Work with federal, state regulators paying
dividends
Every month is a busy month for Dale
Kaplan, who serves as vice president of government affairs for
the Pennsylvania and Delaware Cleaners Association.
When he isn’t busy overseeing the
helm at his plant, Kaplan’s Careful Cleaners in
Harrisburg, he often diverts his spare energy toward trying to
improve the drycleaning industry.
Fortunately, his efforts seem to be paying
off. Recently, he played an integral part in the development of
Pennsylvania’s new grant program known as “Small
Business Advantage.”
The program will help fund Pollution
Prevention and Energy Efficiency projects for small businesses
in Pennsylvania. In all, cleaners can apply for $7,500 of the
eligible costs provided they match a 50% share. Kaplan helped
convince Department of Environmental Protection Secretary
Kathleen McGinty the benefits of offering grants by noting how
they will help small business owners and eventually result in
an overall improvement to the environment.
Applications for the Small Business
Advantage Grant are available now through July 30, 2005. Most
cleaning plant equipment is eligible under the guidelines.
For more information, visit
www.dep.state.pa.us and use the keyword
“SBAdvantage” or call PDCA’s Small Business
Ombudsman Jeanne Dworetzky at (717) 783-8411.
In addition to working with
Pennsylvania’s DEP, Kaplan estimates that he has also
spent over 1,500 hours providing free advice to the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency over the course of the past two
years.
He is the only drycleaner to serve as a
member of the Compliance Assistance Advisory Council, which
develops recommendations for the EPA concerning: the
optimization of the compliance assistance network across EPA;
the development of parameters to measure the effectiveness of
compliance assistance activities; and the integration of
compliance assistance more completely into EPA’s mission,
goals, and activities.
Kaplan served as co-chair of the
CAAC’s Networking committee during the 2002-03 term.
Most of the committee work is accomplished
during long phone calls, but Kaplan has also attended two
meetings in person, working in conjunction with representatives
from small businesses, trade associations, universities, and
the government, as well as citizens, in order to come up with
recommendations for EPA’s Strategic Plan.
“It’s all worthwhile,”
he said. “I am glad to give something back to help
government try to understand America’s small business
owners.”
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