Optimism and Commitment Propel Growth

Spent the week visiting with members and colleagues including new investors entering our industry; attended the grand opening of a member’s fourteenth facility; lunch with a septuagenarian working on his 44th book and meeting with the executive team of one of the industry’s largest publicly traded companies. I was impressed with their optimism despite pandemic recovery, inflationary impacts on labor and material costs, global unrest, and pressures to implement potentially costly environmental measures.

On Monday, I spoke with the husband-and-wife entrepreneurial team of Jason and Brooke Mitchell, and industry veteran Randy John, of Premier Linen Services . These native Floridians recently sold a non-industry business and secured private equity funding based on the tremendous growth of Florida’s hospitality sector. Already operational, Premier Linen located near Naples, FL, will soon fully open its brand-new state-of-the-art 50,000 sq. ft. plant providing linen services to hotels, resorts, vacation rentals, spas, salons and more. We are always excited to have new independent operators enter the linen, uniform, and facility services sector and I look forward to visiting with them later this month to welcome Premier Linen to the industry and TRSA.

Tuesday was lunch with TRSA | Association for Linen, Uniform and Facility Services Industry ’s Executive Management Institute (EMI) long-serving faculty member Kent Baker , Ph.D., who recently celebrated 40-years as the Dean. This annual lunch provides an opportunity to discuss the most recent EMI student reviews and update the program including adding Ethics in 2023. Dr. Baker has instructed more than 1,000 industry leaders including past and current CEOs of independent operators and the largest regional and national members. He has also authored more than 40 books on finance, investing and economics and was a multi-instrument, touring musician while attending Georgetown University on scholarship. TRSA, and EMI students, are fortunate to have gained valuable managerial insights from Dr. Baker for more than 40 -years and we look forward to many more years of his wisdom.

Attended an association dinner Tuesday evening with guest speaker Former CIA Assistant Director Eric Traupe who discussed geopolitical impacts on the industries represented by their respected CEOs. He offered insights into the war in Ukraine, Russia, and China based on his 30-year career briefing US Presidents and other US and global leaders. While also optimistic that the world will again survive and rebound from the war and communist leaders, he believes these countries will continue anti-capitalist isolation negatively impacting long-standing US relationships in Europe and negatively impacting imports including precious minerals, technology, food, and other goods necessitating domestic production.

On Thursday, TRSA VP Government of Relations Kevin Schwalb and I met with the UniFirst Corporation executive management team in Wilmington, MA, to discuss proactive advocacy initiatives to reduce our industry’s tax burden in Kentucky and Texas, and TRSA’s efforts to establish mandatory rotating inventories of reusable healthcare #ppe at the federal and state levels. We also discussed EPA efforts to remove PFAS from drinking water and the potential impacts on the industry and its supplier, as well as state-driven mandates requiring zero-emission vehicles. UniFirst, through its Environmental, Social and Governance (#esg) program investments, is proactively pursuing opportunities to mitigate PFAS and achieve its sustainability objectives including electronic vehicle fleets. UniFirst is also demonstrating its commitment to cleanliness through pursuit of TRSA’s Hygienically Clean Food Safety for all of their 85+ facilities in North America.

Friday Kevin and I attended the grand opening of Unitex Healthcare Laundry Services’ second 90,000 sq. ft. facility in Lawrence, MA. The new plant will handle the company’s nonacute or uniform/outpatient medical accounts and is attached to its 2-year-old acute or bulk healthcare plant. Combined the plants will process nearly 85 million pounds of laundry annually. The ceremony was attended by nearly 100 dignitaries, suppliers, employees, and others including local Congresswoman Lori Trahan (MA - 3rd), City of Lawrence Mayor Brian De Peña and other local government leaders. Representative Trahan, who helped launch the Congressional Pandemic Preparedness Council, thanked Unitex for creating more than 400 “good paying jobs in the community” and emphasized the need for a rotating inventory of reusable healthcare PPE echoing TRSA’s position for mandatory reusable healthcare textiles to ensure environmental and supply chain sustainability.

Remaining optimistic and proactively investing in growth opportunities while emphasizing our industry’s commitment to job creation, employee and customer safety, cleanliness and environmental and supply chain sustainability ensures the growth of the linen, uniform, and facility services community.