e isn’t full
of hot air, but, sometimes, Paul Gelpi likes to have his fair
share of it close by. About six times a year, he can be found
piloting his own hot air balloon which has his company’s
logo printed on three sides. It certainly attracts attention
from onlookers at major outdoor events such as Ohio State
football games.
It’s appropriate that his
family’s drycleaning business is named Swan Cleaners because Paul is as comfortable in the sky
as he is on the ground. He’s always been fascinated by
speed and has pretty much flown everything under the sun
— helicopters, gliders, jet fighters and even Harley
Davidsons. “I like the wind in my face,” he
explained.
Each vehicle offers unique
challenges for him. “Hot air balloons are a whole
different set of dynamics because you can’t steer them.
You know, you go where the winds blow. That’s kind of
interesting,” he said. “A glider is fun to fly. It
makes you really hone your skill as a pilot. If you have kind
of a bad approach to a landing, you don’t have the power
to go back around and try again.”
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Paul’s grandfather Clement had
originally arrived from Naples, Italy, and started a
tailor shop. After he met and married Paul’s grandmother,
Rhea, it was her idea to offer pressing services as an adjunct
to the tailoring.
The couple’s daughter,
Eleanor, helped her mother with the development of the
drycleaning aspect of the business early on. Unfortunately, the
venture proved to be quite difficult.
“The problem they faced was
that these were two women in business at a time and in an
industry that was all dominated by men,” he said.
“They didn’t have the money for a cleaning machine
and the wholesalers in Columbus would not do their work for
them. So, they had to take their drycleaning from Columbus west
to Dayton, OH, at night, and they stayed over there and waited
for it to be cleaned so they could bring it back the next
morning.”
The trip took two hours each way,
but both women realized they had to seek success out rather
than wait for it come.
The family business
grew considerably in scope when Paul’s father, Andre
Gelpi, married Eleanor and contributed to the mix. Previously,
he had spent 23 years of his life working for a Federated
Department Store called Lazarus. He started off by clearing
tables in the lunchroom, but eventually worked his way up until
he was the head men’s clothing buyer for all of
Lazarus’s stores. When he met and married Paul’s
mother, he thought it would be smart to apply the customer
service principles he learned from Federated to the drycleaning
industry. The idea really took off and the innovative company
grew steadily.
“My father wasn’t
looking to set the world on fire,” Paul explained.
“He was just looking to make a living.”
Both of Paul’s parents proved
to be good role models for him. While Andre developed the
family business, Eleanor chose to step back and raise Paul and
his two brothers. In her spare time, she worked to help the
local community and became an important figure in cultivating
the arts in Columbus. Her work was crucial in founding the
Columbus Symphony Orchestra and the Columbus Ballet.
When Paul was 12 years old he asked his
father if he could have an allowance but was denied. Instead,
he was offered an opportunity to make a lot more money by
helping out at Swan after school.
He continued to work at the family
business through college where he studied marketing and
business administration until he graduated in 1967.
Also at that time, Paul cultivated
another one of his interests. “I flew privately,”
he recalled. “I had obtained my pilot’s license
much to my father’s dismay. He didn’t like that
idea.”
Next, Paul trained with the Air
Force, upgrading his status over time to jet fighter pilot.
Once his active duty time was completed, he returned to
Columbus to work with Swan because he missed his hometown and
the drycleaning industry. However, just to keep things
interesting, he continued flying F-100 Super Sabres for the
Ohio National Guard every Wednesday night and Sunday.
“I had the best of both
worlds,” he recalled. “I was growing and learning
and doing more in business. I believe that the discipline of
the military flying and the preciseness and training really
helped me in my career and in this industry.”
aul sums up the business transition from second
to third generation like this: “My role increased in the
business. My father was still there to help me. He had his foot
on the brake and I had my foot on the accelerator, but we
worked together pretty well.”
The company that began with one
small location has since grown to a chain of 48 stores (most of
which are package plants) that houses 400 employees or, as Paul
prefers to say, associates.
He attributes several different
roots for the shaping of Swan’s success. One big factor
was adding two men to the company’s board of directors
— Dr. Roger Blackwell, a consumer behavior professor at
OSU, and Dr. John Pfahl, chairman of the college’s
department of finance.
“I kind of felt like I got my
Master’s and Ph.D. program tutored to me by these guys.
We became a lot more strategic in what were were planning and
what we were doing.”
As a result, the company emphasized
quality more and offered convenient services such as
drive-thrus; on-site alterations and repairs; the selling,
maintaining and storing of furs; shoe repair; suedes and
leathers; same-day drycleaning; and, during certain times,
one-hour drycleaning.
“It’s a service
business,” Paul noted. “Unless a pair of grey wool
pants comes back with odor and a double crease, it’s very
hard to distinguish the quality of work at times. But
it’s very easy to distinguish good service from bad
service from a customer’s perspective. Our opinion is to
raise the bar. Give them the very best of service at the front
counter and just make it hard for them to want to go anyplace
else.”
Customers aren’t the only people
Swan Cleaners seeks to keep for the long haul; the company also
strives hard to retains its associates.
“We don’t hire people
here. We adopt them. We really do,” Paul said.
“People enjoy working here. They flourish here. I think
that’s the main reason for the success. Each person is an
individual who is treated with respect and with admiration and
appreciation. They, in turn, convey that across the
counter.”
In addition to appreciating its
employees and customers, Swan has a long history of giving back
to its community. The company has cleaned American flags free
of charge for over 50 years and has absorbed the cleaning costs
for over 150,000 donated coats through their local “Coats
for Kids” program in the past 14 years.
More recently, Swan helped the
Olympic Torch Relay Team during the 2002 Olympics by cleaning
over 150 bags of laundry in about four hours to keep the team
running clean.
For all of his community efforts,
Paul was awarded the Outstanding Community Service Award
recently by the Ohio Cleaners Association.
he future for Swan Cleaners looks secure as the
fourth generation of the Gelpi family have stepped up to learn
the business. Paul’s three children — daughters
Lisa and Andra and son Anthony — all oversee different
facets of the company.
“After college, they were back
in the business. There was no pushing and shoving.” From
the beginning, Paul offered them a job (instead of an
allowance) and let them cultivate their interest in the company
at their own speed. The strategy has worked well.
Even though he is confident in the
future of his company, Paul still has some doubts for the
future of the industry. He is concerned that there isn’t
sufficient legislation for cleaners who need clean-up support
on contaminated sites and that cleaners may be too eager to
dump perc in favor of another untested solvent.
“Perc is now the most
investigated solvent. We know more about it than anything
else,” he said. “It still does a great job of
cleaning. We know what to do with it and what not to do with it
and now we want to get rid of it or switch to a solvent that we
don’t know anything about just because it’s
different.”
He also believes the industry has
shifted downward in terms of its overall quality. “I
think there is a growing lack of professionalism in the
industry and a growing emphasis on price drycleaning,” he
explained. “You know, if everybody wanted the cheapest
price, we’d all be driving Hyundais. That’s not the
case. A lot of customers are looking for the balance between
price and quality, and service and convenience.”
While improving the quality of
service is one way to make cleaners more professional, Paul
also believes that goal can be accomplished if cleaners
advertise their own product by dressing up more often.
“People in this industry should set an example. I see so
many owners and operators that dress way, way below the level
they should,” he said. “I’m going to do my
part and I hope other cleaners will take up the challenge in
what appearance they present to their customers and neighbors,
and to just anybody in general.”
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