At the age of 95, Arsen Kashkashian still goes to
work every day as president of Frankford Associates, the
largest drycleaning and laundry machinery distributor in Philadelphia,
PA, and its surrounding suburbs.
Though he has worked very hard throughout his
lifetime, Arsen merely thinks of his day-to-day toils as something that
must be done in order to survive. Fortunately, Arsen has always
excelled at surviving.
When he was born in Turkey in 1909, he already had
everything for which a boy could wish. He was rich in family and his
family was considered rich, as well.
“My father and grandfather were very wealthy
people,” Arsen recalled. “They had a big business in
imports/exports... sugar, leather, all kinds of merchandise.”
In a world with an alternate history, he may well
have carried on the family tradition and never left his native country,
but that wasn’t meant to be for Arsen.
In 1914, during the dark days of World War I, the
“Young Turks” government feared the Armenian community,
which they believed to be sympathetic to the Allied Powers. This put
Arsen and his family at grave risk.
During that time period, many historians agree
that anywhere between 500,000 and 2 million Armenians were sacrificed
as part of a genocidal campaign in Turkey. Arsen and his family,
however, avoided being included among those numbers when his family
fled to Constantinople.
The family soon moved again to France where Arsen
spent some of his formative years acquiring excellent skills as a
tailor. Those skills would come in handy when he immigrated to the
United States at the age of 19.
As fate would have it, Arsen arrived in the
country in July of 1929, just a few months before the stock market
crashed and the era of the Great Depression began.
At that time, Arsen faced a hard road ahead. His
family may have been successful in Turkey, but now he found himself
virtually alone and penniless in a country where he barely knew the
language. There were many factors stacked against his favor, but it
didn’t take long for his fortunes to change.
“About four days after I came into the
United States, my cousin asked me if I wanted to go to work,”
Arsen recalled. “I said, ‘Yes.’ He took me to
downtown Philadelphia, 15th and Chestnut. It used to be a clothing
house — a big one — called Jacob Reed & Sons. It was
the biggest clothing company in Philadelphia. I went to work there as
an alteration man.”
Jobs were very hard to find then, but Arsen had
one advantage. His Italian bosses in France had helped him master the
craft seamlessly. It was hard to find somebody who could match his
skills.
“You got to be A-1 to get a job in foreign
places from the big shops,” he explained. “When I was in
the big shop, I was an A-1 tailor and that’s why they accepted
me. When you come from the other side, you either are going to swim or
you’re sunk.”
Arsen preferred to swim. In fact, the only problem
he had was he couldn’t seem to swim enough. He worked for Jacob
Reed & Sons for a while but soon craved more hours per week.
“One day I was on Wayne Avenue at my
cousin’s store and a gentleman walks in,” he recalled.
“They knew each other — my cousin and him. He asked who I
was.”
Upon hearing of Arsen’s talent and how he
wanted more weekly hours, the man offered him a job on the spot.
“He gave me his card and said, ‘Come
Monday morning, you start work. I’ll give you a steady
job.’ He was the owner of Rainbow Cleaners.”
In 1930, Arsen began working for the cleaners and
he didn’t waste any time picking up additional knowledge and
skills. After only six months of experience, he was ready to open his
own cleaning store, Frankford Cleaners, all by himself. As it turned
out, though, he still had a few lessons to learn.
“Originally, while I was on Frankford
Avenue, I used carbon tetrachloride,” he recalled. “I had
that spot for about two years. Then, the carbon tetrachloride bothered
my system. I started to throw up and everything. The doctor told me if
I wanted to live, I’d better quit that job.”
Instead of getting out of the cleaning industry,
Arsen decided to change solvents and move into a new location.
“I opened a petroleum plant and gave up the
carbon tetrachloride. At that time, we didn’t have perc.
That’s going back a couple of years,” he laughed.
Upon buying a 12,000 sq. ft. building on
Torresdale Avenue, Arsen realized he had to open a lot of new pickup
stores in order to fill the plant with enough work to keep it
efficient. So, it didn’t take him long to do just that, turning
Frankford Cleaners into one of the largest cleaners in the greater
Philadelphia area.
“By 1940, I had 48 stores and the plant
where I am now,” he said. “I was young and energetic at the
time. At one time at this place, I used to have 62 people working...
pressers, sorters, washers, office girls, shirt pressers. All together,
I had 105 on the payroll.”
In addition to having to learn English — by
attending night school and listening closely to customers — Arsen
also had to figure out how to make his business successful among fierce
competition.
“I used to work long hours in the beginning
until I got organized,” he said. “It takes time and money.
I had time, but I didn’t have money then.”
What he did have, however, was a strong sense of
how to keep his customers satisfied.
“I always tried to give the best possible
job among all of the other chain stores,” he said. “I used
to charge maybe five cents more. At the time, five cents was big money.
I always charged a little bit more, but I always gave a little bit
better work.”
In the 1960s, he offered same-day service because
his customers wanted it, which prompted him to look for ways to reduce
operating costs. Then, an idea came to him.
“I was buying machinery from different
distributors. I was paying too much,” he said. “I wanted to
pay them 5%. They wanted 10 to 15% over the cost. So, I decided I would
go into the drycleaning machinery business.”
Performing double duty as a cleaner and a
machinery distributor proved to be very complicated for the next year
or so.
“It wasn’t an easy change, but I made
it,” Arsen explained. “In the beginning, the machinery
manufacturers were a little hesitant because I was in the drycleaning
business. They did not want a drycleaner to buy machinery direct from
them.”
Undaunted, Arsen built Frankford Associates up by
earning the trust of one distributor at a time. As he was able to offer
more equipment lines, a fellow PDCA member offered him some good
advice.
“I was a director of the association at the
time and I was showing the machinery in Philadelphia,” he said.
“One of the members said to me, ‘Arsen, you cannot wave two
hands at one time. Either wave one or the other one.’ So, I made
by decision to only go in the machinery business.”
It was a risky move, especially when Arsen’s
own accountant tried to dissuade him against it.
“When I went into the machinery business, my
accountant said, ‘Why the Hell are you going into the machinery
business? You don’t know anything about it.’ I said,
‘Well, I know how to buy so I should know how to sell.’
Then, about two years later, he calls me up and says,
‘You’re doing a hell of a job’.”
After 40 years, Frankford is the number one
drycleaning and laundry distributor in the greater Philadelphia area.
From a business standpoint, Arsen continues to keep things simple.
“It’s just like anything else,”
he said. “You have to do a good job. You cannot neglect the
customers and try to say, ‘I’m one of the good ones.’
You’ve got to make sure you give them their dollar’s
worth.”
While Arsen’s business philosophies have not
changed, he has seen quite an influx in personnel. No longer alone at
the company, he is now surrounded by family, including his sons, Nick
and Ron, as well as his grandsons, Nick, Jr. and Eric.
One more reason for Frankford’s success is
its strong relations with Korean cleaners.
“We have one Korean salesman, which is very
nice. His name is Cash Kim,” Arsen said. “Eighty percent of
our customers are Korean. They are very smart people and are very
family oriented.”
Arsen enjoys helping others whose native tongue
isn’t English because he still vividly remembers the hardships he
had to endure.
“When I first came to the United States,
they discriminated against me, so I don’t want to discriminate
against anybody else,” he said. “When I first came, my
father had a store at home. During the Depression time, we lost the
property. We weren’t able to pay the mortgage. Then, I wanted to
rent a home in the northeast. A guy in the real estate office asked me
what nationality I was. I said, ‘I’m Armenian.’ He
said, ‘Oh no. In this area, we only rent to Catholic people.
You’ve got to be Irish or something similar.’ That was 1930
or 1931. Today is much different.”
Though he is only a handful of years away from
being a century old, Arsen shows no signs of slowing down in the
future.
“I come in every day and enjoy having the
boys and the grandchildren here working,” he said. “I have
a good time. What do I want to retire for?”
