His job description indicates that
he’s a drycleaner, but Buddy Gritz, owner and operator of
Presto Valet in Alexandria, VA, chooses to view his occupation
from a different perspective.
“I think of myself as a problem
solver,” he explained. “I get people who bring me
in their problems and I try to solve them, whether
they’re stains or dirty clothes or if they’re just
having a bad day. We try to fix it and make it
better.”
In Buddy’s experience, it’s
the extra efforts that make big impressions. For example, he
keeps a free gumball machine in his lobby for his customers and
he spends about $10,000 annually on toys so
children will have something to do when
their parents drop off or pick up clothing. Such gestures can
turn customers into friends.
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“I built up a clientele of
generations of customers because of that,” he said.
“I didn’t know that that’s what would happen.
I don’t advertise. I don’t ever run sales. I live
by three rules. Take care of the customer — that’s
the first rule. It’s also the second and third. My
philosophy has always been customer service. Every employee
works on that single-minded purpose, to make the
customer’s experience the best possible and to do the
best they can.”
On Saturdays, Buddy employs between nine
and eleven clerks who work on seven computer stations at the
front counter — all designed to cut down on the overall
waiting time.
Ideas such as that have kept the plant
busy, even after Buddy switched from perc to GreenEarth
cleaning.
“It takes a lot longer to process
the clothes,” Buddy admitted, “but there’s a
trade-off. It’s safer for the customers, the employees
and the environment. I charge a little bit more in order to be
totally environmentally friendly.”
A native Washingtonian, Buddy moved to
Florida with his family at the age of ten. Growing up in Coral
Gables, he was a little bit different than most boys his age.
On the surface, Buddy’s behavior
seemed perfectly typical. Like many youngsters, he rode his
bike and worked a local newspaper route. Yet, he had a restless
inner drive that made him unique. He never seemed to have
enough customers to keep him content.
“I started out with 80
newspapers,” he recalled. “When I gave it up when I
was almost 14, I had 900 customers and two people working for
me delivering papers because I couldn’t deliver all of
them. I went door-to-door and sold, and my bicycle was too
small to carry all of the papers. That, I guess, was really the
beginning.”
The “beginning” Buddy is
referring to is his natural knack for dealing with people. When
Buddy was old enough to legally drive a motor scooter in
Florida, he bought one with his route earnings and rode down to
Miami Beach daily where he worked his charms, first as a deck
boy, at the Beau Rivage and Americana hotels.
“I made $25 a month to start out
with. I think it was something like 12 cents an hour,” he
said.
That wasn’t nearly enough, however,
so Buddy learned how to give trampoline and swimming lessons to
increase his income over the next few years.
“I only wanted to do my own thing
and there were other trampoline instructors and swimming
instructors,” he noted. “I made it so that I
didn’t compete with them at all. I was a customer
service-oriented person though I didn’t even know it.
When I left there, I was making $1,000 a month. We’re
talking about selling lessons at $3 an hou,r so I was really
busy.”
Buddy’s plan worked so well that he
was able to supplement the income of his father, Israel, who
made his living by selling liquor for Carling Black Label.
Unfortunately, by the time the elder Gritz was 49, he had
suffered three heart attacks, including a fatal one when his
son was only 16.
In addition to the emotional burden he
carried, Buddy also had a financial one. He had to figure out a
way to afford his dream of going to college. Thus, he joined
the military at the age of 17. As long as the government footed
the bill for his continuing education, he really didn’t
care which branch he enlisted in. He ended up in the Air Force.
Following basic training in the sweltering
heat of Texas, Buddy’s first duty assignment was in the
icy stranglehold of Alaska. He arrived in January of 1961 when
it was still dark outside 24 hours a day.
“That was a weather shock to
me,” he said. “It got down to 62 degrees below zero
while I was there. I went to Arctic survival school. I
couldn’t learn to ski, so I learned to drive a dog
sled.”
To pass the down time, Buddy played group
poker games, but he wasn’t very good, so he often gambled
away his paychecks. To solve that problem, he simply improved
his game.
“I said, ‘You know, this is
stupid.’ So, I went to the library and I took out every
book that I could find about gambling and odds and I learned
how to play poker,” he recalled.
Since then, gambling became a lifelong
hobby. Eventually, Buddy would occasionally use his
odds-beating skills to pay for many vacations.
In all, Buddy spent seven years with the
Air Force, including stints at Andrews Air Force Base (home of
Air Force One) near his hometown of Washington, DC, and Kunsan
Air Force Base in Korea.
When he wasn’t teaching karate and
combat fighting, he earned his keep as a military
“problem solver”.
“I worked investigating problems
with nuclear weapons, murders, bank robberies at military
installations, UFO investigations... there are some things I
can’t tell anybody about,” he said.
When 1965 rolled around, Buddy married his
blind date-turned-sweetheart Janet, a speech-language
pathologist whose father (Harold Weisblut) owned Presto Valet
in Virginia. After leaving the Air Force, Buddy planned to go
to FBI school, but that changed when his father-in-law invited
him to be a store manager at the cleaners.
One month later, it was evident to Buddy
that he never wanted to leave. He took it upon himself to
complete the 139th general course at the National Institute of
Drycleaning in 1967. He graduated from the University of
Maryland with a degree in financial management, as well. In
all, he accrued about 300 credit hours in almost every subject
imaginable.
“I’m a jack of all trades, and
hopefully, master of some,” he laughed.
Though the drycleaning industry is a
challenge in its own right, Buddy has also been active in
several other ventures over the years.
In the late 1970s, he built and managed a
shopping center that the partnership eventually sold. In
that same shopping center, Buddy opened a drycleaners (Vegas
Valet) and a gift shop. His family perennially tried to keep
him away from the gift shop at Christmas time because he tended
to give toys away to children.
For a change of gears, he also delved into
the restaurant industry, co-owning an Italian eatery called
Ceasar’s Villa, which was later converted to a
continental restaurant called Pegasus. He also started Gritz
Leasing, which leased tow trucks to gas stations.
Now, Buddy runs two investment groups and
owns a computer business known as Blue Moon Systems that sells
to drycleaners a front counter computer program designed by his
son, Larry, a computer animation rendering whiz who served as a
technical director on Toy Story, Toy Story 2 and A Bug’s
Life.
If that weren’t enough, Buddy helps
his wife Janet financially manage her private practice
corporation which helps stroke patients and other adults or
children with speech or language disabilities. The
couple’s daughter, Bonnie Massimino, has followed a
similar path by becoming a learning specialist for a private
school. She also assists WETA public television by answering
e-mails from parents and teachers of children with learning
disabilities.
Buddy is equally proud of both children.
“They turned out great and they make more money than me
so they can support me,” he joked.
In addition to running all of his
businesses, Buddy still finds time to collect coins, a hobby he
shares with his father-in-law. He hunts for rare U.S. coins
mostly.
“We’ve got the third best 1873
CC (Carson City) dime,” he said. “The best one is
in a private collection. The second best is in the Smithsonian
and we’ve got the third. There are about 14 around.
We’ve got two of them.”
Buddy also stays active in the MidAtlantic
Association of Cleaners, of which he is treasurer. Recently, he
has been invited to speak at conventions.
“My whole life I’ve tried to
remain anonymous, but that’s changed,” he said.
“I find it difficult to turn people down when they need
help. I don’t try to compete with any other drycleaner or
anyone else. All I want to do is my own thing.”
With a multitude of projects that interest
him, it’s difficult for Buddy to ever slow down.
Although, in 2000, his fast lifestyle almost came to an abrupt
halt when he suffered a heart attack. He didn’t need to
be reminded that his father’s heart didn’t even
last 50 years.
“It was hereditary, I think, plus a
few too many donuts on my part,” he said. “My wife
took me to the hospital and they thought I just needed an
angiogram. They thought I had one small blockage and after the
doctor did that, he said, ‘You need a three-way
bypass.’ They did that the next day. I was back at work
within two weeks with somebody driving me.”
The health crisis provided him with a good
scare, but it didn’t convince him to change much.
However, he did promise Janet that he would scale back his
hours at Presto.
“I went from 80 hours a week to
70,” he said. “I just have a lot of fun while
I’m working and that makes all the difference.”
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