drycleaning and laundry business into a formidable regional company that achieved a reputation for high levels of quality and service in one of the most discerning markets in the U.S. We believe the match in service and quality between Unilever and Zoots is a strong and exciting one.”

According to Unilever’s Landry, Zoots “has made tremendous strides in improving their reliability and quality. From all the partners we considered, Unilever felt that Zoots was best positioned to take this market to the next level of performance and profitability.

Unilever, an international food, home and personal care products company, operates in 88 countries and employs approximately 300,000 people with annual sales of $46 billion in 2000. U.S. sales were $11 billion with 28,000 employees and 80 offices and manufacturing sites in 26 states.

Financial terms of the acquisition agreement were not disclosed.

Cool Clean Technologies Inc., of Burnsville, MN, has acquired the assets of Hangers Cleaners from Micell Technologies, which includes Hangers Inc.’s MICO2 machines and an exclusive license to the related intellectual property from Micell Technologies.

Cool Clean Technologies is the sole source supplier of the CO2OL Clean drycleaning machine manufactured by Chart Industries.

In 1999, Micell’s MICO2 machine was the first of liquid carbon dioxide cleaning machines to be placed into service in a U.S. drycleaning plant. Since that time about 3 million pounds of garments have been cleaned in the MICO2 machines.

Until the sale, Hangers, Inc,. was the franchisor of Hangers Cleaners.

Hangers Cleaners locations will continue to expand throughout the United States under a trademark license with Cool Clean’s direction.

“Micell Technologies may have also been slightly ahead of its time,” said John Wikstrom, president and CEO of Cool Clean. “However, the time for transition is right. As a machine manufacturer, we believe we can dramatically improve the economics and continue to drive the change that Micell and Hangers started.”

Information on Cool Clean Technologies, Inc., is available by calling (888) 500-4900 or (866) CO2-WASH or by visiting the Cool Clean web site: www.co2olclean.com. Hangers Cleaners web site is www.hangersdrycleaners.com.

The Wedding Gown Specialists Web-Re-Stor Association has officially changed its name to be the Association of Wedding Gown Specialists to coincide with its decision to no longer limit membership in the association to licensees of the Web-Re-Stor process.

According to Peter Delgatto, president of the association, the name change allows the group to maintain its reputation while “opening our membership requirements means we can provide even better service to brides as we expand our network of members around the world.”

“The Association of Bridal Consultants and National Bride Service will continue to endorse our preservations,” Delgatto noted. “However, our new logo will appear only on containers that are completely acid-free, not just pH neutral. In fact, we are so confident in the quality of our members’ work and the materials we use, our new line of wedding chests will be trademarked ‘Museum Care’ preservations. We all honor the guarantee of any other association member.”

According to Delgatto, that guarantee includes taking the gown out of the container and pressing it at no charge when the gown is to be worn again.

At one of its recent meetings, the Association of Wedding Gown Specialists announced its newly-elected members, including: Malcolm MacGregor of Browns Cleaners and Tailors in Ottawa, Ontario; Marty Wade of Clothing Care in Hampton, VA; Wayne Edelman of Meurice Garment Care in New York, NY; Jack Creed of Creeds Dry Cleaning and TheDryCleaner.com in Toronto, Ontario; Joseph Hallak, Jr., of Hallak Cleaners in New York, NY, and Hackensack, NJ; Cynthia Schillig of Clothing Care in Gahanna, OH; Tom Ryan of Georgetown Cleaners in Ann Arbor, MI; Laura Funka of Midwest Preservation and Restoration in Toledo, OH; John Horst of Margaret's Cleaners in La Jolla, CA; John Geer of Anthony's Cleaners in Cincinnati, OH; Chris Maxwell of Westside Cleaners in Jackson, TN; and Norville Weiss of Wedding Gown Specialists in Chico, CA.

The Association of Wedding Gown Specialists is a not-for-profit association that serves as a marketing cooperative for members around the world, providing such things as a referral service for brides who find the association’s care labels in gowns made by more than 60 manufacturers. The group also operates as a buying cooperative that can provide supplies such as archival-quality wedding chests at special pricing.

For more information, contact the association by calling (800) 501-5005 or visiting their web site online at www.weddinggownspecialists.com.

The Uniform and Textile Service Association is getting the word out and being recognized for it.

Recently, the association was awarded honorable mention designations for its web site and trade magazine, Industrial Launderer, at an annual Trends Publication Contest sponsored by Association Trends, an association newspaper for executives and suppliers.

The contest, whose field consisted of more than 300 entries, held an awards ceremony on January 30 to honor the winners.

UTSA’s web site, located at www.utsa.com, was selected because it keeps members updated on industry information and association events. Members can utilize the site to register for meetings, order publications, find the latest industry statistics and voice their opinions by responding to surveys.

Industrial Launderer, UTSA’s monthly four-color magazine, was singled out for its coverage of individual corporations’ business practices, industry and government news, technical developments and its customer’s use of industry’s products and services.

The awards were not the first time UTSA received an honorable distinction from Association Trends. The association’s comprehensive industry directory, Inside Textile Services 2000-2001 took home the first place Trends award in the directory competition last year. The Uniform and Textile Service Association is an international trade organization representing textile supply and service companies. The association has been in existence for more than 65 years and represents 95% of the annual sales generated by the uniform service industry, and 65% of the annual sales generated by the linen supply industry.

Ray Smith has been appointed national sales manager for AMA Group–USA. Smith has more than 20 years of industry experience, having served as regional sales and marketing manager for VIC Manufacturing, Hoyt Corp. and R&R Street & Co. Inc. He has a B.S. degree in marketing and management from Jacksonville University and is married with two children.

AMA Group, headquartered in Bologna, Italy, manufactures drycleaning machines sold under familiar name brands such as Flourmatic/Blue Tiger and Suprema with a range of machines compatible with perc, hydrocarbon and silicone-based solvents.

The Morris & Eckels Supply Co. of Marietta, GA, donated $2,600 to the American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund on behalf of its drycleaning customers in Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee who supported the cause by purchasing patriotic-themed hangers, garment covers and poly bags.

The International Drycleaners Congress has added Becca Anderson to its staff as Editor/Production Coordinator of the quarterly IDC News. She designed a website for the IDC in 2001 and will integrate the

printed and on-line formats to broaden the association’s communication abilities.

Anderson brings over 20 years experience in publications, editing, writing and production coordination to the job. She has held positions with a publishing house, advertising and public relations firms, and a grocery chain in Arizona. She is currently on staff of Fabricare Canada magazine, and with ExactTarget, an on-line newsletter service for which she supplies weekly content that drycleaners send to over 350,000 customers.

“I’ve been very impressed with the caliber of people who are members of IDC and look forward to getting to know them better and presenting information to them in as many formats as possible to meet the needs of the organization,” Anderson said. “I love anything to do with people, words and graphics, so the position with IDC is both challenging and fun.”

Dr. Manfred Wentz, executive Director of IDC, said Anderson "is an excellent communicator and is eminently qualified to manage communications with our worldwide IDC members via the printed and the electronic media."

IDC was founded in 1959 to strengthen international understanding and goodwill in the fabric care industry by providing opportunities for travel, exchange of information and communication for its worldwide members. Over 450 industry leaders from 16 countries belong to the organization. IDC holds annual conventions throughout the world with this year’s gathering scheduled for London, England, on August 27-31. Information about the organization is available on its website: www.idcnews.org.

Jim Fitzgerald (left) president of Herb Fitzgerald Co. in Butler, WI, receives an award for distributor sales in 2001 from Tom Sheridan, Union’s western sales manager. The award was presented at a recent open house in Butler, WI.

Liberty-Pittsburgh Systems has promoted Kathy Cochran to the position of vice present of sales for the west and Darryl Crawford as vice president of sales for the east.

Cochran, who comes from a three-generation drycleaning family, is a 1989 graduate of Texas Tech University and has been in sales ever since. She joined Liberty-Pittsburgh Systems in 1997.

Crawford attended the University of Mobile in Mobile, AL, on a vocal scholarship and,

at age 19, moved to Nashville to pursue a musical career, traveling with a group called Re Generation. His drycleaning experience began in Atlanta in 1985 with Professional Cleaners, a chain of nine stores. He managed the shirt plant and three other locations with full drycleaning production. In 1990, he joined Liberty as a regional sales manager.

Cochran and Crawford will split the U.S. sales market, holding responsibilities for the sales and marketing activities and the direct filed sales staffs in their respective regions.

Liberty-Pittsburgh Systems is marking its 75th anniversary this year.