DOLTON, Ill. — I am now celebrating 50 years working full-time in the dry cleaning business. Just after I graduated from high school in 1962, my dad needed help. I worked a 40-hour week while attending Chicago Teachers College in the business department. After graduating from CTC in 1965 on a trimester plan, I started taking night courses at Roosevelt University; I graduated with a master’s degree in accounting in 1967.
I was married in August 1966, and our daughter was born in October 1967. The family business paid three times that of a first-year high school teacher. I chose the dry cleaning business to support my family. It took several years of taking classes part-time but I completed my doctor of business administration degree in 1984. The basics are the same today but the tools are fantastic.
A plan began to develop to expand our business, but it was impossible to do that at our location in Chicago because we were located in two connected buildings in the middle of a city block. Father, I and a contractor buddy of his found a location just outside of Chicago, in Dolton, Ill.
