Prudential Vista: Treat Staff, Customers Like Family

For Prudential Overall Supply, Irvine, CA, growth doesn’t mean the company’s commitment to treating employees and customers like family will change. Textile Services Weekly saw this spirit in action during a recent visit to the industrial/mixed launderer’s plant in Vista, CA, near San Diego.

“This is a family-owned and operated company, and we treat it like a family,” said General Manager Mark Elberson. He himself is a second-generation employee of the company founded in 1932 by John D. Clark. He left Iowa in the depths of the Great Depression to seek opportunities in Los Angeles.

Clark found one when he established Prudential, which today operates 35-plus facilities and employs more than 1,900 people. A longtime player in the linen, uniform and facility services industry in the western U.S., Prudential has recently expanded its cleanroom laundry division to occupy a national footprint. This includes plants in Ohio, New Hampshire and Virginia. “We like to consider ourselves national,” said Elberson, a 38-year Prudential veteran, whose son oversees the company’s safety program out of the Irvine headquarters. He also has a son who is the general manager at the Milpitas, CA, plant.

Elberson added that the company’s national ambitions have in no way undermined the family environment that has fueled Prudential’s success for 94 years. “In general, big Wall Street, Fortune 500 companies are going to feel much colder and much less personal than what you would get from an operation like this,” he said. Elberson adds that challenges such as recruitment/retention that confront rival launderers pose fewer hurdles for Prudential. “As we look to win new business and grow, a big part of how we are going to do that is by keeping what differentiates Prudential in terms of taking care of people.”

During a walkthrough of the 49,000-square-foot (4,552-square-meter) Vista plant, we saw evidence of Prudential’s collegial relationships with its 66-person staff. The staff works two shifts, five days a week, processing roughly 400,000 lbs. (181,436 kg.) per week. Around nearly every corner, Elberson introduced us to employees with a dozen or more years of experience. Not surprisingly, he said, finding and retaining employees to fill in when veterans retire poses less difficulty for Elberson than we typically hear from plant managers at other companies. “At this point, hiring isn’t an issue,” he said. “It’s not necessarily compensation,” Elberson adds, speaking of the plant’s low turnover rate. “There are some people that probably pay more than we do, but we treat our employees as a family. There’s an atmosphere, and there’s a feeling for when you walk into a particular plant, especially this plant. We get along with each other.” Staff longevity has the added benefit of providing customers with consistent service, Elberson said.

While employees are expected to do their jobs, staff get ample opportunities to celebrate holidays such as Christmas and Easter, as well as employee birthdays.

Beyond parties, Prudential’s Vista plant has an extensive onboarding program for new employees and provides ongoing training to ensure that all staff meet the company’s performance expectations. “We just take care of our people,” Elberson said. “We do a lot of teaching, a lot of education. Prudential is a great place to work. Culturally, it’s very people oriented.”

Prudential’s Vista plant has a roughly 60-40 mix of industrial and food-and-beverage (F&B) accounts. The staff treats customers with a similar family-like deference. During the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, Prudential/Vista didn’t impose price hikes or surcharges. “During COVID, we never raised our prices,” Elberson said. “Everybody else did. Everybody else was asking for that surcharge.” Next, Prudential/Vista added an addendum to contracts that included a guarantee against price hikes during the first year of service. Named the “Dan Clark Price Guarantee” for Prudential’s eponymously named chairman and second-generation owner, the policy shows customers that Prudential understands their need for predictable pricing. “We guarantee to all of our customers, and that’s a family thing,” he said. “We’re not going to raise our prices the first year. We put it in writing and the customer signs it.” Prudential also prides itself on transparency, long-term relationships and doing what’s right for customers.

That commitment extends to sustainability as well. For example, Prudential recently announced the third-phase installation of a solar power system at the Vista plant. The project features 284 solar panels, sized for 168 kW. They are expected to generate 300,000 kWh of electricity per year. This will allow the plant to receive 35% of its energy needs through solar power. What’s more, the upgrade represents a savings equivalent to 200 metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2). It will significantly reduce the plant’s greenhouse gas emissions. With the solar system at Vista in place, Prudential is now producing approximately 1,200 kWh of clean energy per year across the three installed systems.

Watch for follow-up coverage of this plant in an upcoming issue of Textile Services magazine. Click here for information on subscribing to Textile Services magazine.