WASHINGTON, DC -- Drycleaners took their grievances on government policies regarding site contamination to Congress last month at a "problem hearing" held by the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.
Four drycleaners and a representative of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) spoke before three members of Congress on Sept. 13, explaining their experiences with government agencies over alleged site contamination.
The event came about because of the efforts of a group of Texas drycleaners, led by Jack Barron of El Paso. He called the hearing "our pinnacle to date to be able to tell the tragic story of the drycleaners around the country who are being devastated, and (of) others who will suffer the same consequence resulting from the unfair, retroactive rules and regulations set forth by EPA."
"Congressman Joe Barton said that the fact we forced it and got it on line was good," Barron said. "Otherwise, it wouldn't have been held at all. Now we have our comments and testimony in the Congressional Record."
Drycleaners who testified included Dennis Conant of Michigan, Maureen D'Elicio of Florida, and Daniel Helm and Martin Yee, both of Texas. John Ayres spoke for the ICSC. Besides Rep. Barton of Texas, Rep. Ron Klink of Pennsylvania and Rep. Chris Cox of California attended.
If there was a common theme among them, it was first expressed by Master Dry Cleaners owner Dennis Conant.
"When a government agency labeled me a 'PRP' (Potentially Responsible Party), you could throw out the notion of innocent until proven guilty and refocus on the reality of current law which leaves no question that as a PRP I am guilty and must prove myself innocent," Conant said.
A Texas cleaner repeated the story. "Our worst nightmare had just become a reality," Cost Cutter Cleaners owner Daniel Helm said. "We are now the bad guys. We are now being treated like criminals. They demanded that we cooperate with the testing, with threats of lawsuits and termination of our lease."
The story for Florida drycleaner Maureen D'Elicio echoed the first two.
"We have been drained emotionally and financially," she said. "Most destructive, however, has been the pervasive 'guilty until proven innocent' atmosphere within the agencies of enforcement and many others with whom we have had contact regarding this problem."
White Spur Cleaners owner Martin Yee of El Paso said it went beyond innocence and guilt.
A lawsuit filed against him by Southwestern Bell Co. after finding contamination in one of its facilities was "the beginning of my horrendous nightmare."
His troubles began when he "received a certified letter from the Texas Water Commission (TWC) saying that tetrachloroethylene and trichloroethylene were found in the groundwater of the property across the street from my new shop and I was asked to answer a series of questions which I complied with immediately. This letter was the result of events which had happened some time before."
Being cooperative didn't help.
"In October, 1993, like thunder from the high dry sky, I was served with a lawsuit from the Southwestern Bell Co., who also sued the landlord of my new shop and the person who sold it to me," Yee testified. "I had not done anything wrong. I had done everything correctly and followed the letter of the law. Further, if there was anything done wrong at this location before I purchased it, I was the one who stopped it. I should be commended, not persecuted."
Prove your innocence
Conant opened the testimony with his view that the current environmental regime is hurting the drycleaning industry. As a small business owner with an 11-year career in law enforcement behind him, he said he once thought "that a citizen is innocent until proven guilty." Instead he found himself in an eight-year process of attempts to clear his name.
Daniel and Nancy Helm worked seven days a week for six years building their business into what it is today.
"I could complain about their people, my people, their lawyers, my lawyers, their environmental specialists, my environmental specialists or the phone calls that keep interrupting my business as well as the five monitoring wells that are 55 feet deep all outside my back door that they have put in and expect me to pay for," he observed.
The D'Elicios purchased a drycleaning business in Lake Worth in 1975. Active in the community, they were members of the Chamber of Commerce, Rotary and other groups.
"We conducted our personal and business lives as principled, moral individuals with respect for law and our community," Maureen D'Elicio said.
They sold Worth Tailoring and Tuxedo Junction in 1982 and in 1985 moved to another state and purchased a business. But after relocating, both Florida business owners defaulted on the notes. They attempted to run the Lake Worth business for two weeks, but couldn't make it, due to the distance. They closed the business and let the current employees go.
Employee complaint
"It was at this time that one of the employees that was let go contacted the Department of Environmental Regulation (DER) and reported that 'continuous and repeated disposal of contaminants' had been occurring at this business. The DER investigated, photographs were taken, and a great deal of misinformation was gathered," Maureen D'Elicio testified.
"From the moment this employee disclosed this information to the DER, we became the accused, were treated as guilty, and were very assertively placed on the defensive. Despite that we had not been at this business for more than three years and had never met the employee who submitted these charges, we were summoned, charged, threatened, and truly treated as criminals."
Their summons said "that during the operation of the drycleaning facility, the D'Elicios and their tenants disposed of perchloroethylene on the bare ground and the subject property."
Eleven years passed. Fifteen wells costing $2,000 each have been placed on the property. In that time, the level of soil contamination has dropped.
"The existing environmental laws and enforcement procedures need to be restructured," she told Congress.
Yee, a native of Canton, China, and since 1975 a naturalized U.S. citizen, decided "to look for a small business that would generate us a little bit of cash flow and wouldn't require a lot of manpower" when he left school to support his family.
He bought a drycleaning shop and the whole family joined in the business. "With the kind of enthusiasm, faith, and dedication we had, the business immediately flourished," Yee said.
In June, 1990, he purchased another shop from a recently-widowed woman. Two years later the letter from the Texas Water Commission arrived, telling him Southwestern Bell's site analysis found the chemicals in the groundwater.
Yee, like the D'Elicios, faced a financial crisis. He spent over $30,000 on the lawsuit.
Questions for Congress
He asked the committee a number of questions, including "why should I be liable for activities that took place before I bought the business? Why should the landlord be held liable for what he had no control over? Is it fair to hold me liable for contamination that was likely caused by leaking sewers rather than any illegal action on my part? Is it reasonable, even with the advanced technology we now have, to clean up the underground water level to five parts per billion?"
The International Council of Shopping Centers position was represented by John Ayres of GZA GeoEnvironmental.
He reminded the committee that regulations "impose strict liability on those whose acts cause contamination or who own property that becomes contaminated."
"Many shopping centers have been adversely impacted by releases of chemicals from fabric care facilities and/or the disposal of their wastes that contain these chemicals," he noted. "ICSC has vigorously opposed any proposal that affords fabric care facilities with liability protection at the potential expense of shopping center owners and operators."
The hearing was seen as part of an effort to address drycleaners' grievances.
"We're going forward," Barron said. "My reaction to the hearing is positive, and the law firm confirmed this when they said they were very pleased with the hearing." The problems emanate from the rules and regulations put forth by the federal government, Barron added.
"Retroactivity, Clean Drinking Water Act... rules local governments have adopted and made the foundation for groundwater cleanup."
By going to the federal government with their concerns, Barron hopes the drycleaning industry will eventually earn a fair shake.
While the question of how fabric care specialists can best clean garments is a major industry issue, another question lurks beneath the surface: What will fabric care specialists clean?
Both questions were on the floor at an international forum sponsored by the Canadian Fabricare Association in Toronto last month. The conference assembled drycleaners, representatives of trade associations and research organizations for two days of discussion of cleaning technology and the direction of the industry's future.
"It's time to change focus if we want to survive into the next century," declared CFA executive director Vic Vandermolen in an opening address to the conference.
"Everything is not 'fine' in the industry today," he added. "We need to change and to participate and manage the change. Just because something has been done a particular way for 30 years doesn't mean it's the only way to do it."
Much of the following discussion focused on the role of wetcleaning -- generally agreed to be a growing one -- and developments in drycleaning solvents -- perchloroethylene, hydrocarbon (petroleum) and carbon dioxide. But there was also discussion of the industry's participation, or lack thereof, in the apparel chain that links fiber and fabric producers, garment makers, clothing retailers and consumers.
"The textile care industry is not represented in the chain of the textile industry," said Ken Adamson of Langley Parisian Cleaners in Hamilton, Ontario. "We must get into it."
"This is an industry in decline. The piece counts are down," Adamson said.
Because of environmental concerns, the industry has focused its attention on the cleaning process, Adamson said, but he believes the major forces governing the industry's future will not be environmental.
"There is an immense amount of work that the industry has to do to shape its products to meet the needs of the consuming public," Adamson said. "Some of it has to do with environmental concerns, but the bulk of it has to do with making something that people want to buy."
The notion that environmental concerns are not a driving force among consumers was reinforced by Steve Risotto, executive director of the Center for Emissions Control in Washington, DC. Consumers questioned in a survey commissioned by CEC found that few have heard about any specific environmental concerns related to drycleaning and none expressed enough concern to change their cleaning habits, Risotto said.
Furthermore, the survey found that the typical customer knows very little about the drycleaning process and, if a question arose, many said they would consult with their drycleaner before reaching a conclusion.
"Cleaners are a trusted source of information," Risotto said. That points to the need for cleaners to communicate directly with their customers on these issues and to be supported by industry trade associations with information they can use in doing so.
But what about the larger issue as voiced by Adamson -- making something that consumers want to buy?
What consumers want
According to Nancy Cassill, associate professor of textile products marketing at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro, consumers are demanding, "Save me energy. Make it simple. Save me stress."
This is evident in the trend toward more casual, comfortable attire for work, a trend that Cassill said has not yet peaked and is, in fact, becoming a part of corporate culture.
Consumers still want a professional appearance along with casual wear, she said. But they know little about the drycleaning process, except that they think professional drycleaning is expensive and as such they tend to use it only to correct problems.
Cleaners need to get consumers coming to their shops for more of their fabric care needs -- both drycleaning and wetcleaning, she advised.
That should be the major issue for the industry in the coming year, said Kaspar Hasenclever of Chemsiche Fabrik Kreussler in Germany. Drycleaners need to gain more trust from customers that all textile articles are in the best possible hands when they are brought to the cleaner. Services must be increased to include articles normally handled in the home, he said.
The potential is there. Eighty to 90 percent of garments worn today are being washed at home, according to Manfred Wentz, vice president of research and development for R. R. Street & Co. Inc.
"Our challenge is to expand the market to offer our services," he said. "The technology must be better than at-home washing and also offer a comparative economic advantage."
A related statistic was given by Bill Seitz, executive director of the Neighborhood Cleaners Association International, who said that only eight percent of garments made today are all-natural fibers. While those are always candidates for professional cleaning, what about the rest?
Why cleaners exist
"How many garments a year do we process that have washable labels?" Seitz asked. "Why?"
"It's easier to give them to you than to do it themselves," he said, answering his own question
"We exist because we provide a service nobody else can do. Once somebody else can do it, we're in trouble," Seitz cautioned.
He pointed to the restaurant industry in Japan as an example. There, he said, business is down while the grocery business is up. People are choosing to fix their own food at home.
Nonetheless, Seitz said, the future of the fabric care industry has never been better. "The change in textiles and casual wear is not a problem. It is an opportunity," he said.
Seitz, too, urged more participation in the textile chain.
"Never underestimate the ability of the textile industry," he said. "Polys are much better than 30 years ago. When industries work together, progress can be made. We serve the same master -- the consumer."
The fabric care industry must realize that it is a small part of that chain. Wentz noted that the fiber and fabric producers and apparel makers constitute a $120-billion-a-year industry "and it responds to the needs of consumers, not drycleaners."
"We are just observers. We can't tell them how to run their business," Wentz said.
That point was underscored by Ken Spink, who as vice president of Coppley in Ontario, represented apparel makers at the conference.
Manufacturers' concerns
Manufacturers' chief concerns are the increasing number of fashion "seasons" that necessitate faster turn-around times, new fibers and yarns, and the increasing use of technology over hand labor.
"We care about our product and about what the consumer sees in us," Spink said.
What apparel makers don't care about, he said, is whether the cleaning is wet or dry or how it is accomplished, so long as the clothes are cleaned and restored to like-new condition, he said.
Spink said apparel makers want to assure that consumers continue spending disposable income on clothing and not something else. "The drycleaner's service is needed to keep the consumer interested," he said.
The casual wear tend is "hurting your business and our business," he added. "We have to get the message out that casual wear means dress slacks and sport coats."
Spink suggested that a joint task force be created to increase the understanding among the links of the textile chain and to recommend courses of action that can benefit all.
Although cleaning processes are not of great concern to manufacturers or consumers, they remain a hot topic in the industry. Discussions of wetcleaning, improvements in both perchloroethylene and hydrocarbon solvent cleaning technology and the possibility of new developments in carbon dioxide cleaning occupied a good portion of the conference.
A technological answer?
While this research is critical to finding the best clothes cleaning methods, it will not of itself save the industry. Chris Tebbs, managing director of the Fabric Care Research Association in the United Kingdom, offered to dispel a few myths in his presentation to the conference.
Myth #1. A good technological argument will always carry the day.
Not true, Tebbs said. Political and commercial reasoning will always take precedence.
Myth #2. "This" cleaning process will clean all garments.
No one cleaning process will clean all garments. Each has its ups and downs, Tebbs said, and cleaners must have options available.
Myth #3. The retail cleaning industry will determine the cleaning process.
Not so. Consumers will determine it.
Based on Wentz's statistic that at least 80 percent of garments are washed at home, consumers currently are making the determination to use home care in four out of five cases.
How can that change?
As Vandermolen said in his conference-opening comments: "Consumers care very little about the equipment, chemicals, regulations and debates within the industry. We need a more holistic view of the process and to adjust our opinions and attitudes to conform to the consumers. In all of the debates, we have lost sight of the main purpose of the industry.
NEW YORK, NY -- Machine-washable knitwear for next fall is being touted by the Wool Bureau in a series of workshops for retailers, designers and product development executives at its New York offices.
Machine-washable worsteds have been around for more than 20 years, but the Wool Bureau is pushing machine-washability in worsted and woolen knit apparel, citing softer feel and shrinkage resistance.
"The time is right for machine-washable wools -- especially because the hand has really been improved," Vince Mancini, knitwear product/sourcing manager at the Wool Bureau, told Women's Wear Daily last month.
The International Wool Secretariat, the parent of the Wool Bureau, has developed a new shrink-resistant process starting at the loose stock (fiber) stage, Mancini said.
"In the past, wool garments were used as outerwear, layered over shirts. But with all of the fine-gauge basic merino sweaters now being worn instead of shirts and blouses, they're worn more often and closer to the skin, so frequent washings are necessary," Mancini said.
Knitwear made from machine-washable wool will hit the stores in the fall of 1997, Mancini said. Wool Bureau labels for manufacturers licensed to use the Woolmark will state that the garments are machine-washable. There will also be hangtags playing up the washability along with directions for machine washing.
The hangtags read: "Machine washable pure new wool. Beautiful, versatile and resilient -- it has been specially treated to prevent it from shrinking -- without losing any of wool's natural properties and benefits.
"The next goal is to make something that's tumble-dryable," Mancini said.
WASHINGTON, DC -- A new name may be appearing on fiber content labels for clothing like swim suits, cycling pants and ski pants. The new fiber, which goes the trade name REXE, purportedly has stretching properties similar to spandex but is composed of polyester and polyether segments, giving it chemically different characteristics.
Teijin Limited, a company based in Osaka, Japan, petitioned the Federal Trade Commission to allow U.S. manufacturers and other marketers to use the new designated name. Teijin is proposing the generic name "Polyetherester," "Elastoester," or "Estelast" for the fiber.
The Textile Fiber Products Identification Act requires manufacturers to use the generic names of fibers contained in their textile products in the fiber content labels. FTC regulations set out a process for manufacturers to establish a new generic fiber name.
Teijin originally petitioned FTC in 1992 to add a fiber name and definition to the list of approved generic names. As an interim response, FTC granted Teijin a temporary designation -- TL 0001 -- for use in marketing its REXE fiber.
The temporary designation is effective until FTC makes a final determination on the company's request for a new generic name and definition for the fiber.
SILVER SPRING, MD -- New emission standards for hazardous waste combustion could increase the cost of hazardous waste disposal, the International Fabricare Institute told Environmental Protection Agency.
Proposed by EPA in April, the rule would replace the current Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) standards for hazardous waste incinerators. Cement and lightweight aggregate kilns that burn hazardous waste would be covered.
"Waste from the drycleaning process is regulated under RCRA. Because of this, our industry could be adversely affected by EPA's proposed waste combustion rule," said Mary Scalco, government relations director for IFI.
A cost increase of eight to 20 percent could be "burdensome" for small business owners, IFI said.
Although cleaners recycle most waste products, items such as spent filter cartridges must be removed by a hazardous waste firm.
The Center for Emissions Control has established a World Wide Web site that provides useful information for drycleaners.
The site has CEC's "Safe Handling of Perchloroethylene Drycleaning Solvent" guidebook and a summary of the federal clean-air regulations for perc drycleaning. Links to consumer education are also included.
Address for the CEC site is http://www.cec-dc.org/
The site also has a link to information for consumers on drycleaning by the Better Business Bureau.
Is this an industry in decline, as asserted by one speaker at the international conference on cleaning technology in Toronto last month? Are we in danger, as another warned, of dying out like dinosaurs?
Well, perhaps. The history of business is littered with once-proud industries that lost their niche with the passing of time and changes in technology. When was the last time you traveled by railroad or used the services of a blacksmith or had coal delivered to your home for heating? The clothes-cleaning industry itself is not what it once was, back in the day when people rode the rails and heated their homes with coal.
Can the industry be revitalized, its market expanded and its importance increased? Or will it dwindle until there are only a few remaining practitioners, a bygone skill of a vanishing era not unlike the blacksmith?
At least one of the speakers in Toronto was unabashedly optimistic. Bill Seitz of the Neighborhood Cleaners Association International declared that the future of the industry has never been brighter.
We want to share Seitz's optimism, but it will require a renewed and stronger commitment to understanding and meeting consumers' needs and desires. All the bells and whistles on equipment in the backroom will not make customers want to visit the cleaner. What will make the industry grow is convincing the consumers that fabric care specialists can clean and renew their clothing better while saving them both time and money. It's a big job that faces us, but if we don't get it done, there may not be much work to do in the future.
The process of training people in the drycleaning arts is in a state of change, if activities in Kentucky, Indiana, California and elsewhere are taken into account. Quality education programs are being developed nationwide and this can only help the industry as it adjusts to the new realities of textile care.
The Kentucky Fabricare Association has been meeting with representatives of the state correctional department in an effort to create a laundry and cleaning training program in state jails. The idea is to work with the state to create a school which would provide a trained workforce of pressers. These people can be can be matched with employers who need skilled finishers.
The National Institute of Institutional Linen Management has a training school at Eastern Kentucky University which offers a certificate course. It has the potential, several drycleaning trade association representatives have said, to offer quality training at a reasonable cost.
The Indianapolis school board junked its training program after hearing a message that anyone off the street can be trained in short order as a cleaner. Fortunately, the Professional Indiana Cleaners picked up on this and is working with others not only to restore the two-year vocational program but upgrade it into a quality educational experience. New equipment and a recommitment to quality educational can make this effort a reality.
The California Fabricare Institute is developing a school to fill the drycleaning education void on the West Coast. A permanent facility is projected for Los Angeles, with the institute's Kenny Slatten leading the development effort. According to a CFI board member, CFI is looking to see where the need will be. As needs expand, the institute will expand.
Add these programs to existing schools in the Neighborhood Cleaners Association International in New York, the International Fabricare Institute in Maryland and the Southwest Drycleaners Association in Texas and the trend is obvious -- industry training is spreading and the schools are going to where the people are. And with the various qualified industry instructors traveling the nation delivering short courses, educational opportunities continue to grow. Now all that needs doing is connecting the students and the teachers.
The job of someone serving as an intermediary between a drycleaner and an angry customer is handicapped by an underlying problem.
"We work in an industry with an image problem. The infamous and outrageous statement, 'You've been taken to the cleaners,' is typical of how many in the public view us, despite the fact that most of us, by far, work so hard to do the right thing for our customers," the North East Fabricare Association mediator warned.
Massachusetts native Nelson Kravetz defines his role with NEFA as a mediator for the drycleaning industry and the consumer -- "for both sides," he emphasized. As such, he doesn't work for anybody.
He explains why there is a need for a mediator.
"It's fairly obvious. I get calls from people who think this industry is made up of incompetent people who do not listen to the complaints of their clientele," Kravetz started. "I think when they do get complaints they mishandle them to the point where there is a terribly adversarial position on both sides of the counter."
Kravetz said there is a key element to successful interaction between a cleaner and an irate customer. The cleaner has to "keep things cool -- something terribly difficult to do when a consumer does it in front of other customers. A consumer will come in a fairly aggressive way when they think an article is lost. A cleaner will answer in a like vein, (which is) a stupid way even if the provocation is there."
By the time a mediator arrives on the scene, the situation has degenerated. The consumer feels he hasn't received any satisfaction from the cleaner, and "when they feel they are not being treated by the cleaner in a fair way, they call the Better Business Bureau or the attorney general or a television station with call-in line." Many times these groups turn to Kravetz.
Kravetz knows the situation may be volatile when he calls the consumer.
"These people have already issued some kind of complaint to the cleaner and have not had a satisfactory conclusion," he explained. "They're referred to me. They're not always right, not always wrong."
He tries to keep an open mind. "You lose credibility if you lose your neutrality. You really have to be honest and fair. Some people have said to me, when they find I know something about drycleaning, I may lean toward drycleaner. Some cleaners have told me I lean toward consumer. I have no compunction at all in telling a cleaner they ruined a garment. The same for a consumer."
His first step is to listen to their complaint and to educate them a little about drycleaning processes and the drycleaning industry. He then calls the cleaner. He also follows it up when it's a manufacturer's responsibility.
Very often the manufacturer is more responsive than stores. As an example, he recalled a Connecticut shop where a gown was cleaned and the beads and sequins ran off. The care label said dryclean only.
"According to the FTC, the gown must be all drycleanable," Kravetz said. He talked to the manufacturer in California and they're replacing the garment.
Kravetz goes to manufacturers only when the complaint get no satisfaction at the retail level, "when the store says 'That's the cleaner's fault.'"
Making things more difficult is the fact that many times the trail leads to a place that isn't even a manufacturer. "Many gowns are imported. There are many manufacturers we can talk to, but there are some we cannot."
"Bridal shops and boutiques are tough," he noted. "Large companies will handle it in fair way to consumer."
He said his rate of success in resolving disputes is somewhere around 70 to 75 percent -- "maybe even a little higher but I don't want to get out on a limb."
He finds it sometimes can take weeks and longer to settle a case, "with many, many telephone calls with the consumer, the drycleaner, the retailer and the manufacturer. You can make 15 or 20 calls. But sometimes you can do it in one call."
That's it like dealing with consumers, drycleaners, retailers and manufacturers?
"There are some stereotypes you can mention: the agitation of the consumer who feels he or she has a justifiable complaint, the agitation of a cleaner who has to take money out of his own pocket and who feels sometimes the complaints are justified or non justified..."
"There are very few incidents you will run across in your business that I have not already run across in my career," Kravetz tells drycleaners. "I don't know new drycleaning machines as well as the ones I was involved with -- it has been nine years" since he retired.
But the changes have really been in the machinery to closed, no-vent and other items that have to do with emissions.
"As far as cleaning of clothes, much of it is still the same," Kravetz asserts. "I ask the consumer when they ask me, 'Do you know how clothes are drycleaned?' I say it's like a big washing machine except they use a solvent, there's an extraction cycle, a dry cycle. I try to give them a picture of what happens to their clothes."
Kravetz paused to recall his most recent case. "One of the problems, no, both were for missing garments. I had a couple on Tuesday too. The cleaner is evading the compensation for them. That's a sure way to lose a customer."
As a mediator, Kravetz can step in a the middleman between truly hostile parties.
"There are many cases where a consumer and a cleaner don't want to talk to each other any more. I have two where the cleaner sends check to me and I send it on. I have consumers say 'I don't want to go into that store.' There are cleaners who have had the police remove people from their store."
Kravetz bemoaned the inclination for drycleaners to say of a disgruntled customer, "I don't ever want them to come in again," especially since there are ways a drycleaner can take advantage of a problem.
"I have been pushing this for many years: a complaint is an opportunity to enhance the image of your company. The way a complaint is handled gives you an opportunity to enhance the image of your company. It doesn't always mean the customer will always come out 100 percent happy."
But don't look for Kravetz to give out an endorsement of any particular cleaner.
"A woman called me and told me her cleaner is terrible. 'Is there a good cleaner around here?' she asked. She had just moved in from New York. I evaded that one."
Kravetz advice was both generic and useful -- "Look for a cleaner that does work on premises or is part of a chain with a reliable name; look for one that has a decal that tells they belong to someone like NEFA, IFI, NCA... Ask to talk with someone with expertise in the processing of garments," he advised.
"A consumer who has some concerns about what he or she is bringing in to clean should ask for someone with authority, Kravetz added, "someone who knows the process. Drycleaners should come out of the back and talk to the customer."
In the final analysis, Kravetz is talking about education.
"I push education to the consumer all the time. I push education to the cleaner all the time," he said. Without knowledge, the drycleaner cannot present a professional image. And he or she stands the chance of getting burned.
"There was a woman overwhelmed by claims. She doesn't know how to handle complaints. I'm sending her a fair claims guide" to get her started in the right direction.
Kravetz enjoys mediation and wants to see the concept adopted in other states.
"This is an interesting job... fulfilling and a great payback to industry if its been good to you," Kravetz said.
Kravetz entered drycleaning when he got out of the Air Force in 1946 and joined his father in a little tailor shop where he also did a little drycleaning. They "had one of the first band-box machines, the first in-house drycleaning machines which he got in 1936. I went in with my father and my brother. This was in Norwood, MA."
"It was my only job in the industry. I retired in 1987 and I've been doing this for nine years now. From retirement from my business to this, a volunteer job. I don't get paid for this. You have to be a masochist to do this. It's my payback to an industry that has been good to me."
"From time to time people ask if I get paid for this job. Anybody who gets paid loses some credibility. You should not be paid because then there is a conflict of interest," Kravetz declared flatly. "If I were to be paid for this job somebody could rightfully say I was beholden to drycleaning industry. I'm not... I call the chips where they fall."
Seven International Fabricare Institute member cleaners volunteered their services to help the Pony Express Tour '96, the first national relay of motorcyclists to raise money for breast cancer research.
The goal of raising $50,000 was exceeded by more than $250,000. The chase team was on the road for 51 days, traveling through 40 states. The tour's Medallion and Scroll of Valor were passed like the Olympic Torch, regardless of inclement weather, which included temperatures topping 115 degrees F.
The participating cleaners were asked to launder the chase team's clothing during overnight stops.
Pam Brennan of Lima Fabricare in Ohio was the first cleaner to participate, providing pick up and delivery in addition to cleaning. She picked up the clothing at 8:30 p.m. and worked past midnight to have it back and ready for the road again before 7 a.m. the next morning. She also helped with arrangements for accommodations.
Sally Rotan of Alameda Laundry & Drycleaning in Las Cruces, NM, was happy to support the effort, having a lost a friend to breast cancer. After spending 11/2 hours catching up with the tour, she called two of her best workers in and had the clothing returned four hours later.
Late afternoon arrivals prevented some cleaners in the South and Southwest from making the schedule and Hurricane Bertha caused further problems for other cleaners who had offered their services.
Kenneth McDowell of Holiday Laundry in Morganton, NC, Tom Janick of Craft Cleaners in Princeton, NJ, and Bonnie Bedard of Roxy Cleaners in Albany, NY, offered their services but the storm interfered with scheduling.
Two other cleaners, Sarah Badiana of Big Apple Cleaners in Phoenix, AZ, and Lee Bartieau of Bariteau's Cleaners in Santa Cruz, CA, missed by an hour being able to participate.
The Women's Motorcyclists Foundation Inc., organizers of the Pony Express, offered apologies to those who were missed but thanked them for their generosity. With the benefit experience of the first national tour, Pony Express Tour '98 is planning for all-day stopovers in at least eight cities to tend to the crew's laundry and other personal needs.
SILVER SPRING, MD -- "Succeeding in Today's Competitive Market" is the title of a two-day management seminar offered by the International Fabricare Institute in Nashville, TN, Oct. 26-27.
Robert Swift and Laura Barron will lead the seminar. Swift, president of Robert Swift & Associates, has worked with hundreds of companies in the United States and Canada, speaking on business planning and strategic management. Barron is president of The Barron Group, a consulting firm that specializes in leadership development and customer focus. She was named National Business Woman of the Year in 1990 by the American Business Women's Association.
The opening session of the seminar on Saturday morning will cover developing a business plan. The afternoon topic, "Strategic Issues in Drycleaning," will be continued on Sunday morning.
Other plans for the conference weekend include a golf tournament and a tour of the laundry facility Opryland Hotel, the seminar headquarters, on Friday before the seminar sessions begin and an IFI-hosted reception on Saturday evening.
The fee for the seminar is $395 for IFI members and $495 for non-members. The fee includes instructional materials, the reception and lunch on Saturday. There is an extra charge of $75 to participate in the golf tournament.
For more information, call IFI (800) 638-2627.
WASHINGTON, DC -- Two clothing companies that ran afoul of the Federal Trade Commission's Care Label Rule have agreed to pay fines for their transgressions.
The Care Labeling Rule requires clothing manufacturers and importers to provide labels giving full written instructions for at least one satisfactory method of care for the ordinary use of the garment.
The rule also requires that manufacturers or importers possess a reasonable basis for the care instructions they provide.
Laura Ashley, Inc., an importer and retailer of children's and women's ready-to-wear clothes, agreed in August to pay a $60,000 civil penalty to settle FTC charges that it violated the Care Labeling Rule.
Tanzara International, Inc., a New York-based importer of women's sportswear, agreed to pay a $10,000 civil penalty to settle charges that it put improper care labels on some of its rayon garments.
The Tanzara case is the first that the FTC has brought involving care labels that inappropriately advised washing the garment rather than drycleaning.
The recommended care procedure resulted in significant shrinkage, the FTC alleged.
In addition, the FTC charged Tanzara with failing to possess, prior to sale, a reasonable basis for all care information disclosed to the purchasers on the care label in violation of the Care Labeling Rule.
Tanzara sold its clothing items to retailers under the brand names Tanzara International, Mix Max and Paris Sports Club.
In the Laura Ashley case, the FTC alleged that the care labels failed to give written care instructions or instructions for laundering, drying, ironing, bleaching or drycleaning.
Symbols-only case
Laura Ashley's labels used only symbols for care instructions. Under the current rule, symbols or pictographs may be used but they must be accompanied by the required written explanations. Laura Ashley's were not.
The commission is considering a conditional exemption to the Care Labeling Rule to permit the use of symbols under certain conditions.
For example, the use of symbols might be permitted, if, during the first year of their use, sellers provided information with the garment that explains the meaning of the symbols on the permanent care label.
The commission has not yet decided whether to permit the use of symbols under these or other conditions.
The Massachusetts-based Laura Ashley corporation owns and operates more than 100 retail stores across the United States and a mail-order catalog business through which it sells its imported clothing. It is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Laura Ashley Holdings plc, a British corporation.
Both consent decrees are for settlement purposes only and do not constitute an admission by the defendant of a law violation. Consent decrees have the force of law when signed by the judge. FTC information is available from the FTC's NewsPhone recording at 202/326-2710. News releases and other materials also are available on the Internet at the FTC's World Wide Web Site at: http://www.ftc.gov
SILVER SPRING, MD -- A membership agreement has been signed between the International Fabricare institute and the Korean Drycleaners and Laundry Association of Southern California.
The chiefs of the two organizations, IFI CEO Bill Fisher and KDLASC President Young Kyun Lee, jointly announced the signing Sept. 24 and the agreement was effective immediately.
The boards of directors of both associations both have agreed to executive the agreement.
Letters from Fisher and IFI President Jack Alquist stated that "The positive actions we have jointly taken in entering into this agreement will be seen in the future as the historic first steps in bringing together the Korean and American drycleaning communities."
IFI said the Korean association has close to 900 member and is the largest trade association of Korean American drycleaners in the United States. The action could pave the way for other Korean-American drycleaning associations in states without IFI Joint Affiliate agreements to follow suit and some have already expressed interest, IFI said.
Those who join IFI under the new membership agreement will have the same rights and access to the services of all IFI members.
The agreement was patterned after former and existing agreements with Australia and trade groups in Canadian provinces, IFI said. Cleaners who join IFI will receive their services directly from KDLASC.
IFI has contractual agreements with 19 joint state affiliates in the United States. The type of agreement set up with the Korean association in California is available only in states and regions not covered by an existing joint state affiliate agreement. Currently that includes the states of California, Oregon, Washington, Michigan, Idaho and Montana.
SILVER SPRING, MD -- International Fabricare Institute members can apply for a Gold Card MasterCard from MBNA America. The card features the IFI logo and has no annual fee.
IFI said MBNA will contact members to see if they are interested in applying for the card. Members can also call MBNA, (800) 847-7378, to apply. An introductory annual percentage rate of 5.9 percent is offered on balance transfers and cash advances.
If you cringe at laundry (wetcleaning) care label instructions like "machine wash cold, hand wash separate colors, gentle cycle, dry flat," brace yourself for more headaches.
Wetcleaning is becoming a great percentage of total fabric care with almost all casual wear care labels calling for washing in gentle cycles, or by hand, in either cold or warm temperatures.
The average laundry washer/extractor does not have the capability of gentle cycles, or mere soaking (without the operator manually controlling the fill, cylinder not moving, drain) as the latest wetcleaning/laundry washer/extractors or deluxe, home-type top-load washer/extractors have.
Many knit shirts have both water-soluble and solvent-soluble dyes, and their care labels say: "Hand wash cold, separate colors, do not wring."
This means that you must fold the dripping wet garment neatly in quarters, then hand squeeze the excess water out and hang it on a wooden or heavy plastic hanger to continue the drip-dry process with the colored water dripping on a large pail (or over the concrete floor).
You cannot wash more than one shirt at a time in order to avoid dye transfer since almost all dark colors with "hand wash cold, separate colors" care labels contain fugitive dye. And you certainly cannot dryclean them and expose the other garments to dye redeposition.
Affluent housewives have the good fortune to hire a domestic worker to spend all day on the family's laundry, including sport shirts that require hand washing, drip drying and ironing.
What about working couples? That wife is a combination housewife and income contributor who has to cook and clean, raise children after work, etc. She sends most all of her husband's outer garments -- pants, shirts, sweaters, jackets -- to you to dryclean or wash, as necessary, since everything will get pressed, also. Well, that is what this article is all about.
Labor intensive wetcleaning is here, thanks to the soluble dyes from irresponsible manufacturers who exploit cheap foreign labor (including children) and who use cheap dyes and other raw materials to generate huge profits from consumers here in the Unite States. Even the drying processes are of several classifications. Cold or cool air, low heat, medium heat, etc.
Better trade, tougher cleaning
To get production on wetcleaning today, a plant needs a battery of soaking sinks, top-load washers, and small capacity dryers in addition to one or more wetcleaning washer/extractors with multiple controls for various types of loads from fragile to normal classifications.
Also, the problem is exacerbated by a tiny provision of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and an obscure group called the Trilateral Labeling Committee.
Under a plan to help smooth trade with Canada and Mexico, written fabric care instructions would be replaced with symbols -- more than 30 combinations of squares circles, triangles, dots, dashers and slashes that presumably will make sense to users regardless of what language they speak.
After four years of discussion, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is expected to give final approval very soon. The labels would probably be in use sometime in 1997.
The list of symbols was drawn from simple pictograms already in use in Europe, Asia and elsewhere
This chart exacerbates the problem for us since some of the symbols are different from the NAFTA symbols, although similar. Our workers will go crazy trying to discern all these symbols in domestic, Mexican and Canadian (including French) and other foreign nomenclature.
Under NAFTA, the United States is required to "harmonize" fabric care labels with those in Canada and Mexico. Using one set of symbols, manufacturers will be able to ship identical products to Canada, Mexico or the United States instead of maintaining separate inventories with labels in English, French and Spanish, or providing multiple instructions in different languages.
Manufacturers may still supply written instructions if they want, but it is doubtful, however, that many will do that. It is definitely cost-effective for the manufacturer since it gets the United States more in line with the rest of the world.
Eventually, the symbols could set a standard world-wide to ease trade between other countries, also, much as traffic signals are now standardized, but only if the NAFTA and other symbols used in Europe, Asia and Africa are revised as one set instead of two, or more, as is today.
A new language to learn
Meanwhile, the drycleaner/wetcleaner in the United States will just have to struggle along with these mixed up, dual meaning symbols from around the world.
"A lot of these are not intuitive -- you do have to spend a little effort," said Constance Vecellio, a lawyer with the FTC. "It is a new language that people will have to learn."
Some people predict the symbols will be about as popular in the United States as was conversion to the metric system.
One woman interviewed while doing her wash in a Baltimore coin-op laundry squinted at the chart of proposed symbols and said "only two seemed understandable at first glance," she said.
"I particularly don't get this," she said, pointing to the section displaying a dozen icons for methods of drying clothes.
"I don't really read the tags anyway, so I guess it's just as well," she said, finally.
Another person in the laundry, an 80-year-old man who came to the United States from Poland and speaks four languages, reviewed the same chart and said he would ignore the symbols and do the laundry at his own risk.
"I'm too old for that," he said as his shirts and towels churned nearby.
Another person had a more positive approach to the symbols. This woman, age 76, said, "Let's put it this way, We'll have to learn it. It sort of makes sense."
The symbols are based on five icons -- triangle, square, circle, tub, iron -- representing bleaching, drying, drycleaning, washing and ironing.
After that, it gets more involved. A circle inside the square means "tumble dry." (Adding the circle makes the icon look like the windowed front of a Commercial dryer.) One, two or three dots inside the circle tell you to dry on low, medium or hot.
If there is one line under the square, it means "Durable press cycle." Two lines mean "gentle cycle." There also are squares without circles. Inside these are a variety of slashes and dashes for drying clothes the old-fashioned way -- flat, drip, dry, on a line or in the shade.
Will consumers get it?
The Trilateral Labeling committee, a group created under NAFTA to iron out details of the plan, has yet to try out the symbol on consumers, said chairman Carl Priestland.
After publishing the information in the Federal Register, the FTC received only a few negative comments, he said. "A few people said they thought they were too confusing," Priestland said. "We just don't believe that in general. What they're saying is the customers aren't bright enough to learn."
Even if there is some initial confusion, the system ultimately will be simpler and more efficient, he said. "We're talking small labels, fewer labels, all the information the consumer needs, and doing it in a way that doesn't require written information," Priestland said.
Meanwhile, the Trilateral Committee's next step is likely to be determining how to teach the new system. A few ideas are on the table.
For six months or a year, clothing will probably come with clip-off tags that decipher the symbols.
Soap makers and appliance manufacturers have been approached about including the chart on packages and machines, but some are reluctant.
"I don't know where you're going to put that thing," said Jane Meyer, director of consumer information for the Soap and Detergent Association, when asked about the chart.
"The packages are not very big -- if you put something on, you have to take something off, It's going to be an individual company decision," Meyer added.
Well, now you have it. This author feels much sympathy toward every person who wears and washes clothing.
Do your own tests
All I can say to end this article is: TEST for water solubility of all dyes, carrying hand wash labels, and do not dryclean a "wash only (machine or hand)" garment unless you TEST the dyes for solvent-solubility, and you are willing to risk buying the garment and possibly the others in the same load, too.
As my previous articles on wetcleaning emphasize, and I repeat again here, "Put up a sign in your call office (customer service area) saying we follow care labels (for manufacturer responsibility)."
Your wetcleaning department should be just as completely equipped as your drycleaning department, and your finishing units must be fully equipped, including mushroom presses, bag sleevers (vertical), puff sets with heads and vacuum and steam-air form finishers designed for jackets/coats and (separately) for women's garments.
Remember, even though your price list is non-gender, your finishing units are gender, basically, even though all-purpose by usage.
By this I mean an all-purpose man's unit finishes coats and pants basically, but also finishes skirts, plain dresses blouses and robes in a little longer time than an all-purpose women's unit, which can finish men's garments in a little longer time.
Fortunately, we don't have to go back to our humble beginnings to beating the laundry on a rock in a flowing stream in what once was the only successful method of washing clothes.
I can recall my miserable days of washing pants 50 and 100 at a time! We never called it washing, but gave it a more sophisticated name, like "water brush" or "aqua dipped" to disguise the process.
Why? It seems in the late 1940s and before, every man owned one blue serge suit, always with two pairs of pants and the rule was, "You simply had the suit "sponged and pressed" (another quaint euphemism) twice or more for every one drycleaning.
There was no charge solvent or moisture in the early systems and in order to remove the stiffness from perspiration in the knees, it was necessary to wash each pair of pants, rinse, extract, hang inside out (usually in the boiler room), then press the following morning.
That's when the problems started... then as now!
You see, the best process for total cleanliness, odor and bacteria free has always been water. The problem is finishing. Washing could cause shrinkage, dye bleeding and damage to the lining, buckram, trim, etc. That's where the expertise comes in -- knowing what is serviceable.
The main fabric might be washable, but can the entire garment be totally restored as new? That's the business we are in: "fabric restoration."
To restore a washed garment and have it look new is often the work of a skilled craftsman. Finishing must fall in the category of profitability. Production must go on, or the operation will fail.
The professional drycleaner is now called upon to discard all the hard-won knowledge of his craft in the art of restoration so he can wetclean everything. Let the Greenpeacers and the EPA tell the ravages of carcinogens (never proven), but what about limited water, sewer waste and the high cost of finishing?
Production now requires increases in time and new preparation equipment in the form of steam-air forms and finishers. Steam tunnels and steam cabinets are now coming back in vogue, along with a new vocabulary -- Cindy Lou, Suzies, wind whips, up-air puffers with fabric heads, and similar features on utility presses are a few "innovations" on present standard equipment. All of these do not press but simply prepare the garment to be properly finished, and with added cost and time in production.
Remember, also, that we may need to increase horsepower in undersized boilers. Additional space and investment must be considered.
Wetcleaning is easy and simple. Home washers can and have been adapted to accommodate the demand. In this trend, it's the finishing that's suddenly taking its toll in higher costs and tougher quality standards to maintain.
By a conservative estimate, I venture to say some 40 percent of the fabrics and garments now coming over the counter can safely and economically be wetcleaned. Anything above that number can also be wetcleaned but requires skill and in some cases a "talent" to properly finish.
Remember, the cost of pressing involves more than wages, vacations and benefits. It is also supplies, utilities, packaging, inspection, etc., and it can only be justified by how many pieces per hour are produced, be it the price per piece, the or hourly rate salary.
What is it costing you? (Send $ 5 and a self-addressed envelope to my address below for a copy of "The Cost of Doing Business.")
The time has come to decide: "Did I enter a business, or did I buy myself a job?
Even the most experienced drycleaners will find stains that are simply difficult to identify.
Very often the drycleaner will attempt stain removal procedures that are incorrect with results that set the stains making them impossible to remove.
We can easily approach unidentified stains knowing that they can be 1) dryside; 2) tannin, and 3) protein and albuminous.
Any unidentified stain should be attempted on the dryside first, since this process entails the least amount of heat used.
Using steam or heat on a dryside stain tends to set and oxidize the stain.
Dryside procedure
1.Oily type paint remover.
2.Mechanical action.
3.Amyl acetate and oily type paint remover.
4.Mechanical action.
5.Flush with volatile dryside only. Do not use steam because oily type paint remover releases alcohol which can set albuminous stains and cause color loss on fabric. Place the garment in net bag and dryclean with a silk load using 120 degrees F to dry.
After drycleaning, proceed with a combination method (tannin and albuminous.) Combination tannin and albumin stains have their source as indicated, in both vegetable and protein matter.
Characteristics
Every now and then, it's a good idea to stop and reflect on your life. The following story came to my attention recently and it's something I'd like to share.
Even though this story has nothing to do with drycleaning, it does make you stop and think about where you are in your life and what you define as success.
A definition of success is one I got from an old friend, Earl Nightingale, now deceased. He said, "Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal."
My personal thought is that success is the journey and not the destination. What happens to success when one reaches a predetermined goal? At that point, it's downhill unless one creates a new goal and the pursuit of that goal is the journey. To me, the journey is the success.
This interesting story is about a man, now deceased, named Fritz Seyfarth. It came to me in John Pugsley's Journal, June 1996. This is a newsletter dealing with mining stocks and is of particular interest to me. I had the good fortune to attend a seminar with Pugsley a few years back -- a five-day seminar conducted by Ted Nicholas. The seminar dealt with ways to improve direct marketing and cost $10,000 and was worth every penny.
This little story that Pugsley included in his most recent newsletter was under a classification he calls "personal reflections."
I know you will find the story about Fritz Seyfarth most interesting, enlightening, and exciting. You see, Fritz lived out a life most of us dream about from time to time.
So here's Fritz's story as told by John Pugsley...
There is an accelerating parade of friends and relatives passing out of my life of late. I suppose this is natural. As we age, our friends march along the same road and time erodes our ranks.
A few weeks ago I lost another old friend. Fritz Seyfarth was a man who truly marched to a different drummer. Some 40 years ago he broke free of his engineering job and a hopeless marriage, bought a small sailboat, sailed it from California to the Caribbean and went into the charter business.
For some 35 years he lived aboard his small boat, Tumbleweed, earning a meager living by writing tales about the Caribbean. He published the thin little books himself and sold them in local Caribbean gift shops.
For awhile his past pestered him. The IRS endlessly hounded him to file tax returns, and finally in irritation he scribbled across one of their envelopes:
"Addressee Deceased
Return to Sender."
He dropped it back in the post box and never heard from them again.
This gave him an idea for making a few bucks. He took out a tiny classified ad in a popular tabloid magazine. The ad said,
Hounded by creditors?
Send $5 for the Terminal Solution
Soon Fritz was sitting on the floor grinning as he extracted $5 bills from a pile of envelopes. He then sent each customer a simple rubber stamp that read "Addressee Deceased -- Return to Sender."
This happy idea kept food on Fritz's table for quite a time. However, one day he received an irate letter from a customer who called Fritz a cheat for selling such an idiotic stamp and advertising it as a debtor's solution. Shortly thereafter the unhappy customer received his own envelope back in the mail, the face clearly stamped with (you guessed it):
"Addressee Deceased -- Return to Sender."
For the last 25 years Fritz moored Tumbleweed in the lee of Marina Cay, one of the smallest and most picturesque of the British Virgin Islands. Last September, hurricane Luis swept through the archipelago and Tumbleweed was destroyed.
Discouraged, Fritz began looking for a place on land, but at the last moment he gave in to his love of the sea and bought another small sailboat. Just two days after taking possession, he died in his sleep.
By the yardstick society uses to measure accomplishment, Fritz's life was unsuccessful. His income was trivial, his assets insignificant, and he lived without the amenities most of us feel are necessities.
He worked hard at writing and struggled to distribute his short books through the little gift shops that sprinkle the islands. He talked often about this or that book idea that might bring fame and fortune. But in spite of his lack of financial success, barefoot Fritz, with his ready smile, threadbare short pants and tanned, leathery face was essentially happier with life than most of us.
Should Fritz be considered a failure and his life a waste because he didn't become rich? Is life a success if we achieve wealth or fame, but a waste if we don't reach the goals we aspire to? Should others weep over my failure if death takes me away before my plans are completed?
Death abruptly interrupts life, without regard for our plans or promises. It is as though we're in a theater and without warning the curtain drops and the play is done. Those left behind in the audience sit confused, trying to make sense of the unfinished drama.
Yes, theater is more comfortable than real life, for in fiction the last act is never interrupted and the curtain always falls at some logical moment. Works of fiction usually leave us with the feeling that there was a point to the play.
Shortly after Fritz's death I attended a small memorial service on Marina Cay. Fritz stared out at me from a hundred photos taken throughout the stages of his life.
It was obvious in perusing the totality of Fritz's life that the life he experienced was no less significant or joyful than that of any of my rich, successful friends.
It strikes me that there is no such thing as a passing or failing grade in life... nor a destination, which if reached, will complete life or give it meaning. I learned from Fritz that there is nothing you or I have to accomplish before the final curtain, other than to absorb and appreciate the experiences of each day as they happen.
Fritz was buried at sea, as a sailor should be. He died as he lived, a free and happy man. If he was listening, I'm sure he'd agree that his life had not been wasted. And I'm sure he'd have a final laugh to see the last of his mail stamped:
"Addressee Deceased
Return to Sender."
The key to satisfied customers begins at the counter with the proper acceptance of suede, leather, fur and fabric combinations.
The handling of suede and leather can be easy and profitable or full of headaches and costly. The difference is in how much you know about the characteristics of suede and leather and how to properly handle them. This informed method, if followed carefully, will make accepting suede and leather easy.
The proper handling of suede and leather garments begins at the counter when the garment is first brought into your shop for cleaning. Just as with cloth garments, it is at this point that problems are either created or avoided.
It starts at the counter
The difference between what will ultimately be an unhappy customer and what will be a satisfied customer is primarily determined at the counter, provided the leather processing methods do not create problems like color loss, stiffening, or drying out of the skins.
To master the correct acceptance method, you must know as much about skins as you know about cloth, fabric and fibers.
If you can not correctly identify skins and the conditions found on them, you will have problems, just as you would have problems if you accept sun-bleached or sun-rotted drapes and don't explain to the customer that the drapes could come apart in the cleaning.
This summary is intended to provide a brief recap of the identification of skins and the conditions that are likely to be encountered with them.
Skin categories
Using this method of classification, the animal skins used to make up garments fall into three major categories: sueded leather; smooth leather; and fur.
Sueded leathers are skins that have had the flesh side abraded to raise up the velvet-like nap we call suede.
Suedes are identified by the type of animal the skin comes from. Many skins can be sueded, but three basic classifications of sueded leather are most commonly used. These are sheepskin, cowhide and pigskin suedes.
Smooth leathers are skins that have had the hair removed and have been dyed or painted on the hair side of the skin.
Leathers are identified by the type of finish they have on them. There are three basic classifications of leather: painted leather; cuir savage leather; and naked leather.
Furs are the skins of animals with the hair left on the skin. Furs are identified by the type of animal the skin comes from. Some familiar types are mink, fox, raccoon, badger, lamb and rabbit.
The cleanability and wearability of the different suedes and leathers are summarized in the cleanability and wearability chart.
Things to check
In addition to being familiar with the classifications of suede and leather and their cleaning and wearability characteristics, you must examine each garment carefully for various conditions that may exist when it is presented at the counter.
The conditions usually encountered on suede and leather garments received for processing generally fall into three categories. These are conditions of use, conditions of manufacture and natural conditions.
Conditions of use. These are things that occur to the garment as the garment is worn. Rips, tears, missing buttons and worn areas are examples of conditions of use.
Conditions of manufacture. These are things that manufacturers of the garment did that can present you with a potential problem.
Over toggling and stretching of skins so that they shrink when worn and cleaned, use of solvent-soluble glue that bleeds, use of dissimilar, diseased or improperly tanned skins on the garment or outfit, use of powder finish that flushes off in cleaning, are examples of conditions of manufacture.
Natural conditions. These are the markings and characteristics that occur in the garment skins due to natural causes. Tick bites, belly wrinkles, vein marks, barb wire scars, all examples of natural conditions.
Any of the conditions in these three categories that exist on any suede or leather garment you accept must be called to the attention of your customer to avoid misunderstandings and problems due to lack of communication.
Safeguard goodwill
If the customer is forewarned and prepared for possible problems before processing, many lengthy discussions and arguments can be avoided and customer good will is safeguarded.
How would you feel?
Consider your own feelings when you buy a product or a service. You enjoy dealing with informed, alert personnel.
Your customers also want to deal with knowledgeable counter persons.
It is therefore absolutely essential that you and your staff become thoroughly familiar with the above described types of suedes and leathers and the conditions that may be found in each garment you accept.
You should also give your customers good advice. This includes recommending that the garment be cleaned at least once each year to protect the skin from drying out and deteriorating and to remove soil and stains before they become set with age.
Yearly cleaning will restore the natural oils of the skin and retain its suppleness. Further, you should advise your customer of the availability of a protective coating that will shield their valuable suede or leather from staining and soiling after purchase or cleaning.
The next training session at the Royaltone Suedemate Leather Cleaner Center in Tulsa, OK, will be Feb. 6 & 7.
Frank Lucenta is president of Royaltone Company Inc., a firm that trains drycleaners to identify, accept, spot, clean, press and recolor suede, leather and fur. For information on classes or on Royaltone's instruction book and spotting charts, or for a free three-ring binder to hold copies of all articles on cleaning and finishing suede, leather and furs, call (800) 331-5506, fax (918) 665-6017, or write to Royaltone Company Inc., P.O. Box 35949, Tulsa, OK 74145.Marketing is really all about building relationships.
Focused marketing means building relationships with the people most likely to accept your offer.
Who are the prospects who would make a really big difference in your business if they got to know you and what your quality cleaning could do for them?
How do you go about building relationships with these people?
Think about customer relationships in terms of these four stages: awareness, credibility, trust, and emotion.
Awareness. What are you doing to make existing and new customers aware of your services and the benefits of using your services?
Are you advertising? Are you advertising consistently, or do you only advertise as a knee-jerk reaction to a slow-down in volume?
Advertising not only has to be hard hitting to get your prospects' attention in an evermore competitive world, but it also must be constant. There are no days when it's OK not to advertise. No days.
Once someone becomes aware of what you have to offer, understands the benefits and has the ability and willingness to pay (a critical factor in a bona fide prospect), you're ready to take them to the next step.
Credibility. This could also be called confidence or perception of competence. You say, that you can clean and press my clothes and make them suitable to wear again. But can you really? You say that you'll have them ready by Friday. But will you?
Credibility is the belief that you can and will perform as promised.
Credibility isn't smoke and mirrors. This form of confidence has to be built over time and through experience.
A good way to jump-start this phase of the relationship is to allow the customer to "borrow" credibility of others. Testimonial ads by other customers who may or may not be well known allow the new prospect to borrow their credibility.
This can be accomplished by building a display of customer photographs in the store or simply providing a list of names and addresses of other customers who live on the same street as your prospective customer.
Credibility lowers the risk when a purchaser does business with your store. So it is important to build this into your store image.
Trust. Another question. What are you doing to demonstrate that you are competent to perform as promised? Trust and credibility are closely linked. A new customer must trust that you will perform as promised.
But trust means something deeper. It's the kind of emotion that creates a strong loyalty, the glue that holds a relationship through good times and bad.
This kind of trust cannot be borrowed. It must be experienced and, ironically, it is most often formed when there is a problem. A customer comes in expecting to pick up cleaning for an important function that night The counter-person is unable to locate their order. Even after the manager is called to help, the clothes are nowhere to be found.
Shortly after getting home the customer receives a phone call. The clothes were given to another customer in error. The manager or a staff member is getting into is own car and picking up the order and will deliver them to the customer's door in time to be worn that evening.
The next time that customer chooses a cleaner, will the fact that those clothes were lost influence the decision, or will it be more influenced by the fact that someone took great pains to meet the customer's needs?
As service expectations rise, and as young people enter the work force, they frequently demonstrate that quality service is a new concept to them. It is a tremendous challenge for most cleaners to get new employees to understand how critically important sacrificial service is to building long-term relationships.
Emotion. The final stage in developing lasting customer relationships are the emotional ties. This occurs when the customer believes that you and your cleaners are about them, not only on a professional level, but on a personal level.
These are feelings that are developed first by calling the customer by name. Then they are reinforced when they receive a birthday card; congratulations on a birth or condolences on a death or when attention is paid to individual details on their clothes, like replacing buttons, sewing small seams, and packaging to precise specifications.
Customer loyalty is largely influenced by customer satisfaction. Still, up to 70 percent of all customers who switch cleaners were satisfied with their former cleaner. They just didn't believe he cared.
This article marks the one year anniversary of this column.
Writing for the National Clothesline has given me the opportunity to talk with and meet countless drycleaners throughout the United States and Canada. Every month I get numerous phone calls from drycleaners of all sizes -- very small to very large. They call to say that they enjoyed a particular article or point that was made in an article.
Keep the calls coming -- I enjoy your input! Here are some of my observations about the industry:
Sales plateaus
There are sales volume plateaus in every industry... where increased volume results in diminishing returns. The diminishing return can be in reduced profits and/or in negative cash flow.
You're going along, growing the business, putting more work through the plant and you wake up one morning (or you can't sleep one night) and you suddenly realize that you're working a hell of a lot harder -- and for what? There is no more money at the end of the week and the bills aren't getting paid any sooner.
If you have been there, done that -- you are not alone.
I am finding that a critical sales volume plateau in the drycleaning industry is in the $700,000 to $800,000 annual sales range. This appears to be the top limit where the old ways of managing and the old systems just can't keep up with the demands of the company. This is the level at which things start to fall apart.
The biggest problem is you!
I talk to drycleaners all day every day and it never ceases to amaze me when someone who owns a $700,000 or $3 million-a-year business says, "I can't get away." I hear this all the time.
At that level of sales volume there should be management personnel trained and in place so that ownership can go to a meeting or play golf for a day. At these volumes you cannot, by yourself, effectively manage everything and every body, every minute. When you try to, things start falling through the cracks. Those things always cost you money.
The first step in making your business life more productive and more enjoyable is by delegating.
Before you delegate some of your responsibilities to someone else, remember you also have to delegate a commensurate or equal amount of authority. You cannot separate authority and responsibility.
The second step, and the most difficult part, is making up your mind that you can and will accept the fact that no one will do things exactly the way you do them.
New managers and old will make mistakes. It goes with the territory. You can always find fault in the way a manager settles a claim; gave the customer too much or too little; took too long to settle it; settled it too quickly, etc.
I have seen owners delegate management responsibilities to others only to put everything the managers do under a microscope. Then when there is the slightest problem, they become so obsessed with it that it gets talked about every day for what seems to be forever.
Delegate. Then step back and let the person grow in the job.
Making changes requires some true soul-searching to determine where you want to take your company and how you are going to get it there.
At this point, i.e., the sales plateau, you and your company will benefit from the unbiased evaluation and overview of an outside management professional. Being in the trenches all day makes it very difficult, if not impossible, for you to step back and see the Big Picture.
Good employees
For the vast majority of drycleaners that I have been privileged to work with and talk to, the issue of hiring and trying to keep good employees is the single most troublesome and frustrating issue of all.
The bad news is that there are no quick solutions. The good news is that the drycleaners who work today at building a congenial work environment and who are willing to invest in their employees by training them will reap the long-term benefits of a stable work force. Your ability to hire and keep good people is where your future success lies.
The business survey that I do exclusively for drycleaners always includes a confidential employee questionnaire. The questions are easy for your employees to understand and, yes, the individual questionnaires are confidential -- the employer never sees them.
These questionnaires always give top management a new perspective on their business. Some of the best survey recommendations come from these questionnaires, and why not? Who better to offer good ideas than the people who are doing the work?
One client thought that he was doing his employees a favor by letting them solve issues like customer claims. The employees saw the boss as shirking his responsibilities. After all, he is making all the money, so he should also have the pleasure of dealing with the irate customers.
I had another client who had over 80 percent of his employees say that the best part of working for the company was that they really felt like they were a part of one big family. Furthermore, both this company's labor costs and quality of work are excellent.
Shirts
One of my pet peeves is the man's dress shirt and drycleaning issue. I have been told over and over again that "shirts bring in drycleaning." To be accurate, that statement must say that "Good shirts -- clean, well-pressed, no cracked or missing buttons -- will bring in more drycleaning."
Unfortunately, the fact that shirts bring in drycleaning has been misinterpreted to mean "Cheap shirts bring in drycleaning." The best drycleaners have the best shirts, the most drycleaning, and the highest prices. These drycleaners know that it costs more to be the best and that to stay in business and make a profit they need to charge accordingly.
I look forward to another year with National Clothesline and to receiving more input from you, my readers. If you have any questions, comments or specific issues you would like to read about please let me know.
Remember, in the game of business, the more you know the better you can play the game.
We have spent much time discussing marketing concepts on these pages. I would like to reflect and expand on how many of these ideas come together in a concept I will describe as stealth marketing.
If this sounds like a strange description, I invite you to read on to understand how the systems we have talked about can be used as a very powerful marketing tool that can take your business miles ahead of your competition.
Most of us are familiar with the Stealth fighter, a powerful tool that the US Air Force uses to surprise and destroy enemies. It approaches secretly and does it's job effectively.
In today's competitive times, your business needs such a powerful tool to secretly surprise and destroy competition while they have no idea what is happening to them.
The commonly used form of advertising in our industry are media like Val-Pak and similar marriage-mail packets. Others use signs, flyers and in store sales.
These programs broadcast deep discounts, often across the board, that take a big bite out of your profit margin. What's worse, they encourage your competition to match or beat your offers. And even worse they allow everyone to take advantage of a sale item, often every time they come in, never spending full price.
We are seeing this in the proliferation of price slashing of shirts. All over the country we are seeing shirts discounted to 99 cents, less in some cases.
Another reaction of competitors is to put out signs that they will accept any other cleaner's coupons. This let's your competition take advantage of your advertising dollars without spending any money.
I became more aware of this problem when we were aggressively advertising. Supply salespeople told me that the other cleaners had asked them to find out what sales we were running and when they would end. Needless to say I was getting tired of doing their advertising for them.
Know your customers
As you have read in past months, I believe in doing your own direct mail and frequent customer programs. To be successful, you must build a customer database. Getting to know who your customers are and where they are coming from is easy and essential to the success of your business.
Further, you must concentrate your advertising efforts on the geographic areas where these customers are coming from. You must identify who your customers are, where they come from and attract more like them.
Where the stealth aspect of your marketing comes from is sending targeted offers to these customers and prospects like them. J. C. Penney once said that "only half of my advertising works; the problem is I do not know what half."
In his generation, huge amounts of money were spent sending offers to the entire market surrounding his stores. It was easy for the competitors to know what was going on and react by copying or bettering the offers in some fashion.
Today, technology allows us to eliminate part of that half of the advertising that does not work by not sending offers to anyone who can not spend a significant amount of money on your services.
Stealth marketing means sending powerful offers only to people who can use your services. Send direct, targeted offers to people who can use it. Send nothing to people who can not.
Make your offers something that customers and prospects can not refuse. But never divulge what you are doing to outsiders. What you will be doing is building your customer base which is the only measure of how successful your business will be. The more customers you have who come to your store more often, spending more money with each visit will make your business grow.
A simple concept
The concept is simple. If you have 2,000 customers spending on average $100 per year, you will gross $200,000 per year. If you can build this to 3,000 customer spending $150 per year your gross will leap to $450,000.
Doing this with stealth marketing will help you keep your average dollar amount up without across-the-board discounting or loss leaders. This is exactly the problem created by cut-rate shirt prices, which is a practice the big retailers call loss leaders.
Old thinking said that if you give away some of the items at a loss you will attract customers who will spend money on items that you make money on. A major fault of this thinking is that many customers never spend money on items you make money on.
Worse still for drycleaners, we have a limited product line unlike supermarkets or department stores that sell thousands of items and can make up a loss on one item by a profit on hundreds of others that customers may buy.
Pick and choose
With stealth marketing you can pick and choose what you want to offer, change it in an instant, and vary it with the seasons.
You can stimulate business when you want it and make full mark-up when you need to. Your offers need not be fancy or complicated. The simpler the better. The most important aspect is that you keep it secret to all except the drycleaning users who you want to know about it. The others will always pay full price.
You must develop a mind-set that confirms what we all know: There are drycleaning customers and non-drycleaning customers out there.
We want the drycleaning customers only. The price shoppers and infrequents can pay full price with us or go help put the competitor out of business as they die a slow death by across-the-board price cutting ads.
Priming the pump
When the customers who do not deserve the special offers, based on their volume of business, pay full price, we can give better offers to the volume users. These high-volume customers will react, coming to you more often with bigger orders while the non-customers will be going to the competition paying below market prices, or full price with you.
I have read recently of progressive cleaners who send thank-you letters to their best customers. An even better idea was a cleaner who took a group of his best customers to brunch once a month as a thank your for their dedication.
A different group is selected monthly so he has a regular contact with his most important customers. I am sure during these meetings he can get some valuable input from them. Whatever method, your best customers deserve some type of reward to keep them loyal to you.
One last thought: Be sure that your regular price leaves sufficient room to allow a profit margin even with the special offers you need to run to keep people interested in doing more business with you.
With stealth marketing your business will grow while competitors' business continues to shrink. They won't know what hit them. Work on hitting them hard while your competition has no idea what is happening.
ROCKVILLE, MD -- A Maryland drycleaner accused of charging women more than men to clean their garments has reached an agreement with the Human Relations Commission of Montgomery County, the county chapter of the National Organization for Women and three individual complainants.
The Human Relations Commission agreed with the complainants that the cleaner charged women different and higher prices than men to launder and process shirts and blouses.
The agreement requires the drycleaning establishment to refund overcharges, comply with the county's statute that prohibits discriminatory pricing and to send letters of apology to the complainants.
The cleaner, unnamed in press information from the Human Relations Commission, also agreed to post a sign in a conspicuous location inside the store that states the non-discriminatory pricing policy. The cleaner also must advocate for non-discriminatory pricing policies in regular business contacts.
The county code prohibits drycleaners from charging women higher prices than men to launder their shirts and blouses either because they are women or because the garments are worn by women.
The code applies regardless of the size and type of equipment used or the location where the work is done.
Also as part of the settlement, the Human Relations Commission agreed to send a sample non-discriminatory pricing policy to all drycleaning establishments in the county.
The "Unisex Pricing" poster advises customers of the law and notes that the commission can levy fines of $1,000 per violation and seek refunds and damage awards for customers the commission believes were overcharged.
In large letters it declares: "This dry cleaning establishment charges the SAME price for laundering men's and women's shirts and blouses."
While spelling out the non-discriminatory pricing rules, the poster also points out that "A shirt such as a tuxedo shirt or blouse that must be processed by hand due to pleats, tucks, fancy collars, lace trim, decorative accessories or buttons, ruffles or puffed sleeves may be priced higher."
The poster also invites customers to file complaints of overcharging with the Human relations Commission.
Although the official-sounding poster was sent to all cleaners, none are required by law to post it. They must, however, comply with the non-discriminatory pricing law.
Commenting on the situation, Mid-Atlantic Cleaners and Launderers Association executive director Dave Norford said, "If there are still any IFI/Mid-Atlantic members who have not adopted and put into practice a policy that conforms with local public accommodations code sections, they are once again strongly urged to do so immediately and avoid the expense and worry caused by an experience such as that which happened to the non-member."
Norford added the MACLA has been in the forefront of this issue of year and has developed a written non-discriminatory pricing guidelines and provided them to members.
"It's just so much easier to stay out of trouble than to get out of trouble," Norford said. "That's especially true when addressing the simple issues of implementing non-discriminatory pricing policies."
LANSING, MI -- A program centered on the idea of what it will take "to stay alive and survive" as a business owner in the 21st century is theme of the Michigan Institute of Laundering & Drycleaning convention Oct. 25 - 27 at the Novi Expo Center in Novi, MI.
The program includes a talk by Neighborhood Cleaners Association International executive director Bill Seitz, the release of the MILD Michigan Fabricare Handbook, workshops by Michigan Department of Environmental Quality staffers Elden Dickinson and Dave Fielder and a keynote address by state senator Jim Berryman.
The handbook is a joint production of MILD and a number of agencies of the state of Michigan.
"It is a handbook that is everything you ever wanted to know about regulations governing the fabricare industry in Michigan," MILD executive vice president Merry Bering said. It is free on one condition: "you must attend a workshop on how to use it."
MILD will also hold its annual membership meeting at the convention as well as present the institute's Mike O'Neill Life Achievement Award. To reach MILD, call (517) 337-2909.
INDIANAPOLIS, IN -- An opportunity for the drycleaning industry to impact on training new drycleaners surfaced in Indiana last month with the Professional Indiana Cleaners and the Neighborhood Cleaners Association International leading an industry effort restore a drycleaning training program.
In May, 1996, the City of Indianapolis Board of School Commissioners voted on an agenda item which dealt with an existing drycleaning school.
"Unfortunately, no one locally was informed or advised of the meeting and some gentleman went and presented some very misleading facts about the drycleaning school program," NCAI's Peter Atha said.
The person complained of a lack of sufficient job opportunities as well as old, outdated equipment in the classroom that wouldn't meet state and federal requirements
"It is easy to take someone off the street and teach them what this program takes two years to do," Kenneth Poole is reported to have told the board, according to the Rev. Dr. C. V. Jetter, president of The Concerned Clergy, Inc.
Dr. Jetter wrote the board expressing his "concerns over the removal of the drycleaning vocational program from the curriculum at Arsenal Technical High School."
He urged the board to work with PIC and NCAI "to reestablish this very valuable program" to help non-academic students with career training. "We will gladly consider ways our organization can support this effort."
NCAI was asked by PIC to help and Atha and PIC president Mike Roller wrote the commission disputing the charges made by Poole.
But the damage was done, Atha reported. "Someone went in and ripped out everything in the school. People in Indianapolis were livid because it was done without consulting them," Atha said. "They contacted school superintendent Dr. Esperanza Zendejas and asked for meeting."
In the meantime PIC and NCAI talked to equipment companies who offered to provide free state-of-the-art equipment for a program. They also researched the classified ads and found "many, many help wanted ads for people to work in the drycleaning industry," Atha added.
The alliance enlisted local churches and other concerned groups to work on the issue because it would affect job opportunities for people in their communities.
OMAHA, NE -- The Nebraska Fabricare Association advised its members that it has been contacted by representatives of two neighboring drycleaning associations with the goal of forming a new trade association.
The Midlands Fabricare Association would be comprised of Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri and Kansas. Linked with the International Fabricare Institute, its dues structure and service delivery would follow the IFI joint state system.
NFA said it was approached by members of the Mid America Fabricare Association regarding such a merger. That group had spoken with Iowa Fabricare Association to discuss the idea. Representatives of the three association then met to further explore the concept.
IFA executive director Joy Cole was asked to "draw up proposed by-laws," NFA said, which each state could take to its board of directors.
"If the four states agree on a regional association, the office would be in Des Moines (IA) and Joy Cole, the present Iowa executive secretary, would be installed as the paid executive," NFA added.
The IFI board of directors was to study the plan at their September board meeting.
JOLIET, IL -- A special arrangement to collect and distribute coats for the needy has been made between the Chicago Bears, NBC-TV Chicago, the Salvation Army and the Illinois State Fabricare Association.
The coats will be collected at neighborhood cleaners and brought to the Salvation Army by participating allied trade sponsors. NBC-TV Chicago and the Chicago Bears have volunteered to help publicize the program. A special NBC coat drive will be held at Soldier's Field on Dec. 14 when the Chicago Bears play the San Diego Chargers.
ISFA welcomes all volunteers who are willing to assist in the drive. To help, call ISFA executive director Jinelle Walker at (815) 729-0137.
NEW YORK, NY -- Neighborhood Cleaners Association International is moving forward with several activities designed to seize the initiative in the public information campaign on perc use in New York. In addition, the association brought the representatives of the federal Environmental Protection Agency and several state agencies to advise perc-using drycleaners on their responsibilities under the law.
A one-day training seminar with the U. S. EPA and NCAI was presented to 200 New York City area drycleaners in September. The focus was on cleaners who use perc in textile care.
According to NCAI associate executive director Jerry Levine, representatives from the state Department of Environmental Conservation, the state Small Business Program and the Nassau County Health Department also took part in the five-hour seminar. NCAI provided simultaneous translation for the estimated 180 Koreans who attended.
Drycleaners were advised that their most common mistake regarding EPA regulations "is their failure to keep accurate leak detection, perc purchases, maintenance and repair records," NCAI reported. If there is a problem in a plant, drycleaners were advised to call EPA before EPA came to them. It would make the situation easier for the cleaner.
NCAI's work in the legislative arena includes grass root campaigning and a "hot line" program on airborne perc in New York City.
The association wrote to every New York City cleaner with samples of individual letters for city council. The idea is to defeat the bill that would remove perc-using machinery from all residential buildings before it even gets to the council floor.
New York has 51 councilors and the association provided the name, address and phone number of each councilor. The focal point is the residential perc ban bill.
State legislators were on the list, too. Both the assembly and senate as well as borough presidents and the public advocate were targeted in the action.
The hotline program is a toll-free telephone number which consumers can use to report suspected emissions of chemicals used in drycleaning.
"The 800 number will directly connect all five boroughs to NCAI headquarters in Manhattan," the association said. The caller will speak with a trained NCAI staff member or hear a recording which asks for the caller's name and telephone number. In the event of a recording, NCAI said it will get back to the caller promptly to get the details of a suspected problem.
The NCAI response includes sending a technician to inspect the site. If this person finds problems at a store, corrective steps will be proposed to the owner who will also be advised to take immediate action. NCAI will investigate all legitimate complaints, whether the store is an association member or not.
"The decision to set up the hotline was partly prompted by pending New York legislation on the regulation of drycleaners," NCAI said. "These... could prove quite costly and threaten to force many cleaning stores with on-premises plants to close their doors."
A hotline will also help relieve the workload of city and state agencies responsible for handling resident complaints. As a supplement to these government services, NCAI can provide immediate service and encourage quick action on the part of cleaners.
"Emissions can be reduced more quickly and officials will see that NCAI and its members are seriously concerned about solving our industry's problems," the association said.
Association executive director Bill Seitz said "if a resident calls us after notifying the government, he or she should still expect to receive a response from the appropriate government agency."
"NCAI/NYC Hotline is the latest example of our industry's commitment to ensuring a safe and clean environment for our customers, our neighbors and our communities," Seitz added.
The toll-free hotline number is (800) 468-5582.
AUSTIN, TX -- The Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission is suing the Environmental Protection Agency in an attempt to stop the federal agency from forcing the state to administer a project that Texas officials say is unnecessary.
TNRCC chairman Barry McBee said the state agency wants to keep EPA out of the process in which Texas licenses businesses that are expected to emit pollutants into the air. The federal agency's program would add more paper work without increasing either the number of inspections or level of environmental protection, state officials say.
Texas currently inspects development plans for plants and other commercial business to ensure that up-to-date technology will be used to limit pollution.
EPA wants the state to be involved in a new program that would require businesses to get a federal permit every time a new plant is built or modified.
McBee said the plan to incorporate the Texas program into EPA's permitting process could occur sometime next year.
Two lawsuits, one dealing with federal issues and the other with state issues, are intended to block the merger.
"We believe that the Texas law is sufficient to protect the environmental," McBee said.
SAN ANTONIO, TX -- A Fibers and Fabrics workshop will be presented by Jane Zellers for the Southwest Drycleaners Association Oct. 17-18.
Originally planned as two separate sessions, the workshop has been consolidated into a single 1 1/2-day program and will be held at the Texas Research Center of Laundry and Drycleaning in Denton, TX.
Designed for customer service personnel, the workshop will review all the steps in garment processing and cover spotting problems, problem garments and how to communicate risks to customers before they leave the store.
Students also learn about fibers and fabrics, dyes, pigments, dye transfer, finishes, napped garments, causes of fading and color changes, sensitive dyes, acid sensitive dyes, beads and trims.
Tuition is $117 for SDA members, $144 for other IFI members and $174 for all others.
The last of the SDA-sponsored courses at the research center this year will also be Stan Caplan's swan song as chief instructor at the school. Caplan has been the primary instructor since the school was organized in 1984.
Plant Management is the title of the Nov. 13-17 course which covers counter operations and customer service, identification, inspection and assembly, money management and basic accounting, inventory control, work flow, equipment layout and installation specifications.
Topics related to determining break-even points and cost analysis, marketing, employee relations and motivation will also be covered along with information on how to comply with EPA and OSHA regulations.
Sessions will be divided between classroom presentations, practical application and problem solving.
Tuition for the course is $295 for SDA members, $380 for other IFI members and $430 for all others.
For registration and other information on this and other upcoming courses, call the SDA office, (210) 826-4684 or fax (210) 826-6423.
SAN ANTONIO, TX -- The Southwest Drycleaners Association has scheduled its annual convention for March 13-15, 1997, in Branson, MO.
This will be organization's 90th annual convention but the first under as the Southwest Drycleaners Association. Known previously as the Texas Laundry and Drycleaning Association, members voted to change the name earlier this year to reflect the larger geographic area now served by the association. In addition to Texas, SDA serves drycleaners in Arkansas, Oklahoma and New Mexico.
Plans for the convention weekend include two seminars by Zellers, a dinner on Friday evening and free time to enjoy the shows and other attractions of Branson.
The Crowne Plaza Branson will be the headquarters hotel, Registration is $175 per person. For more information, call SDA, (210) 826-4684.
CHARLOTTE, SC -- A workers' compensation plan, third party liability, OSHA compliance and a legislative update were discussed by cleaners who attended the South Carolina Dry Cleaning Council and South Eastern Fabricare Association meeting held in Charlotte last month.
The Clean Team Clinic with the Mystery Shopper in Alabama held in September was called very successful
"The programs were great, with excellent attendance in all three cities," member services coordinator Sonya Bratcher said. "Several Alabama SEFA directors said they were quite pleased with the workshop."
Bratcher also released the first information on the group's 1997 membership meeting.
"We'll soon have information on our Florida convention planned for Orlando in April," she said. "Plans are underway and information will soon be mailed to association members.
South Eastern Fabricare Association took its first step into the "information age" last month with the formation of a cyberspace committee. Comprised of SEFA directors who are either on line or have an interest in Internet use, this committee will work with Bradley Morris of Tri-Global Solutions to design a web page for SEFA.
Alabama drycleaner Mark Jones is the chair of the cyberspace committee.
"SEFA is thrilled to be a forerunner of this medium for the drycleaning industry," executive director Joel Deutsch said. "Having recently gone on-line at the SEFA office, the staff is excited about the project and anxious to begin work on the web page."
Ideas for the page include a SEFA/IFI membership application, a calendar of events and tips and information for cleaners. SEFA hopes to educate cleaners on the benefits of computer use in the drycleaning industry
"Computers have affected every aspect of our lives today, but unfortunately very few drycleaners have incorporated them into their businesses," SEFA added.
SEFA's e-mail address is SEFA.Clnrs@worldnet.att.net.
SEFA president Ron Garrett said he was pleased with the joint association sponsorship of the meeting.
"This is a forum I would like to see duplicated with the other state associations in SEFAland in an effort to reach out to the general membership," Garrett said.
Garrett also noted that South Carolina is the first SEFA-area state to have a new workers compensation insurance plan in place. He said it is working well and looks for it to expand to other states in the region.
ATLANTA, GA -- The Kentucky Fabricare Association and the Kentucky Corrections Cabinet are studying a textile care training program which will be offered in state correctional facilities. Corrections commissioner Vertner Taylor met with KFA officials on Sept. 26 to discuss the ground work needed for a program.
"KFA members in many parts of the commonwealth are experiencing severe labor shortages and turnover," association executive director Tom Underwood said. As a partial remedy, KFA is proposing an evaluation of prison laundries as to their suitability for training programs.
Three of the components of the study include evaluation of the sites, development of an in-house training program and creation of an out-placement services for parolees who have received training.
With the training in place, Kentucky drycleaning plants can serve as job sites for former inmates. The parole system benefits by having trained people entering stable jobs "that will pay a living wage," KFA noted.
"It is our hope to help these individuals become a productive part of society while providing a skilled pool of labor for Kentucky drycleaners," KFA president Ken Rapier said.
KFA representatives also are studying changes in welfare programs which place responsibility for services on the states. The impact on Kentucky could be enormous, Underwood said, given the large number of welfare recipients in certain areas in the state.
"This can be a huge issue in the states," he observed. "It may even have implications for federal lobbying on jobs creation. Drycleaners could lobby for relief from retroactive liability on the grounds it discourages ongoing investment and expansion."
Underwood said federal standards now mandate that adults receiving welfare benefits must begin working within two years of receiving aid.
The association has been exploring a variety of new training venues this summer. KFA recently visited the National Association of Institutional Linen Management drycleaning school at Eastern Kentucky University. The visit was prompted by a desire to expand drycleaning education opportunities. For KFA information, call (502) 223-5322.
The Neighborhood Cleaners Association International has scheduled five membership meetings in Florida, all planned for November. These follow the series planned for the Northeast which will be held through most of October.
The featured program is inspection and maintenance of drycleaning machines. Michael Tatch of TTS, an environmental consulting company, will teach maintenance techniques as well as ways to avoid odor complaints and improve solvent mileage.
The Florida series begins Nov. 11 in Lake Worth at the Holiday Inn, 7859 Lake Worth Rd. Meeting time is 8 p.m.
On Nov. 12 cleaners will gather at the Howard Johnson in North Miami for the Dade/Broward chapter meeting. It starts at 8 p.m.
The Tampa chapter meeting will be held Nov. 19, beginning at 7:30 p.m., at the Holiday Inn on East Fowler Avenue.
The Orlando chapter meets Nov. 20 at the Altamonte Springs Holiday Inn at 7:30 p.m.
The Jacksonville chapter will meet at 7:30 p.m. at the Holiday Inn on Baymeadow Road.
NCAI Florida field representative Pete Rocco has been warning cleaners that the cost of doing business is going to go up.
"There have been several new regulations, tests, laws, requirements and very probably more insurance coverages that are all going to add to our cost of doing business," Rocco warned. "This comes at a time when most drycleaners are telling their field representatives that '1995 wasn't that good a year' and 'the first few months of 1996 weren't where they should be.'"
In order to compete, he advises cleaners to diversify, learn wetcleaning and go after new areas of business such as draperies, smoke damage and fire orders.
Complete information on NCAI chapter meetings is available from NCAI, (212) 967-3002, or e-mail NCAI at ncai@sprynet.com.
GIG HARBOR, WA -- Washington State's largest air pollution control agency, The Puget Sound Air Pollution Control Agency (PSAPCA), has renewed its commitment to bring all drycleaners in its jurisdiction into compliance with federal, state and local air regulations, the Northwest Drycleaners Association reports.
NWDCA's board of directors supports the agency's effort, noting that "a few bad apples make it difficult fort the rest of us."
NWDCA said it hopes to limit the agency's influence to those plant that are unwilling to comply on their own.
For cleaning plants needing help with compliance, NWDCA has a performance contract from PSAPCA to provide in-plant technical audits with the air agency's territory to advise drycleaners of existing air pollution control regulations and to provide guidance in meeting the requirements.
Jin Y. Kim, NWDCA's full-time field representative, is doing the work.
NWDCA noted that for several years the PSAPCA, had refused to penalize cleaners who were out of compliance. During that time neighboring businesses and homeowners filed complaints against cleaners.
The agency has hired several inspectors who will be checking for compliance and applying fines and penalties and possibly even closing down operations that are severely out of compliance.
Simplified fees
NWDCA also noted that PSAPCA has proposed to simplify its fees for air contaminants, which the association has been encouraging for some time.
A flat annual fee of $130 is proposed, which would replace fees of $85 per facility plus $38 to $80 for each piece of air-contaminant generating or control equipment.
The Notice of Construction fee for drycleaners continues to be $200.
For users of two or more tons of perc per year there is an annual registration fee of $2,000 but no separate operating permit is required.
SILVER SPRING, MD -- Wade Elam, former chairman of the International Fabricare Institute board, spoke at the Superfund Manager's Conference in Phoenix, AZ, recently.
Elam discussed the drycleaning industry's experience with state Superfund programs at the gathering of state Superfund managers.
The conference, titled "The Times They Are A Changin'," was hosted by the Association of State and territorial Solid Waste Management Officials.
Current and anticipated changes in state programs were discussed and the state officials had an opportunity to hear the viewpoints of several different industries and to ask questions of people involved in the development of state and federal legislation.
B & G Lieberman of Charlotte, NC, has announced two appointments to its sales staff. Dave Twardokus of Duluth, GA, has taken over the territory worked for more than 30 years by the late Arnold R. Gordon and Vicky Johnson has been named sales representative for western North Carolina, east Tennessee and the mountains of West Virginia and Virginia.
Johnson has been with Lieberman for 25 years, starting in the Charlotte office where she advanced to office manager. She also headed the company's computer monogramming division. She replaces Jeremiah Wolpert who covered the territory for 13 years and has taken a year off. Twardokus represented the Theonics Co. previously, covering much of the United States in that capacity. He will cover South Carolina, Tennessee, parts of Georgia and Kentucky for Lieberman.
----------The International Fabricare Institute's publication, Fabricare, was among winners in the annual American Graphic Design contest sponsored by Graphic Design: USA Magazine.
Fabricare's award was in the category of Publication Covers/Publication Overall Design.
Of 10,000 entries in the contest, only seven percent were named winners. Entries came from advertising agencies, graphic design firms, corporate creative departments and publishers.
Jill Handman, director of communications for IFI, said the March issue of Fabricare was entered because she felt it "was one of our best covers."
IFI's in-house staff completes all art direction and design for the magazine. IFI also said credit goes to photographer Ira Wexler.
----------Brent Gall has joined the staff of ApparelMaster USA License Division. He has 18 years of uniform and dust control rental experience and will be responsible for support, training and servicing ApparelMaster USA licensees in the Midwest and eastern United States and Canada.
ApparelMaster now has more than 140 licensed location in the United States and Canada with licensed locations in New Zealand, Great Britain, Australia, Mexico and South America. ApparelMaster USA is a subsidiary of Johnson Group Inc., Ltd.
----------Don Lawson has been named by American Laundry Machinery to a new position in which he will be charged with providing customers with faster service and a direct line of response from the company for its L-tron product line of washer/extractors.
As L-tron technical manager, Lawson will provide information on upgrades, new control features and operating and troubleshooting advice. He will also assist the engineering and manufacturing departments, including design and quality control measures.
Lawson has more than 10 years of personal experience installing, maintaining and advising customers on the washer/extractor line.
----------Cleaners from the United States and Canada attended a recent Leather-Val school at Kirk's Suede Life facility near Chicago, IL The 2-1/2 day school covered modern methods of professional suede and leather garment cleaning and provided hands-on processing of garments, many of which were brought to the school by attendees. Leather Val schools are scheduled throughout the year. For information, call Kirk's Suede Life, (800) 447-KIRK.
----------Stry-Lenkoff of Louisville, KY, has appointed Rick Herndon sales manager of the tags and forms division.
NAPERVILLE, IL -- The Hydrocare line of products has been introduced by R. R. Street & Co. Inc. for fabric care professionals who want to clean and renew the growing number of fabrics that require more than traditional home-style washing products and procedures.
The line includes a detergent, a retexturizing finish, a fabric conditioner and a universal pre-treatment product for general soil.
Specifically formulated by Street's to clean and renew fabrics in water, the Hydrocare line helps protect the original attributes of garments and impart the desirable and necessary feel and finish to fabrics that are best processed in waters.
----------NORTHVALE, NJ -- Multimatic Corp. has received the ISO 9001 certification which is a quality assurance standard given to manufacturers that demonstrate proficiency in design, manufacturing, installation and service based on criteria set by the International Organization for Standardization, a worldwide federation of national standards based in Switzerland and adopted by more than 55 nations.
The standard requires that a company document procedures for the work affecting product or service quality; carry out the work in accordance with the written procedures; and document objective evidence to compliance auditors.
Multimatic manufactures a line of closed, dry-to-dry drycleaning machines in capacities of 20 to 65 pounds with refrigerated heat-pump systems.
In addition to the IS 9001 certification, Multimatic provides a 60+ warranty on its equipment
----------CHESTER, NY -- The Rope-Tie, available from MBH Enterprises, is designed to give shirt laundries a better way to handle shirts before, during and after washing.
After tagging, shirts are placed in a special bracket, eight at a time, collar to collar. Two Rope Ties are slipped over the shirts, one pulled tight nine inches down from the collars, the other pulled tight nine inches from the bottom of the shirts.
These eight shirts tied together form a "log" that causes increased mechanical action in the wash to better remove heavy soil areas and make collars and cuffs come out cleaner and brighter.
After washing, the ties are removed and the shirts are ready to finish, laid collar to collar. No shake out is needed.
The process eliminates the use of nets or, if shirts are being washed loose, makes it easier to load without overloading and to unload without dealing with tangled sleeves, the company said.
----------MT. LAUREL, NJ -- Okidata has introduced its Mircoline 320/321 Turbo, a dot matrix printer that accommodates multi-part forms and stock up to twice the thickness that can be used in standard dot matrix printers.
Okidata said the printer can be used for printing laundry labels with insoluble inks for tracking inventory and for customer invoicing.
The printer can also be used to run stiff card stock. With 64K RAM and a receive buffer of 28K, it is capable of printing long, unattended runs.
The printer is Windows 95 and "plug and play" compatible.
----------ANNAPOLIS JUNCTION, MD -- The Association of Specialists in Cleaning and Restoration has developed a carpet swatch set with 20 carpet samples selected by the associations technical department to exhibit the major elements of carpet construction, texture, style, face and backing fiber and pile coloration.
The swatch set can be used as an employee training tool and also as a companion to ASCR's Ready Reference Carpet Care Guide which details carpet and rug construction including fiber type, structure, backing materials and cushion. ----------SKOKIE, IL -- Foster-Stephens has announced a selection of eight new fall and winter posters for decorating the call office and promoting services. The posters are available in cardboard or paper. Also available are new double-sided snap-together frames.
----------PHILADELPHIA, PA -- Citra-Det from Uni-Kem Chemicals Inc. is a concentrated, highly alkaline laundry detergent with a specific blend of soil emulsifying agents.
Formulated with advanced optical brighteners for all washable fabrics, it is safe for synthetic and natural fibers, removing soil and keeping it in suspension to prevent redeposition.
The company said Citra-Det rinses quickly and completely and is effective in all water hardness conditions and temperatures. Normal soils requires 8 to 10 ounces per hundred pounds of work. Optimum soil release occurs in hot water with effective soil removal requiring a normal eight- to 10-minute wash cycle.
The product can be dispensed directly from the shipping container to eliminate hand-feeding from powder hoppers and possible spillage.
----------ST. LOUIS, MO -- NIE Insurance has introduced a Korean version of its company video. The nine-minute video explains the company's origin and history, its structure, growth, financial condition and commitment to the industry
The video is available to all Korean members of the industry who request an insurance quotation on their business.
----------SHAKOPEE, MN -- Conklin Co. has introduced "pre Waush" laundry pre-spotter that treats difficult stains including grease, oil, grape juice, chocolate and most inks on colorfast fabrics. The company said "pre Waush" can be used in all temperatures and contains no bleach, petroleum-based solvents or phosphates.
----------IRVINGTON, NJ -- Des-L's Kwik-Twist Message Tys are used to secure multiple orders and combine safety with advertising. The ties are imprinted on two sides with different colors and different sayings to keep customers informed of the cleaner's services. A choice of 14 promotional stock messages or a custom imprint logo or message is available.
----------LOUISVILLE, KY -- Cissell has installed a new powder coating paint system and now covers all or its products with an electrostatically applied polymer alloy powder developed for commercial laundry appliances.
The coating has several advantages over wet coating, the company said. These include brighter colors that are more resistant to scratches and abrasion and a uniform consistency in application that makes a more durable finishing. Powder coated products also have no volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions.
----------TULSA, OK -- Royaltone's Suede Nu Neutral is a product designed to improve the lustre, depth of color and rich supple feel by nourishing the skin of suedes.
Its use involves spraying it evenly and liberally on any clean suede or naked leather garment using a hand sprayer or air spray gun at a distance of about six inches. It can also be mixed with Royaltone's Brit-N Suede Dye to restore brightness to faded garments.
The product will not adversely affect the cloth portions of combination suede and cloth or cloth lining garments, Royaltone said. The company will provide a hand sprayer at no charge for users of Suede Nu.
----------RIPON, WI -- Speed Queen has introduced a new microprocessor-controlled washer/extractor to replace its SuperLoad II model. The new 27-lb. units offers a Touch 3 microprocessor control that allows automatic and programmable operation with the ability to choose from 30 programs, including 12 factory presets and 18 programmable options. Any part or all of the programs can be erased or modified for flexibility to customize specific laundry needs.
Other features include high-speed extraction, a larger door opening and a larger cylinder than other 25-lb. models.
All of the company's washer/extractors and drying tumblers are backed by a two-year limited parts warranty and a five-year limited parts warranty on the washer/extractor mainframe, baseframe and cylinder shaft assembly.
----------Date created: Oct 1 1996 Copyright © 1995, BPS Communications Inc. National Clothesline ncled@aol.com