or Don Fawcett, CEO
of several Dependable Cleaners stores
in Massachusetts, and treasurer of the International Fabricare
Institute, life in the drycleaning industry has always been a
family thing. In fact, the industry is what brought his parents
together and made his life possible.
Both of Don’s parents were
originally from Canada, but, oddly enough, they met in Boston.
In 1930, Don’s father, Don Sr., joined the laundry
department of Sarni’s Cleaners seeking to make his
fortune. Not only did he find a calling, but he met Marion,
Don’s mother-to-be, who worked as a shirt presser for the
company.
“Eventually, they decided to
get married and started a small laundry, wet wash and
shirts,” Don recalled. “He drove the truck and did
the washing. She pressed the shirts. I hung around in a
playpen.”
They opened the first Dependable Cleaners
plant opened its doors in 1944, and over the next few years,
both the business and little Don grew together. Don originally
started working for the family business as a janitor when
he was thirteen. Over the years, he gained
more experience by working summers at the plant, as well as on
Saturdays during the school year.
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However, when the time came for
college, Don considered another career path. “I think I
originally wanted to work with General Motors to design
cars,” he said. “I always had hot rods growing up.
I was working on cars all the time.”
He opted to attend Norwich
University, a military school in Vermont, and went on to earn
an engineering degree in 1963. Nine months later, Don received
a commission from the Army to go to Germany, so he spent the
next three years overseas as he earned the rank of captain.
“That was a fantastic
experience. I learned an awful lot,” he said. “The
Army allowed me to make some mistakes and I learned a great
deal from them. It was difficult over there in that a lot of
officers and key non-commissioned officers were going to
Vietnam, so we were short personnel all the time. Yet, we still
had our full-time alert duties and our training
mission.”
In Germany, Don matured quickly out
of necessity. “The thing that the Army taught me, and it
was one of the greatest lessons that I ever learned, was... I
was in a difficult situation and I couldn’t walk
away,” he explained. “I couldn’t quit. I had
to do the best I could and that is a lifelong lesson that a lot
of people have difficulty with. When things get tough, they
leave. They just walk away.”
eturning to Quincy in 1966, Don was a new man
with a strong sense of responsibility. He was sure he wanted to
follow in his father’s footsteps and work for him at
Dependable Cleaners, but his father had a slightly different
idea.
“My father and I didn’t
always have the best relationship — so, when I was coming
into the business, he purchased a competitor and then set it up
as a separate company and let me have 49% of the stock,”
Don recalled. “So, I operated my cleaning business
separate from him so that I could do my own thing. He gave me
total control of it.”
To expand his education, Don
attended an eight-week course at IFI, but he also learned a lot
from trial and error at his plant making management decisions.
“I opened a dry store. I had a route. I hired and fired,
changed over from petroleum to perc. I put new pressers
in,” he noted. “I learned how to be in the
drycleaning business.”
By 1978, Don and his father
restructured their companies so that both could merge together
under the same corporate title. About that time, Don’s
brother, Fred, joined the family business, which had grown to
include eight stores with annual sales reaching in the
millions. The future couldn’t seem brighter.
Unfortunately, tough times hit the
family business in the late eighties and early nineties when a
recession affected the whole country. “My brother and I
had been on a fast track of growth. We borrowed a lot of money,
and, all of a sudden, the growth stopped and now it was time to
pay the money back,” he said. “We just rolled up
our sleeves and worked harder, the two of us.”
The family lived below its means for
a while and tried to funnel finances back into the company to
invest in the future. “We’re always reinvesting in
the business,” Don noted. “We’re always
looking for opportunities to grow. I think you have to take
those opportunities when they come, whether they’re at
the right time or not.”
In 1993, Dependable Cleaners seemed back
on track toward prosperity, but, unfortunately, a tragedy
struck the family. Fred, who was serving as president for the
family business, unexpectedly passed away from a heart attack
at only 39.
Don, devastated from the personal
loss, was forced to rethink his long-term plans in lieu of the
family crisis. “I had always wanted to be retired at 55
— not necessarily to not work, but from the role of
driver of the company — and I had to come back in. The
question was... do I continue or do I sell?”
Fortunately, the decision was made
easier by Don’s oldest daughter, Christa, who asked him
if she could give him a hand. Over time, she has moved up in
the ranks and eventually became president of Dependable
Cleaners about seven years ago.
Keeping with the Fawcett tradition,
the rest of the family has been involved with the business in
one form or another throughout the years. In fact, Don’s
wife of 27 years, Anne, met him while working at Dependable.
She worked as a package plant manager for the company for many
years before she pursued her own business in interior design.
The couple each brought in children
from previous marriages: Anne’s son Mark owns two
Domino’s Pizza franchises; Don’s daughter Christa
received an M.B.A. from Simmons College in Boston before
becoming more active at Dependable, and his daughter, Carlyn,
headed the company’s training department before she cut
back to part-time in order to raise her two children.
Anne and Don have one child
together, Donald Chapel III (a.k.a. D.C.) who has been with the
company for a year-and-a-half, but will leave soon to pursue an
M.B.A. at Pepperdine University. When he returns, he and
Christa will work toward becoming partners.
“I try to show a good example
for the children as to what it means to maintain strong family
values,” Don said. “I always attempt to treat all
four of them equal, although they’re very
different.”
ith the family’s third generation taking
control of the reins, Don has plenty of time to volunteer his
efforts toward improving the industry. He’s been on
several committees for IFI, including its recently-formed
strategic planning committee. In July, he’ll become the
association’s president-elect, which puts him on track to
be inducted as IFI president at Clean ’03.
Don hopes that he and IFI can help
put the industry back on track toward professionalism again.
“We really want people to take pride in being a member of
IFI and in being in the drycleaning industry. It’s a
great industry,” he said. “But we all used to be
professional drycleaners. Now, we’re just
drycleaners.”
In addition to his work at IFI, Don
has played a role in many other major industry associations,
including the North East Fabricare Association, the FabriCare
Foundation and the Neighborhood Cleaners Association. He has
also been a member of Varsity International for 12 years.
hough he never did get a chance to design his
own hot rod for a major car company, Don is content with his
life. The family wisely reinvested in real estate and owns ten
properties, and a side venture involving coin laundries brings
in a nice profit annually. He isn’t worried about the
future.
The success of Dependable Cleaners has
provided the company with a chance to play a big role in the
greater Boston community, supporting local charities by
offering discount cards that charitable organizations can sell
to raise money. Dependable also sponsors its own “Read to
Ride” contests every year that gives children
opportunities to win a bike for every book they read.
The family-owned business also likes
to give back to its employees, offering numerous incentives and
even teaching English-as-a-second-language courses to almost
half of its employees who do not speak English fluently.
“That’s been wonderful,” Don noted. “We
have four different levels that we teach.”
Of course, as proud as Don is about
his life’s work, he also appreciates the value in slowing
down once in a while in order to experience the finer things in
life.
“I’ve taught the kids
that it’s family first, business second,” he said.
“When they were growing up, I didn’t spend as much
time with my children as I would have liked. I was working a
lot. When D.C. came along, I put all of his hockey games and
all the things that he was involved with in my daytimer and I
made them because it was another appointment. I never double
booked. I took the time. Now, I encourage my children to spend
time with their children.”
Overall, it hasn’t been an easy run,
but Don feels lucky to be able to look back and not have any
regrets. “This is a great industry,” he said.
“Everybody likes to talk at a cocktail party: ‘Is
there anything else you would have liked to have done?’ I
can’t think of anything else I’d rather be doing
than what I have done with my life.”
