EP7: Future-Proofing Your Textile Rental Business With Joe Ricci Of TRSA

FULL TRANSCRIPT: 

Eric:  Hey, guys, Welcome to Laundry Talks, the place where we talk about all things Textile Rentals.  I am your host, Eric Smith. Thanks for listening to today's episode but before we start, I want to ask for a favor from every one of you: please subscribe to this podcast, that way you won't miss out on great discussions, and do not stop there because every single episode has something that you might be able to pick up and choose for him to learn something new or help to make your life just a little bit easier, so subscribe today.

Okay, so I am calling today's episode "Future-Proofing Your Textile Rental Business" and I want to know how the Textile Rental Industry is evolving and what's happening out on the front lines. What is today's modern laundry doing to get to the top and stay there? I don't know all the answers, so to help me today, I have brought someone special,  my guest today isn't an operator in the industry and he is not a supplier either. 

Today's guest is Joe Ricci, President and CEO of TRSA; the Textile Rental Services Association. TRSA represents companies that supply launder and maintain linen, and uniforms & other textile retail products & services and in many ways, they are the collective voice of our industry particularly for regulatory and legislative policies. There are a lot of other things too and I hope to find out more.

I pride myself on traveling to a lot of operations all over the country, but there's no way that I've been to as many places as Joe. Every week I see him poping somewhere, visiting TRSA operators to say operator or supplier member and companies and it's that experience and knowledge that I want to tap into today. So Joe, thanks for joining me, and welcome to Laundry Talks.

This is the podcast for the textile rental operator community to learn new things, share ideas, and drive conversations. Welcome to Laundry Talks with your host, Eric Smith. This episode is brought to you by Alliant Systems.

Joe: Thanks, Eric. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. And you're right. It is. yeah. I often see you guys on the road. I know the Alliant Systems team is out there all the time, so kudos to you guys for getting out there. That's how you learn about the business, right? Getting out and talking to customers and prospects to anybody else.

Eric: That's true now. And I have known you for a long time and I see you often, although most of the time it's at an event, maybe a cocktail reception. And I feel like a lot of times we only get to talk for a few minutes. So today is a real treat. We've got you all to ourselves and get to have some uninterrupted time to learn a little bit more about you and TRSA.

So why don't we start out by telling us something that no one in the industry knows about Joe Ricci.

Joe: Sure. So I think one of the things that goes back to my background, a little bit of the former, probably the only person, out there that has, been in 500 plus laundries, fired a grenade launcher, and picked out 19 cadavers out of a refrigerator for oral surgery. There's nobody that can match that. I mean, that's that's, that's a very unique experience that you can bring.

Eric: Yeah. Now, if we have the three things, one of those stood out to me that I've got to have a follow-up question about. When we talk about the cadaver hat. So can you, can you give us some perspectives back to?

Joe: Sure. So before coming to say I worked at an association management company. So I ran, three associations. One was for the National Association of Security Companies, which was security guard companies, which was kind of how I ended up here. One was the National Association National Structured Settlement Trade Association.

So another unique fact is I'm a certified structured settlement professional. But don't ask me to do a structured settlement where I don't have any idea what to do, but they made me get certified as part of the job. And the other group I ran was the Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons. So oral maxillofacial surgeons, a lot of facial reconstruction, accelerated orthodontic, those types of things. So, traveled to New Orleans, probably the first month I was with the organization.

We had a bet. they were demonstrating or mediating, surgery for fortunately, part of my job, which I didn't know anything about, they led me into the LSU medical facility to a freezer, and they said, well, we needed 19 cadaver outs to do surgery tomorrow, and, you have to pick out the cadaver heads, and they have to have enough teeth where we can do the maxillofacial surgeries and not many teeth, or they have an obstruction that we can't use.

So I spent two hours opening plastic bags of cadaver innards to see what kind of teeth. and, what I learned quickly was that, how you end up, donated to medical science is that you're probably indigent. Homeless were don't have much money, so they don't have a lot of teeth. So that was a big issue.

And the other thing I learned was that, you know, regardless of what you hear about, you know, people going peacefully, none of these people look like they went peacefully. So, it was a learning curve from that kind of experience as well. but. Yeah. Well, the next day, we were working on cadaver labs. I never thought I'd have to do that, but it was certainly, certainly interesting.

Eric: See, I've got, I have a list of questions in front of me, and I had no idea we were going to cover this topic today, so thank. Thank you. That's awesome. All right, so, like a lot of laundry, people have kind of this industry in their blood. You've you have association management in your blood. And but you want to talk a little bit about how you found your way to kind of your current role.

Joe: Sure. So as I mentioned before here, I worked in an Association Management Company. And prior to that, I spent 15 years in the private security industry, both, in the association world, as well as, from the association where I got recruited to actually a for-profit company. So I worked at a group called Vance Internationa. which was here and really a global, security company where my boss was a former director of the Secret Service.

So I worked for them for about five years until they sold, which was kind of the plan that they brought me in to give them more of a national brand, you know, an international brand. And my background's really communications. I've done communications since my first job out of college. and then from there I started my own business.

So I actually spent five years, running my own marketing communications business in the early 2000 when, when everybody wanted to be in security, almost 911, everybody wanted to own a security company or be in security. And I'd spent enough years in that business where I knew the ins and outs of it too much. Like now I know the larger business.

And, so how people get into the business and work and communicate within that industry. So really fascinating. I learned about, you know, what our guys have to do to make payroll and all the things that go into running a business and, you know, sleepless nights and doing accounting at 4:00 in the morning and all the things that go into running a business.

And I think that's helped me here at TRSA. So when I go visit members, I kind of identify with them a little bit. On your running their family-owned, operated business or even the large international companies, what it takes to get the job done and the kind of issues they have with policies and, customers and technology and all the things that impact their business. So with a really good learning curve for me.

Eric: Awesome. you mentioned a little bit what you did straight out of college. I want to give a shout out to your Alma Mater here.

Joe: Yeah, I'm a I'm a Virginia Tech Hokie. Proud to say we have three Hokies on staff here. Jason Risley, who does our podcast and our electronic media, and Meredith, Ellington, who is, does a lot of our database stuff, but also is the, if you go on our website, she's the person that will live chat with you on the website. So we got a couple on the staff and, my whole family is Virginia Tech Hokies. My wife went to Virginia Tech, graduated, a year after me. We didn't we didn't meet till after college, but we've been married 31 years. And then both my kids played Lacrosse at Purdue and graduated in 2010. So there's a lot of, Virginia Tech in our blood.

Eric: Nice. Yeah. Cool. Okay, so, and I think, by my count, what you've you've been in this role for 14.

Joe: Years, starting in 2010, a little bit over 14.

Eric: So 14 years, you've got two, you've you have two. We're going to talk a little bit more about to your to say some of the things you guys are doing, but you've obviously had enough time to craft a 60 second elevator pitch for TRSA and say, you know, why are people listening to this podcast? Why should they? Why should they consider being a TRSA member?

Joe: So territory represents companies that supply laundry, maintain linens and uniforms for businesses, manufacturers, services, government, health care, hospitality and many other industries. And that's really we do that through certification, information sharing, and primarily by advocating for fair, balanced regulation that helps to expand, promote and protect the linen and uniform facility services. And so we as you mentioned, we're the voice of the industry.

We do all the things, whether it's here, at the federal level or at the state level, to do things that we can to expand the market and protect the market. mostly lately we've been really, as proactive as we can be, but that's that's what we do. That's what differentiates us from other organizations that do some similar type of things, like networking and, have their own issues that they deal with. But advocacy is really where we lead the way. And the certification is really the number two thing on perfect.

Eric: All right. So you mentioned you've been in 500 laundries. Tell me a little bit about what on a on a year in year out basis, what's your travel schedule like. How many how many members are you seeing each year and what are you looking for when you go on those visits? 

Joe: There's a couple of questions there. I'll start with when I started, you know, the, 2010 one of the things support service we, we want you to commit to being a week, a month on the members. And that's a long way to learn about the business, right? Go to somebody's facility, walk into their plant, and let them walk you around the facility.

Let them show you what they do, how they do what they do. you know, everybody in the industry should be and is proud of how they do that, right? I mean, I can't tell you how many plants I walked into, and they're doing it the best way they can do all the best practices, and that's wonderful. So I spent a week. A month for the first, really 3 or 4 years going out visiting plants, and we do them in chunks.

We did a lot of driving to family with me on a couple of them. Kevin and I do a lot of road time. we, Tom, and I have done some road time together, so I would say, you know, after that, it came down a little bit. But pretty much I'm probably even on the road about 50%. And that's a combination, of, you know, the events that we have. So we do anywhere from 10 to 13 different events a year, whether they're big educational dads or regional programs or as we're taking people to a Yankees game here. And, you know, August, we're excited about that.

So could be regional events. It could be our legislative, or state legislative conferences. So I traveled to all those events. We also were very engaged with the European Textile Services Association, which is kind of an umbrella group in Europe. and we work with what's called the National Associations Group. So, 14 different associations are engaged in that, and they're very similar to, say, like they're smaller because they're country-specific.

In Europe, the US market is equal, you know, about equal to the whole European market. and we share ideas, we collaborate on research, we do, and we visit laundries. So now I've, I've visited, you know, 500 plus laundries, but, you know, 100 plus vendor suppliers. And that's not just in the U.S., it's also in Europe. And, you know, when you're in Europe, you look for lots of different things.

I mean, certainly, they were leaders before in automation, which I think, you know, a lot of we're looking to that now and primarily and then automation because it was expensive to employ people there. we've caught up with that. And if you look at the cost of labor here now and compensation and all the benefits that go a pretty close to what they pay in Europe.

So automation now is, is being strong, is a strong people looking automation now here in the United States and in North America and Mexico and, and I think now, you know, I was just in Europe. I just did a presentation for Etsy, which was a really interesting presentation I couldn't do here. What they asked me was to do, 30 minutes on what the presidential election and the impact on the industry would be.

So, you know, they're they've certainly got their position on things. We went in very, you know, very middle of the road, just kind of mapped out. Here's where we are administratively. Here are the things, that hurt. You could hurt the industry, whether they're environmental regulations or things around organized labor. Here are the things that we need to deal with globally, which, you know, we have to deal with and, was it was pretty interesting.

And, it is very, very well welcomed. And so we do a lot of that, you know, sort of out there talking to, to industry. I'm going to speak to an Asco management training program. I came to Alliant Systems program last year in a little cameo appearance. So I like to get out and meet people and be at these events. And I think it's important.

The other thing you asked me and just to carry on, Eric, sorry, you asked about what do I look for. Right. So I've asked that question a lot of people that I tour with. So when I go on these plant tours, sometimes, I'm touring around with somebody who's been in the industry 35, 40 years, and I'll go without, right, and ask them what they're looking for. And oftentimes we're looking for one small thing.

Remember I was talking to somebody, we're doing a plant tour, and he's talking to the, the young lady that was doing the plastic wrap on  some towels. And he started to talk to her and I said, hey, you've been to this a long time. What? What did you ask?

So what I was asking her about, you know, the machine and how the plastic wrap was. And she was honest with me, where I guess if I go to my plants, sometimes people are honest, and they're not going to tell me that, hey, I've got this. You know, it depends on the wrap. One day we get really good plastic wrap and the next day it's not so good.

Eric: That's a that's a great point. And you know, and I've been I've been on a lot of plant tours also. And you know sometimes you know some people really embrace them and praise those tours. They're looking for things like that. You know also sometimes you hear people that say, oh, you know, you've seen one plant tour, you've seen it all.

That's not been my experience because I think you can always find, you know, that one small thing, whether it's just hear how someone's, you know, doing a process or maybe the how, how a, how a piece of equipment is situated, you know, small things can make a huge difference in this, in this industry tour.

Joe: And it's so varied when you go to these plants. I mean, that's the... it's the footprint of the plant makes a big issue. You know, whether it's an older plan or a brand new plant that somebody built, whether they purchased a, you know, an acquisition. And so it's not the normal kind of facility that organization runs depends on your customer mix, you know, are you doing health care or, you know, not a are you doing uniforms or in some mixture? So all those things impact it tremendously. Yeah. And so you see that one trunk road.

The other thing I have asked oftentimes is with CEOs, I said I you know, realize you're you're you're requiring your company. You're looking at all the business pieces, right? You're looking at financials and sales force and what their prospects are and their contracts almost impossible.

If you just walk into a plant, what are you looking for? They're like, well, first thing we look for is cleanliness. You know, if the plant's not clean, they're probably not doing a good job. And so I see that all the time I've been in plants that, you know, wouldn't quite lift off the floor, but you'd be close. And I've been in plants where I've felt unsafe. And so you pick that up really quickly. Did they recognize the GM when you walk around the floor or whoever's giving you the tour?

The owner, operator, the GM, does he know people? do they have safety? equipment set up or are they are , you know, they have the right safety signage up? Are they're communicating, with their employees or are they are they using multiple suppliers? Particularly post-pandemic to make sure they have supply chain sustainability, things like that.

And the really what are they doing to innovate both technology wise, as you and I I've talked about a little bit, but also what are they doing to communicate and educate their employees? And I've seen some pretty interesting ways that companies have leveraged communications within their plant to work for safety, improve retention. really make sure the employees understand that they're providing an essential service.

Eric: Yeah. So. Well, I appreciate all that input. Let's we're going to turn to a few more, detailed questions. So as you, as you make these visits or talk to people at industry events, I'm, I'm interested in some of the most pressing concerns that, you know, operators and industry leaders have. You know, what is you know what keeps them up at night?

Joe: I mean, one of the things, you know, during the pandemic, we did talk about some of these things later, but when we went out visit people, there is not temporary labor. That doesn't seem to be the case. Now, we've heard that most people are fully employed and not using temporary labor. When we talk about labor, the big thing we hear about is really production and maintenance.

So production people, because there's a lot of turnover and they become increasingly expensive. And maintenance people you just can't afford. I mean, we're not it's not an industry where, you know, ten, 15, 20 years ago, you were looking for somebody to, you know, grease and oil machinery. Now they've got to understand technology. They don't understand preventive maintenance.

They've got a lot more than they have to to grapple with. And you see a lot of, we'll say experienced maintenance mentioned engineers out there. Now that you won't be in the industry ten years from now. So where's the next where's the next level of people going to? And that's also, driving prices. So we look, we do a compensation report when we look past over the last few years, the only salaries that really have jumped any significant level have been, production and maintenance.

And they're up anywhere from 20 to 30%. in some cases, the engineers are the second or even the most highly compensated person on the team. but production is way up, too. And a lot of that's you know, minimum wage requirements and changes in minimum wage, but also competition, right?

So when you're dairy production people, you've got a lot more competition now, not only with, you know, you Amazon and folks that are, you know, running warehouses and production, but, you know, people can work from home and, you know, laundry need somebody show up at 4:30-5:00 in the morning sorting linen and, you know, sometimes working double shifts or in the night. So it's, you really got to be cognizant of that.

Eric: Yeah. Yeah, I, I did, you know, we talked about that. I was recently at the TRSA production, regional summit in Milwaukee and that, that discussion of the engineers, the inability to find qualified, you know, maintenance and engineering staff was that huge topic at that meeting. So it did. We did some roundtables and that kind of we were going to go on to multiple topics, but we kind of got stuck on that one topic for the entire time.

Joe: I think we all face that. I mean, I'm sure even you line when we do a tear side, you're trying to find the right people and retain them. I think it's a, it's a I was actually writing my column for the July issue, the magazines on employee retention, recruitment. I mean, where do you find the people? How do you keep on?

What do you need to do to to have them stay at your job and to continue to perform? You know, temporary labor is such a slippery slope, right? I mean, every day they're coming in, they don't know what they're doing. There's no commitment to the company. And a lot of our guys were sometimes, you know, 30, 40, 50% had temporary labor. And that's just kept running. 

Eric: Yeah. And you mentioned, a little bit ago you were talking about some of the problems operators were having during Covid and no, no secret. It was a challenging time for many in our industry. for operators and suppliers. And, you know, the towards the end of the pandemic, you know, Teresa organized their your reopening tour, I think is what it was called.

Were you were traveling the country and a bus or a van, and you visited a lot of, TSA member operator plants, and there's a lot of good social media, associated with that. And that from a kind of an outsider. I remember that being a, you know, a real hopeful time and a real hopeful message. So I'm just kind of curious about, you know, whose idea was that? The tell me more about that initiative kind of impact it had for to say. And some members. 

Joe: I mean, you know, for those of us who travel quite frequently to sit around the house for a year, it can be quite daunting. coming into the office, I was lucky enough to not work, about a half mile from the office. So I was only not in the office for a week. So I was walking into work, and it was just Tom and I pretty much in the office, probably six, eight months till people started to come back.

But we were sitting around the office. We were like, you know, we need to get out there and find out what's going on in the field. We were doing things like business poll surveys every month to kind of gauge how much people were down, and was it bouncing back and what their issues were. And we were working a lot on getting people recognized as an essential service.

So we're doing a lot of work. we also noticed that our web traffic quadrupled, during the process. But people were looking for sources of information, you know, curated content that, hey, this is good information, but we didn't know really what was going on. So I spent, I did call all of our members, all of our suppliers and all of our operators, during the pandemic, actually twice and ultimately talked to everybody, but really wanted to get out and see what we did, or let's go out and see people and be in the field.

So we ended up with about 4 or 5 different legs of our reopening tour, and we kind of did it. As the country reopened. So our first tour was, you know, shock into the South. So we spent a lot of time in south and, driving from, Washington DC all the way through to through to Texas and, and back. And it was really interesting to see how companies were doing. So, you know, we were locked down to Washington, DC. My time we got to Richmond. Nobody was wearing a mask. By the time we got to the southwe were at, three deep at the bar in Nashville. So you see the difference in Grant?

You know, how people were responding to Covid and at Arkansas were the same? You know, we were in DC. Nobody was working. you guys got two plants here. One was shut down, one was running about 20% by the time we got down to Nashville, they were running nearly full tilt. Their big issue was they had nobody to turn over rooms, so they were lucky that they were there for the weekends and empty during the week.

So we take them from Sunday to Wednesday to turn all the rooms over, get the laundry out and get processed and get it back. So it was really fascinating to see how different, different parts of the country work. And then we did the Midwest. So we drove from here to Chicago through, through Iowa and Kansas and Missouri and, Ohio and Pittsburgh did a California leg and a Florida leg made it up to it somewhere around 10,000 miles on the road driving, probably visited somewhere like 110 to 120 facilities.

And these were different visits. So oftentimes we'll visit corporate headquarters. So we'll go to, you know, we'll go to Mason, Lyon, Santos or we're going to go to Massachusetts, a business unit first, or you've got to do to Chuck's corporate headquarters. But this was just stopping at every plant that was on as many plants as we could on the road and pulling over and spending, you know, after our 20 minutes now and even we visited depot and Unit first depot and, in Tennessee.

And that it was just interesting to go talk to people that were living it every day, you know, and how it impacted them every day. And learning more about how it hit them. not only, you know, professionally, but personally and how they were responding to it and their families were doing. And then we posted a lot.

And I think one of the wonderful things we heard along the way and that we then highlighted and recorded was personal stories, not so much about the pandemic, but about the opportunities our industry offers to people. So we met a, a homeless woman in Cleveland who was now a production manager with. Let's give her an opportunity to work, formerly incarcerated individual that was now on the senior management team.

Vasko in Indianapolis. folks that, you know, came into our industry with no skills or a young lady who, immigrated here, didn't speak English, taught herself English in 60 days. Three years later, she was, general manager of a plant. So people that, you know, pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and were, you know, trudging through the pandemic with an industry that's very resilient and just the opportunity to do so. And I thought that was the most of all the other things we learned. That was the the most important thing is that the opportunities that we offer people in this industry, no skill, low skill that want to work hard, show up every day, do the work that's necessary to be part of a team. They can succeed in this industry. I think that's rare for me.

Eric: Yeah, that's that's wonderful. So kudos to you and Tara say that didn't go unnoticed. It was great to see I appreciated it. So let's talk a little bit more technology. so there's a lot of innovation going on today in the industry. from production monitoring, you know, new software systems. I'm even hearing, some, a lot of information about the future of robotics in our industry. Probably the number one thing outside of hearing about people needing, maintenance and engineering is the prevalence of RFID in 2023 and 2024 and the industry, I don't know if you have any specific thoughts if you're seeing that yourself or anything as you visit operators, anything technological that you're seeing in the plants that's made you say "wow".

Joe: sure. We all saw kind of in the beginning. So when I started, I would go and visit members and companies and oddly enough, the big innovators in software, for whatever reason, were chemical companies. So, I mean, and you know, Dover slash now spend all in other chemical companies were providing software. Now that I never really seen that before. And obviously it was for stickiness and all of the kinds of things. But they, you know, they're tied to the machines and the model and each other. There was some relevance there, and a lot of people were showing off all the data they were tracking, whether they were met, you know, employee metrics or. But nobody could tell me what they were doing.

I mean, it was like, hey, we're looking all the data, I can get my phone and I can tell you how the tunnel washers do it. And they would show me the numbers on their phone. And I said, what do you guys do with that? And nobody had a really good answer. And I think that was kind of an eye-opener for me. And I'd say the big change I've seen is that we have a lot more technology, but our members now know how to better use technology. So you mentioned RFID. You know, when I started, it was relatively new. Not everybody was using that. There were some early adopters. Now you've got like you've got companies that are significant adopters of RFID and they're using it for a myriad of things.

Right? It's it's inventory track. It's production tracking, it's reporting out to customers. It's just so many things you can do with the RFID. We're seeing it now on handhelds when they're using it out in the field to measure what's in a, in a, you know, in a restaurant or health care facility to, you know, invoice for inventory that they can't rotate because it's sitting on a shelf.

So it's a business tool. It's an educational tool. They're getting stuff back in and their ability to track materials. So we've seen a tremendous in RFID. One of the most interesting stories I was just at service uniform, down in San Antonio. I'm an airline systems customer, and we were talking about RFID and they their logo, they have a little, man that they use as a logo, which is in RFID, the old RFID chip, you know, the old circular.

Could you get this wrong? I think it's IHF, so the UHF, maybe that's wrong, but I'm not a technology guy. but they, you know, that was their logo, and they talked about the it's part of their service and their being their transparency with customers. And they said, what for them real when for that was utilization of their inventory.

So that's the real win for our industry right? I mean we're we use recyclers. that's what we do. And they were able to use double, the inventory. They were able to put back into the field. The team in from, you know, either cancel contracts or employee changes, employee moves. So that reduced the amount of textiles they had to buy.

They were better to use their inventory, which was always smarter. better sustainable, better, much more sustainable. So it was really eye opening just to kind of hear the numbers and what they're getting out of using our and this many, many other instances of RFID really, improving the industry and lots of other technology as well. Not just our idiots.

Well, tell a metrics that helps optimize routes, helping drivers safety. We're seeing a big push towards cameras and both, you know, dash cams and cameras that are facing within the truck itself to improve safety and to minimize, liability issues from a risk management standpoint. So I think technology will continue to be a big factor in Europe.

They call it the digitalization of the industry. and I think it's coming it's going to continue to come. And I think it's all about use of the information. And I think that's where we've made a lot of advancements over the last decade, is how people are using that information to make business decisions and real time business decisions about customer service and improvement and productivity.

Eric: Yeah, I mean, I agree with everything you said. And I think that it's fair to point out that this industry is probably lack in some technological areas, has lagged behind from RFID specifically. I mean, some of those challenges have to do with the, yeah, that what the product is subjected to on the on the wash side.

But, you know, that technology has caught up. And, you know, one of the things that really drove that point home, have a customer that's fully embraced RFID. They have, I think 98% of their their product is RFID running through their plant right now. And they told me, a while back, they said, you know, what really, really hit home for them was they went, to educate themselves.

They were visiting other, other companies, other industries, and they were visiting a produce distributor. And this pro, which is pretty low tech, you know, is is moving produce from A to B. And they saw that there was a case of iceberg lettuce, which I think only has like 12 heads of lettuce. And each case of iceberg lettuce was being tracked with RF chip.

And you know, that's a disposable product probably worth about 2 or $3. And, you know, we've got hundreds of times the value in products in our industry sitting, you know, sitting in hotel, sitting in hospitals with no one knows where they can't put their hands on it if they had to. And so that that technology is really caught up and people are starting to take advantage of it at this point.

Joe: yeah, I think we had a there was a Mary Simpson who used to run, the Textile Services Association of the UK. I used to go hear him speak. He came here, I went to go hear him speak. And he used to say, we're the only industry that sends out millions of dollars worth of textiles every day and hope that most of it comes back.

And, you know, having RFID, helps, helps improve, the opportunity for it to come back. And I think, you know, you're right about technology with its, we had, oops, telling Eric earlier today before we started that we, we don't get a lot of visitors to say we'd love to have people come to the office of your tourism member and you're out there.

You want to come visit us? Please do. but Tinku, was there a day meeting you in his senior management team, and we're sitting talking with them, and one of the questions they asked us was, you know, there's a company out there made super Cylons, made the old super Cylons. they went out of business 50 years ago is what do you think their market share is? Because they track. Because of what they do. They track all the iron ore in the country, and, you know what? And I had a little insight. Not because I knew the facts, but because I did a little math on who, as I understand, who doesn't. and I said, you know, I bet it's 40%. And he said, well, it's 41%.

So 41% of the iron ore out there were manufactured more than 50 years ago. So when you say we're slow to adapt to new technologies, I think that's one piece of it, right? That's one piece of, hey, we've done other things, but hey, we like the way this works and the kind of works the same way. It's always worked and it continues to operate. And so a company that's been out of business for 50 years and then was leading market share in our, you know, in North America that we tracked. So that was a fascinating.

Eric: I think that we saw a super Cylon at a plant we toured in Milwaukee last week.

Joe: It was an Oscar plant, I guarantee you.

Eric: Here it was. And it was, they were using it to fold, to roll continuous rollout. Yeah. Which is you don't see everywhere any longer, but that was very, very interesting to see and one of the smoothest operating pieces of equipment that facility.

Joe: So the just it's amazing. I mean, you know, how would you like a business that mark that you've been at business for 50 years, but your market share 40%? I mean, that's that tells you a little bit, right?

Eric: Yeah. That's incredible. Well, speaking of plant tours, I do. I told you earlier, that I love coming on plant tours and you know, it's no secret. Most of the plant tours, they focus. You know, people are focused on the large equipment, the rail systems, wash aisles and tunnels and automated shuttles, incredible finishing equipment, sort systems. but a lot of times I end up falling kind of back because I'm interested in some, you know, system that you can't see, like what's happening with, like, all the RFID data or how does how does a garment sort system know, you know, to kick out some garments to a mending rail to, to be repaired?

And there's an entire group of suppliers, that are handling that data. You know, we're one of them all that route accounting providers in our industry are the same. And, you know, someone had recently asked me on a tour that they would love to see when we go on Teresa tours or other industry tours, that they'd love to have kind of an information systems, you know, tour stop station along the way.

Eric: So I'm going to go ahead and pitch that idea to you right there. Is that as input?

Joe: I think it's a great idea. And once in a while we'll have to spend a little show up for a plant tour. but that's really not what we're talking about here. We're talking about kind of the everything from roots to, you know, managing what's going on in the plan, all the things that kind of the back end of the business as well.

And, just doesn't it doesn't seem as appealing to people, I guess, because it's not a process. But I think it's, you know, maybe one of the more important things in the facilities to, to to learn more about how they're doing. So I will take that as a challenge. We'll try to figure out how we do that when we look at these plants that we're going to and we'll look at, see how we can integrate some of those things into those tours.

You know, like you said, it's, it's it is interesting. I, you know, I always give some out of a plant tour. we talk when I talk with our international colleagues. You know, we're all basically using the same textiles and the same machinery and wash the same stuff on a globally, it's how we do it, the technology we use and how we apply that technology and manage people.

And I think a lot of the software and things that we're seeing now can improve that a differentiated and give you a competitive advantage. I think we really need  to continue to look at that and maybe make a bigger deal.

Eric:  All right. Let me shift gears real quick. I want to talk a little bit about, using using using online tools for sure for your customers and your customers. Customers. You know, I know the TSA website. That's now how I register for any of my events. To say that I go to. It wasn't always that way. I do remember a time when I filled out a form and faxed it in, but, you know, for the younger generation, they just expect you to be able to do everything online.

You know, this is the Uber Eats generation. I've done some informal, studies with that generation being my two. So my two daughters are 17 and 19. So that's where I get all of my information from. But, you know, from your perspective. Yeah. How significant do you think the shift is towards, you know, the use of online portals, self-service tools, in improving service delivery for customers of textile rental operators?

Joe: Yeah, that's it's evolution, right? I mean, I, you know, I hate to say I started almost 40 years ago, working and I, I didn't have a computer at a typewriter on my desk. So, it was a long time ago, and fax machines were, you know, amazing. I have a fax machine, but right now, I think what our members are realizing is that, you know, you're not competing with the next, you know, linen uniform, obsolete services company you're competing with what Amazon's doing.

What other people are doing about real-time information at your fingertips, whether it's on your phone or desktop or laptop, whatever you're working on, they want to know where the order is when it's coming up. They want to make change orders. They want to order extra materials and want to see all the things that you're doing. They want transparency in their billing and invoicing.

They expect an immediate response. think that's the big thing when you see with texting and technology now, is that, you know, the old days, I would come back to my office and I'd have a little pink slip that said, somebody called me and I'd try to call them, and maybe within two weeks, we'd talk to each other. You know, then you had voice mail, which helped you see the message through. Then you had an email. But, you know, email people would respond to email might take the, you know, might be a day or two that become instantaneously. And now it's texting back. And I get a lot more texts every day that are work-related than they used to.

And people expect you to immediately respond, and that's not easy to do because you're trying to do other things as well. But it's that, you know, direct interaction, complete transparency that's the ability to work when they want to get it done. So if I want to check my order for, you know, napkins at midnight when I'm awake, I want to be able to do that and change my order and have you guys deliver it properly in the morning.

So, you know, with all the technology that's taking place, we're seeing, you know, big advancement is certainly the on the route. So people with handhelds who can, you know, track orders, track inventory, send back change orders, make sure things get done. seamlessly as possible and as error-free as I mean, nothing's more expensive than not fulfilling an order and having to send another truck out or car out than to go drop off ten more napkins or 100 more napkins because you didn't include them in the order, even though they changed you order in the mail message or whatever.

So you're not competing with other companies, you're competing with other, technologies and how people are using technology that's going to continue to evolve very rapidly. So if you're not responding to Twitter messages with your customer service or text messages or online messaging, or how people have picked up the phone or at least some kind of chatbot, the answer is basic questions. And you know you're going to be behind very, very quickly.

Eric: Yeah. all right. It's going to take a little left turn here to talk a little bit more about to say more. So tell me about a few of the initiatives that TRSA currently is prioritizing to support the industry's growth and sustainability.

Joe: Sure. I think that you know, the big key thing we talked about was advocacy. So the big the big, big items that we're talking about an hour, you know, I'm not going to be shocked. Does anybody listen to this up there in the industry in a previous big issue? Right. How do we do how do we handle PFOA in our water discharge? What does that mean to the industry? It's evident in the way we look at it. It's an issue that, that we struggle with because it's, you know, it's a federal issue, but it's being pushed out to the state and local municipality.

So I think there are 60,000 water authorities, and every water authority can handle this differently. Because of the way the rules are coming down, every state can handle it. So very difficult to track. So its water discharge could be microplastics or microfibers in the water. Air discharge. We're looking at microparticles now which is different. An old air discharge. So it could pollute the left. So as you know, kind of environmental things mission three vehicles that we're working those things to make sure that that you know, the rules.

You know, we don't disagree with the rules, but they got to be you got to have the time to, to comply. So we're working with certain states on those types of things. I think our big proactive thing in which we try to focus as much on being proactive as possible, is we're working on the circulating, inventory of reusable health care, PPE, personal protective equipment.

And that's not only at the state level, where we have a bill in New York, and we're looking to introduce that bill in other states. It would require, you know, a 50% threshold of a circulating inventory of PPE. So really hearkens back to during the pandemic, when a lot of people saw nurses, doctors had pictures of them in, plastic bags and dishwashing gloves.

It's an image Kevin puts on the back of the screen when we're doing calls. yeah. That was because we had we were a disposable economy. everybody was throwing away their PPE and you couldn't make it fast enough, and it would be a main challenge. So one of the big factors is, you know, from a supply chain standpoint, you need reusables in the market, people have to be using them for somebody to manufacture them.

So we have to have some threshold for that. and ultimately it's more sustainable. We have a lot of, life cycle assessments that say those are more, you know, better for the environment at 70 times instead of once. It's just clean. So not only are we doing that at the state level, but we are also working with, the Department of Health and Human Services and the CDC are getting them to recognize, where reusable textiles in the space and particularly, again, health care, reusable health care, PPE we're expecting in the next couple of weeks some recommendations that come out of HHS and CDC on that.

We expect it to be a positive, story. You know, we'll we'll wait and see. you never government always surprises you. So we think it's going to be a positive, but we think that's just the tip of the iceberg. We think certainly the things that we do when we kind of consider ourselves to be the original recycler, you one of our businesses started 150 years ago walking by a factory, saw a bunch of rags are being thrown out, and they laundered and brought them back and charged them, you know, nickel apiece.

So we're the original reuse. we're good at repurposing textiles where we. If we dye a napkin black that used to be white color, we repair it and put it back out in the field. we recycle. you know, sometimes we don't directly recycle textiles. I think that's going to be a big play in the future. How do you take an old textile at the end of life and bring it back as something else, you know, breaking it back down to its threads and using something, to create more textiles? So I think that's going to be a big technology innovation here. And I think we're going to see something in the near future on that, that will be really, you know, probably an industry changer.

Eric: Yeah. That's interesting. You mentioned David Tingle was at your office. I  recently had a conversation with him, and he was telling me about some new, technology that he had seen. those lot along those lines, but, I can't recall it exactly, but we're.

Joe: It's coming from Europe. I mean, we like to say a lot of these things, you know, Europe is ahead of us on sustainability issues. I mean, they've got a carbon tax. They do a lot of things that we don't do. I wouldn't say we agree with everything, that goes on over there, but we know that it works its way here. Such as things like EPR. So it's, it's now making people responsible for plastics and textiles and what they do with the recycling process and how they get reused, those, those things are going to make their way here. So, you know, from Europe, we're seeing two things. One is we're going to see more sustainable innovation along with the recycling of textiles.

And two, we're going to see some, I think, some energy efficiency driven through your I know I was over there talking to them about the presidential election and war in Ukraine. And, you know, honestly, here the war in Ukraine has, you know, really doesn't impact us directly, indirectly. It certainly does. more policies policy than it is anywhere but in Europe. You know, it's impacting their energies. So they're very much working on how do they reduce energy consumption and what can they do to improve on energy consumption and what types of energy.

So I think that will help us here. and in North America, as those things make those products, whether it's Jensen or Carnegies or Lava Tack or whoever's over there innovating and bringing those things over here, I think you'll see an improvement in energy consumption and water consumption. I think that's important.

Eric: That's great. yeah. So one of the things based on kind of what you've seen, you know, what are some advice, you know, you don't see tons of new operators and some high barriers to entry are they can be. But you do see these, you know, smaller companies start there are some great success stories where maybe someone was a route service rep for a national chain and they start their own business.

And so those successes do happen. But, you know, what advice would you give to someone new to this market? They're trying to grow their business, try to use technology to do it in any input from you.

Joe: Sure. And then I think you're right. I think we're seeing a lot of opportunity and hospitality because it's a, it's a cog energy business, so people don't have to buy the linens and garments, they just have to launder them. So if we did a recently did a study on our market share for the business, you know, as a membership and as anybody.

That's right. I'm sure you guys, you study on market share. And we found that we're 90% of the, revenue or production or members of to say, but only about 52% of the time, because there's a lot of small companies out there that, you know, could, could or maybe should be members of our say, but aren't. And a lot of those numbers are small.

You know, they do 2 or 3 regional hotels, maybe it's a couple of hundred-room hotels are doing it in a kind of makeshift laundry, even running it out of a coin. Laundry. and they're and they're getting it done, though, and they're coming to the industry. And we've seen a lot of those guys grow. We've seen a couple of, dry cleaners that were doing valet services for Otto now have large laundries.

As you and it's there's market entries high. but there are ways to start. And then we're also seeing a lot more money coming into the, into our industry, whether it's private equity, or other ways that people are getting financing to start these laundries because they see the stability, you know, water is going to be there.

We've heard about you cleaning clothes and all kinds of things that are coming down the road. And maybe some of those things will or some some won't. but we've been a tremendously resilient industry. I mean, people are worried about the pandemic, but we've been around we've companies that are 120, 530 years old, they've been through previous pandemics.

They've been through several world wars, some cases of civil war, and they've been around through economic downturns and the Great Depression. And they were resilient. And we bounce back. And part of that is that you know, laundry is going to be there now may be different. You know, we don't do diapers anymore, but we evolve, right? We don't do home laundering so much anymore.

But we've evolved. And I think that bodes well for people who want to invest in this industry. And so I talked to investment folks all the time about just how it how what a what a wonderful industry this can be if done right. and investing their money in us and coming into the space and, and growing some just we do need more, more, more companies to come out.

I mean we're glad that we have big companies. And, you know, M&A is just part of business. but you always need competition and you need new companies and innovating, coming up and doing new ideas. You've got a couple of new members just over the last couple of years that have come in. Premier being one down in Florida started a laundry that came from some other business.

Had somebody named that saw that saw the beauty of the kind of the long-term contracts, the cash flow, the things that come along with our business that are financially intriguing. I mean, we're not growing 20% a quarter, but you're consistently growing faster than GDP. We looked at growth over 50 years. We always grow a point or two through the GDP.

So even in a down economy, we're doing better than a lot of other folks. So people are seeing that they're coming in, they're dusting. and we encourage that. And most of those organizations want to stay in our industry and, and want to be a piece of and contribute. We have several board members at companies that run through private equity.

They want to see the industry grow. It benefits them. so we see it as a as a win-win. Moving into the industry.

Eric: Yeah I agree. And there's always going to be room for all players in this industry. I mean there's going to be a lot of the larger firms. They certainly have their benefits. And then there's always a part of the, you know, consumer, population that wants to it wants to work with a local, operator.

So I think there's there's enough is enough for everyone here. But, too, to kind of one thing to wrap up, I don't think I asked you this ahead of time, but anything that you're bingeing right now or that you recommend a good book or a good podcast, something that you're passionate about, give me, give me, give me something.

Joe: Sure. So I'm on the elliptical every day for about 45 minutes. I pitch everything. So I'm I'm watching Veep now. I'm coming to the last season of Veep, which has been, you know, very cool. And, you know, it's a Washington, DC-based kind of program. Unfortunately, as, as a DC native, very real, in many ways. Salve enjoyed that.

Eric: All right. Well, the pleasure's been all mine. Thanks for joining. And, look forward to seeing you on the road soon.

Joe: Thanks, Eric. And want to thank you. Not only you but your whole team and the whole Lyon systems team, for all the support they give to your say, whether it's showing up, which is, you know, 50% of the battle showing up every day, right? So you show up and, you contribute, both with your intellect and, with your pocketbook and really do appreciate this organization. And I think as an industry, it shows your support in the industry. We do, too. I appreciate it. So thank.

Eric: You, thank you, thank you. Cool. All right. Have a good one.