Sometimes it’s a little tricky locating an industrial laundry in a densely populated urban area. But if you get within a quarter mile or so of Service Uniform in San Antonio, I guarantee you can’t miss it. Just look up and you’ll see an eye-grabbing sight: a full-size laundry step van mounted at the top of a pole several hundred feet in the air.

Dennis Tschida, the general manager for this family-owned company with plants in Denver and San Antonio, says the idea with the van was to have a symbol of the company that would make it stand out ...