From talking to laundry operators, you might think that the competition for qualified maintenance technicians is so fierce that recruiters from scores of industries have hunted the species nearly to extinction.

Not true, says Paul Jewison, general manager of Textile Care Services (TCS), Rochester, MN, a member of Healthcare Linen Services Group (HLSG), St. Charles, IL. Jewison, who is also a vice president with HLSG, began his career as an Air Force mechanic before joining TCS in 1992. Today, he oversees a team of 11 maintenance techs in a 96,000-square-foot (8,918-square-meter) plant that recently underwent a $10 million upgrade on a ...