Home
Share |

Content about Missouri

April 4, 2012
Thum Elected President of Southwest Drycleaners Association

SAN ANTONIO — Richard Thum, co-founder and president of Five Star Cleaners, was recently elected president of The Southwest Drycleaners Association (SDA)

SAN ANTONIO — Richard Thum, co-founder and president of Five Star Cleaners, was recently elected president of The Southwest Drycleaners Association (SDA) at its annual convention.

The regional trade association, with more than 300 members, is an affiliate of the Drycleaning & Laundry Institute (DLI). The 96-year-old association serves the professional dry cleaners of Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas.

Thum served as first vice president of the organization last year, and has served on the SDA board in various capacities for 28 years.

He launched Comet Cleaners in San Antonio in 1981 along with his wife, Sharlene, and the name was changed to Five Star Cleaners in 2004. The Thums own 11 locations across San Antonio.

Thum holds a bachelor of science degree in real estate finance from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, and has a real estate broker’s license in Texas.

March 6, 2012
GreenEarth Cleaning Signs Wotek Corp. as Licensee in India, Middle East

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The unique fabricare advantages of GreenEarth’s environmentally safe

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — GreenEarth Cleaning has signed Wotek Corp., Piscataway, N.J., as master licensor of its dry cleaning process for India and the Middle East, GreenEarth reports.

A U.S. engineering company known for exporting and servicing well-known dry cleaning and laundry brands, Wotek will license GreenEarth’s patented process to hotels and progressive drycleaning operators.

The unique fabricare advantages of GreenEarth’s environmentally safe, liquid silicone-based process were a key reason why Wotek sought to partner with GreenEarth.

With the Wotek agreement, GreenEarth is now licensed in 33 countries. It has more than 1,600 affiliate licenses worldwide, approximately half of which are in the United States.

“The level of interest in GreenEarth, both internationally and here in the U.S., continues to grow,” says Tim Maxwell, president of GreenEarth Cleaning. “Our focus remains on quality over quantity; we are very selective about who we partner with to license our patented process and trademarks.”

February 20, 2012
Three Cleaners Newest Members of Textile Restoration Group

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — North American Restoration Dry Cleaners (NARD), a national group of textile restoration professionals, has welcomed three new members in expanding its national coverage.

Urban Valet Cleaners, Buffalo, N.Y., has been in the restoration business for more than 10 years and services western New York and northern Pennsylvania.

Bobby Page’s Restoration in northern Nevada has been working restoration dry cleaning for almost 50 years.

Fabricare-Restoration by Margaret’s is recognized as Southern California’s premier dry cleaning institution and as one of the nation’s top cleaning establishments, NARD says. The business recently added a separate division focusing solely on insurance restoration cleaning.

“We are one step closer to our goal of providing national coverage with the finest restoration dry cleaning professionals in the country,” says NARD President Mark Folzenlogen.

January 31, 2012
Plant Design Awards — Merit Award: Pride Cleaners & TIDE Dry Cleaners

GRANDVIEW, Mo. — Pride Cleaners turned the shell of a former ice skating rink into a bright, clean central processing plant that services its 37 stores throughout the Kansas City metropolitan area. It processes around 10,000 pieces a day in season.

After the 22,000-square-foot building was cleaned out, Pride had to bring in new power, gas and water services. Every piece of equipment had to be installed, and offices were built.

The plant was laid out to best fit the workflow needed for drycleaning, laundry and alteration services. Laundry and drycleaning work is separated, and flows from the washing/drycleaning machines through the press area, down to assembly, and out to the trucks in a U-shaped design.

Among Pride’s key pieces of equipment is Fulton boilers, Unipress finishing equipment, Metalprogetti auto-sort systems, Union drycleaning machines, petroleum reclaimers, Kaeser air compressor, and a Kemco hot-water system.

December 21, 2011
Equinox Chemicals Acquires Adco Cleaning Products

ALBANY, Ga. — Equinox Chemicals has announced that it has acquired Adco Cleaning Products, based in Sedalia, Mo. Terms of the acquisition were not announced.

Equinox will move Adco’s manufacturing operations to its state-of-the-art manufacturing plant in Albany, according to Yalda Harris, Equinox’s executive vice president for Global Product Management. Dr. Jim Schreiner, Adco’s chief product technology officer, will also be relocating, she says.

Customer-service and order-taking staff will remain in Sedalia, and there will be no changes to the way customers or distributors order from Adco, Harris adds. The national sales team will remain the same.

Nine operator jobs and one office employee have been relocated to Albany, with many key employees receiving relocation package offers, according to Harris.

Equinox is a specialty chemical manufacturer with specialty research, innovation, product development and commercialization capabilities that reach markets spanning the globe, the company says.

November 1, 2011
Laundry-Household Textiles Webinar by Adco

Laundry-Household Textiles webinar by Adco to be presented Nov. 17. Call 800-821-7556 or e-mail adcou@adco-inc.com ("Sign Me Up" in subject line).

November 1, 2011
Laundry-Institutional Webinar by Adco

Laundry-Institutional webinar by Adco to be presented Dec. 15. Call 800-821-7556 or e-mail adcou@adco-inc.com ("Sign Me Up" in subject line).

August 29, 2011
GreenEarth Email Marketing Webinar

To be held Aug. 31. To register for the webinar go to http://www.greenearthcleaning.com/events/event_list.asp or email marketing@greenearthcleaning.com for webinar login and information.

August 26, 2011
GreenEarth Affiliate Workshop — Kansas City, Mo.

GreenEarth Affiliate Workshop. To be held at GreenEarth Cleaning, 51W 135th Street, Kansas City, Mo.  Call 816-926-0895 ext. 206 or e-mail kmaxwell@greenearthcleaning.com.

July 21, 2011
MidAmerica Equipment Co. Relocates to Larger Facility

O’FALLON, Mo. — MidAmerica Equipment Co. has moved its local office and warehouse to a brand-new, 7,500-square-foot office and warehouse. The new address is 1019 Liberty Industrial Drive, O’Fallon, MO 63366. The company’s phone numbers are unchanged.

The new facility in the Liberty Industrial complex is roughly six blocks from the previous location on Hoff Road in O’Fallon, a St. Louis suburb.

April 18, 2011
Maytag Salutes Distributors

ST. JOSEPH, Mich. — Maytag Commercial Laundry recently honored exceptional distributors at its 53rd annual meeting, held in Palm Springs, Calif. The Fred Maytag Award went to Pierce Commercial Laundry Distributors, Mandeville, La.,

ST. JOSEPH, Mich. — Maytag Commercial Laundry recently honored exceptional distributors at its 53rd annual meeting, held in Palm Springs, Calif.

The Fred Maytag Award went to Pierce Commercial Laundry Distributors, Mandeville, La., for outstanding achievements and remarkable performance. The Maytag Red Carpet Service Excellence Award went to John Morris Equipment & Supply Co., Springfield, Mo., for exemplifying the excellent service and dependability for which Maytag is known.

December 10, 2010
Drycleaning’s Decline Is Permanent

CREVE COEUR, Mo. — The percentage of people who never use drycleaning is now higher than the percentage that does. Even the number of infrequent users (once every one to three months) has fallen. Anecdotal information says that these declines are consistent throughout the Midwest. Many cleaners say they have the same number of customers, but they bring in fewer garments per visit.

April 22, 2010
GreenEarth Launches 'Guide to Living Green'

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — GreenEarth Cleaning LLC announced the launch of its new Guide to Living Green at its website, featuring a year's worth of environmentally friendly "Tips of The Day" that the company says can "help make every day Earth Day."

January 5, 2010
GreenEarth Signs GreenClean Tintorerias as Master Licensor in Mexico

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — GreenEarth Cleaning LLC has signed GreenClean Tintorerias as a Master Licensor for its silicone-based drycleaning technology in Mexico.

June 12, 2009
Morgenthaler’s: 115 Years Young

ST. LOUIS — , In celebrating its 75th Anniversary recently, American Drycleaner sought out the longest-running family-owned operation in America, expecting maybe to find one or two that have celebrated a centenary. But at 115 years old, Morgenthaler’s, based in the St. Louis suburb of Maplewood, Mo., beat all other entrants by decades.

November 18, 2008
Operators Break with Nation in Historic Vote

CHICAGO — Four out of five (80.8%) drycleaners say they supported the Republican ticket in the presidential election earlier this month, according to this month’s special “Exit Poll” edition of the Wire survey. Only 14.1% of drycleaners taking the survey voted Democratic, and 5.1% voted for a third-party or write-in candidate.

February 1, 2008
Adco Buys Laidlaw's Chemical Products Division

SEDALIA, Mo. — Mentor Partners of Boston and Adco Cleaning Products of Sedalia, a leading manufacturer and distributor of chemicals for the drycleaning industry, have purchased the Chemical Products Division of Laidlaw Co., Scottsdale, Ariz.

The two companies merged their chemical-sales teams; Brent McWilliams, formerly vice president of Laidlaw, joins Adco as vice president of sales. Laidlaw’s sales team will continue to service wholesale supply accounts, with end users receiving all Laidlaw products through normal distribution channels.

September 10, 2007
Prestige Preservation Enters Japanese Market

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Prestige Preservation LLC, an international licenser of products and processes for cleaning and preserving bridal gowns and other textile memorabilia, is targeting the Japanese market. The firm announced a multiyear agreement with Tokyo Wholesale, a division of Hokuyosha Co. Ltd.

May 2, 2007
New Owners Target Growth for Adco

SEDALIA, Mo. — The new owners of Adco Inc., Cambridge, Mass.-based equity firm Mentor Partners, says that it plans to leverage the chemical company’s 99-year history of excellence in product development and customer service into new growth.

“Adco, as a leader in its industry, is our kind of company,” says Stephen LeGraw, president of Mentor Partners. “It has established a tradition of excellence that has set the standard in the commercial laundry and drycleaning industry.

May 1, 2007
Adco Announces New Ownership

SEDALIA, Mo. — One of the drycleaning industry’s oldest companies, Adco Inc., revealed this morning that it has been sold. A Cambridge, Mass.-based equity firm, Mentor Partners, assumed ownership of Adco on April 13 for an undisclosed sum.

April 9, 2007
Illinois Grants GreenEarth 'Green' Status

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The council of Illinois’ state cleanup fund, the Drycleaner Environmental Response Trust (DERT), has designated GreenEarth Cleaning’s silicon-based solvent as a “green” alternative. The ruling immediately cuts state tax rates on GreenEarth at least 82%, the company says, giving it a substantial edge over perc and other solvent alternatives.