National Clothesline

Throughout his career, second generation cleaner Dan Martino has always followed one basic precept: pursuing quality. From his early days as an owner operator of Better One Hour Cleaners in 1970 until his body of work at the helm of Martino’s Master Drycleaners in Kenosha, WI, he has always sought to make a lasting impression in all aspects of his work.

To pay tribute for such a formidable lifetime effort, the Wisconsin Fabricare Institute recently inducted Martino into the ranks of its Hall of Fame at its winter convention in Kohler.

The WFI Hall of Fame was created in 2002 and has nine members. This year, the association’s selection committee decided that Martino was the only deserving candidate of the honor. His credentials illustrate why.

In the past 20 years, Martino has been active with the Illinois State Fabricare Association and WFI, where he has served as a long-standing board member and was president in 1993 and 1994.

During those terms, he initiated an aggressive drive for new legislation that eventually resulted in the state’s law where cleaners could be reimbursed for their environmental clean-up costs. He also developed and cultivated a strong working relationship with representatives from the state’s Department of Natural Resources, which lead to the forming of Wisconsin’s Pollution Prevention Partnership and the Five-Star program for drycleaners.

A firm believer in the power of knowledge, Martino additionally was integral in helping expand WFI’s educational programming into what it is today.

In fact, WFI plans to follow that tradition and raise money for the advancement of continuing education by organizing its first-ever Fitzgerald Scholarship Golf Classic. The event sponsors the Fitzgerald Scholarship Fund which began over ten years ago when Jim Fitzgerald, Leo Rausch and Betty Fitzgerald retired from the Herb Fitzgerald Company.

Instead of retirement gifts, all three retirees preferred monetary donations be sent in their honor to the scholarship committee, which annually pays for a WFI member to attend an IFI training session.

All proceeds from the round of golf will go to the scholarship committee.

The Golf Classic will be open to the general public. It will be held on Wednesday, June 23 at Silver Spring Country Club in Menomonee Falls, WI, and will follow a two-man, best ball format with teams of four teeing off.

Cost to participate is $100 per person, which includes 18 holes of golf, cart fees, a box lunch, a sleeve of commemorative golf balls and a buffet dinner that evening.

Registration begins at 11:30 a.m., followed by a 12:20 p.m. initial tee time.

Golfers may pre-register by mail by returning a form enclosed in the March/April 2004 issue of WFI Impressions by the deadline on Friday, June 11.

For more information, contact the WFI office at (414) 529-4707.

The Dry Cleaner Compliance Website is up and running to help Iowa drycleaners who use perc in their monitoring, record-keeping and archiving.

The site, created by the Iowa Air Emissions Assistance Program at the Iowa Waste Reduction Center (IWRC), has the same features as IWRC’s Dry Cleaner Compliance Calendar but with some benefits not available to those using the paper format.

The Web Site includes solvent mileage calculations, optional e-mail reminders of missed inspections and changes in perc usage and various logs and records, such as leak inspection and temperature variance, to keep track of compliance.

To use the site, go to www.iwrc.org/dryclean. Each business must complete a confidential registration via the web site before the first log-on. Once registered, a business can receive personal assistance with all aspects of compliance through logs, record-keeping and e-mail reminders.

The IWRC, a service of the University of Northern Iowa, offers all of its services, including this web site, free and confidentially. Questions regarding the web site and be directed to the air emissions assistance program, (800) 422-3109.

The Indiana Drycleaning and Laundry Association plans to keeps its members active in 2004, beginning with a seminar scheduled for Friday, June 25 in Indianapolis, IN.

The program will cover maintenance basics, including preventative measures for normal pieces of drycleaning equipment and steam operations.

It will be held at the Laundry City warehouse, which is located on South Harding St.

Also on that date, IDLA will offer a picnic buffet with beer and soft drinks prior to a baseball game featuring the AAA Indianapolis Indians. IDLA has reserved box seats. A special discounted rate is available for IDLA members who attend both the picnic and the game.

On Friday, August 27, the association will host its annual golf outing at Hoosier Links in New Palestine, IN.

On the same afternoon, Rex Carrigan will present a route building seminar at Indiana Downs in Shelbyville, IN. Afterward, IDLA will hold its annual meeting, which will include dinner plus an evening of horse racing for entertainment.

Further down the line, the association plans to conduct a seminar on environmental compliance during the first week of October. Jan and Henry Parker of Safety & Environmental Compliance Consultants will be present, along with business broker Judy Deering who will discuss “Planning Your Exit Strategy.” Representatives from Enviroforensics will be present, as well, to elaborate on the topic of insurance archeology.

For more information, contact IDLA by calling (800) 401-0703.