sk any child what
they want to be when they grow up, chances are most won’t
say “drycleaner.” Certainly, there are more
glamorous occupations to choose from and few other
professionals are depicted so unfavorably in the public’s
eye.
Of course, drycleaners aren’t the
only workers to receive a bad image rap. Nobody is happy to see
a financial auditor come to their office. Nobody wants to get a
phone call from a loan collector, either. And, even worse, is
the job of a baseball umpire who is often the victim of
profane-laced insults hurled recklessly by overzealous fans.
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“I’m a nice guy,” he
explained. “It was just funny that I gravitated to all of
these jobs that could be confrontational in nature.”
Despite his tendency to pick unpopular
professions, Mike has always preferred to give people a fair
shake... whether he’s behind the counter of his plant or
behind home plate.
“It’s easy to become bitter
about dealing with the public, getting negative
feedback,” he said. “But there’s no place for
bitterness because it’s counter-productive. It makes you
a sour person.”
Mike learned a lot about dealing
with volatile human emotions from his father, Mike, Sr., who
launched Jet Cleaners in 1956 with the help of Mike’s
grandfather, Nicholas, and his uncle, Jim.
“My dad had a great sense of
humor,” Mike recalled. “He was the king of zing. He
was unflappable. People would make a comment to him —
like if a customer got irate — and my father always knew
how to handle them and defuse the situation.”
Fostering a reputation for having grace
under pressure helped the business flourish, but Mike was
encouraged to follow a different route in life.
Prior to attending Quinnipiac University
in Hamden, Mike never gave much thought to what he wanted to do
with his life. His youth was spent playing a variety of sports.
When he wasn’t busy swinging a club or a bat, he umpired
baseball games for younger kids over a period of five years.
So, it was his father who suggested that he pursue a degree in
accounting because he’d have a better chance of getting a
good job after college — hopefully one that didn’t
involve overheated boilers or customers.
Fortunately for Mike, accounting
“clicked” with his personality. School, on the
other hand, didn’t come so naturally. However, his
part-time job as a loan collector for a bank inspired him to
study harder.
“It turned me into a student,”
he said. “It set a good tone for me to understand that
you need to be able to own up to your responsibilities. It was
invaluable in teaching me how to deal with people... how to
talk to them.”
After graduating in 1980, Mike was
hired as a staff accountant for a small firm. One of his
duties was to conduct year-end audits with companies.
“When the auditors come in, they ask
a lot of questions and they look at a lot of details,” he
explained. “In a lot of ways, they’re judging the
internal control system of a company and, consequently, if you
judge the system, you ultimately end up judging the people who
are using the system, so you’re not well liked coming
in.”
or the next seven years, Mike worked as a C.P.A.
while his father continued to expand Jet Cleaners. In 1965,
Mike, Sr., had moved the plant to a new 5,000 sq. ft. facility
with 14’ ceilings and a glass structure that was ideal
for growing a botanical garden. He closed the old shop on a
Friday and opened the doors to the new one on the following
Monday morning to keep from inconveniencing any customers.
Business was booming, but the elder Amore
started growing tired of the long hours. He was ready to sell
the business and settle into a relaxing retirement with his
wife, Lorraine.
By this time, Mike had found a true love
of his own. On a blind date, he and his future wife, Tammy,
cruised New Haven Harbor on a little ship called the Liberty
Bell in 1982.
The couple soon felt the pull of a
different kind of bell — a wedding bell — and
married two years later. By 1985, they had their first child,
Kristen, who now attends Muhlenberg College in Allentown, PA.
Their other child, Michael, is in high school.
nfortunately for Mike, his busy duties as a
C.P.A. kept him from enjoying family life early in his
marriage. “I was coming home every night seeing my young
daughter already in bed,” Mike recalled.
Then, things made a turn for the worse for
the family. “My mom passed away suddenly in 1986 and my
father’s world was rocked by that,” Mike said.
“They did everything together.”
Mike’s father continued to be worn
out by his business, which hadn’t found a buyer yet, and
his profound grief only added to his burdens. Mike thought of a
way to help. “My father was very unhappy, too. So, I
said, ‘Dad, let’s buy out Uncle Jim,’”
he said.
Mike, Sr., vetoed the plan because he
still didn’t want his son to follow in his weary
footsteps. Mike persisted as his father grew more exhausted by
the day.
In 1988, Mike’s father finally
conceded and agreed to buy out his brother. “My brother,
Douglas, joined the company with me,” Mike said. “A
father and his two sons — history was repeating
itself.”
At that point, Murphy’s Law abruptly
hit the fan and the business struggled. The biggest problem for
Jet was when several large local companies decided to leave New
Haven, taking a lot of cleaning business with them. Undaunted,
Mike looked for new avenues of revenue.
“I was able to get some good
relationships with different areas of Yale University, such as
costuming at a few of their theaters,” he explained.
“They have a drama school. They have a student laundry.
They have a band. I was able to get a lot of good inroads that
helped supplement the volume.”
Later in the 1990s, Jet Cleaners picked up
a lot of wholesale work and opened its first satellite
location. Meanwhile, Mike’s father slowly phased himself
out of the store while his brother left altogether. To counter
the losses, Tammy joined Jet and utilized her accounting
background to work as the company’s comptroller.
“She has been my single reason for
success,” Mike noted. “She’s so organized.
She’s the best thing that has happened to my
company.”
Although business was now picking up for
the Amores, Mike couldn’t shake a thought that often
gnawed at him.
“One thing I never quite understood
about my father was his feeling for his business. It was his
baby,” Mike said. “At New Haven, every day I worked
hard and loved the business. I was proud of Jet Cleaners, but I
didn’t have the same sense of pride as my
father.”
That all changed when Jet opened a store
in Mike’s hometown of Cheshire. He and Tammy used what he
calls a “spoke and hub” marketing program.
“I put together a contact
list,” he said. “I put myself in the center of the
hub and I drew spokes off of it and each spoke was an aspect of
my life or my family’s life or my business’s life.
I just started jotting down names.”
In all, the couple sent out 440 letters to
acquaintances, offering a $10 gift certificate for cleaning.
The hard work paid off. Over a 45-day span, 238 of the gift
certificates were returned to the new plant and jump-started
the business.
Starting the Cheshire location off on the
right foot was wonderful, but not as much as the new feeling of
pride that washed over Mike.
“Once I opened that store, I totally
understood my father,” he said. “It is like having
a kid. In New Haven, I didn’t have the ties to the
community that I do in Cheshire. You have an added
responsibility. You’ve made a commitment. It affects how
you do business because you want to be a good
citizen.”
Mike tries to accomplish that goal by
actively participating in his community. In addition to
Jet’s coat and food drives, the family business also
cleans flags for free, as well as uniforms for police, firemen
and EMT workers. The efforts have not gone unnoticed either.
The New Haven Advocate has chosen Jet as the area’s best
drycleaner for three years running.
In his spare time, Mike has returned to
baseball, although not as a player or an umpire. Instead he has
coached his son’s teams for the past six years.
“I love coaching because of the
kids,” Mike said. “My son makes me laugh, though.
He says, ‘Dad, you never end a game without giving us a
life lesson.’ I want the guys to have fun. I want them to
learn. You can learn at any point in life.”
Mike also finds time for golf. He often
shares the fairway with his daughter, who was captain of her
high school women’s golf team last year — a team
that didn’t exist three years ago. At that time, Kristen
didn’t make the co-ed team. Mike was upset because he
felt that she wasn’t given a fair shake, so he sat down
and constructed a business plan. The women’s golf program
was launched shortly thereafter.
Nowadays, it is Kristen who is teaching
her father a lesson or two on the course. “I guess the
best thing I’ve learned about playing with girls is they
don’t bring as much ego to the table as the boys,”
he said. “I went from a seven handicap to a three
handicap last year. Someone asked me how I did that. I told
them I play like a girl.”
Though he enjoys his business very much,
Mike is appreciative that he has so much time to spend with his
family. He’d prefer to keep making money, but he knows
he’ll always be profitable in other aspects of his life:
“I’m a millionaire as far as my family is
concerned. I do a job I enjoy. I have passion for what I do. I
can’t ask for anything else.”
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