Episode 32 – COVID-19: Leadership Lessons

Welcome to the TRSA podcast. Providing interviews and insights from the linen, uniform, and facility services industry. Most Americans might not realize it, but they benefit at least once per week from the cleanliness and safety of laundered, reusable linens, uniforms, towels, mats, and other products provided by various businesses and organizations. TRSA represents the companies that supply, launder, and maintain linens and uniforms. And in this podcast, we will bring the thought leaders of the industry to you.

 

I’m your host, Jason Risley, and this is the Linen Uniform and Facility Services podcast, interviews and insights by TRSA. As the summer winds down, TRSA typically would be turning toward its fall events, including the annual conference. However, this has been anything but a typical summer as a result of the COVID nineteen crisis and its effects on the linen uniform and facility services industry and in person events worldwide. Despite being unable to gather and hold networking and professional development events in person, T RSA has held a few of its events virtually. Including the Human Resources and Safety Summits, as well as the Leadership Summit in July.

 

The Leadership Summit closed with a panel of linen, uniform, and facility services industry operators sharing their thoughts on the industry’s response and ongoing recovery from the COVID 19 pandemic and economic shutdowns. The panel included Jim Buick, the current TRSA Chairman and President of Roscoe Company, Jim Cashman, President and CEO of Image First, PJ Dempsey, President of Dempsey Uniform and Linen Supply, and Corey Acton, Vice President of Operations at Magic Laundry Services. The panel was moderated by TRSA president and CEO Joseph Ricci. Let’s listen into the discussion. Let me introduce our panelists.

 

1st representing the industrial and uniform sector is Jim Buick, president of Roscoe Company in Chicago, and he’s also the TSA chair. Representing the health care sector is Jim Cashman, CEO of Image First, which is nationwide. Representing the F and B sector and some uniform inside as well is PJ Dempsey, president Dempsey Uniform and Linen, operating in the Mid Atlantic, Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland, and Washington DC. And representing the hospitality or hotel sector is Corey Acton, vice president of operations for Magic Laundry Services, and they’re located in Southern California. I’ll ask each of the panelists to quickly introduce themselves.

 

Let’s start with Jim Buick. Jim? I’m Jim Buick, third generation owner of the Roscoe company based in Chicago. We We serve, Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin. As Joe mentioned, primarily industrial uniforms with a strong preponderance of food manufacturing apparel, as well as floor mats, dust control.

 

We individually were very fortunate to only, have about a 20% downturn, when things, hit. And at this point, we’re back to to 95%. I credit the fact that we were able to operate throughout this crisis through the good work of of TRSA, particularly the certifications that we earned, ISO and HESAP, hygienically clean, clean green certified, and then ultimately, sharps certification, Planning an incredible amount of communication with team members, with vendor partners, as well as customers, and, an amazing amount of of collaboration to pull us out of this. So the industry, was well served by TRSA and our suppliers. We look forward to, a bright future.

 

Thank you, Joe. Thanks, Jim. Next we go to Jim Cashman. Alright. Thanks, Joe.

 

Good afternoon. I’m Jim Cashman. I’m the president and CEO of Image First. Been with Image First for about 16 months. Out of the industry for 10 years, so 10 year hiatus.

 

Prior to that, 16 years with Aramark Uniform Services, and early in my career, 3 years with Cintas. I thought the bleach was out of my blood, but, they sucked me back in, but couldn’t be more pleased to be here and and certainly, plan on having Image First become a better participant in our t TRSA events. Thank you. Could you tell us a little bit about, you know, what the situation you found during post COVID and a little bit about your recovery? Yeah.

 

So we, obviously, we’re a health care clinic provider, so we had, we had the whole array of, COVID impact. We have a small, acute piece of our business, which, is a per pound billing piece. So we saw significant impact there. That business, thankfully, is back from our outpatient work. A lot of elective surgeries were canceled with our billing practices and minimum billings.

 

We went to the store pretty well on that front. Our business now is back. We’re at 98 plus percent of our our pre COVID revenues. So feel feel very good about where we are there. There’s a couple of pieces that we’re still trying to figure out really is is our recovery, you know, backlog and pent up pent up demand from work that, you know, procedures that weren’t done, hip replacements, bunions, those types of things, those non critical but necessary surgeries that didn’t happen for the last this fall this fall, but fearful of round 2 coming.

 

So we’re still unpacking that with a lot of our client base. But, certainly, we’ve weathered the storm and feel very good about where we’re at. Thanks, Jim. Now for a brief message from TRSA. Hi.

 

I’m Joseph Ricci, president and CEO of TRSA. As the economy has slowed to a grinding pace, we know many of you are struggling while others are working overtime. As your trade association, TSA is open and working to ensure you have the information and resources necessary to continue operations and disseminate accurate relevant information to your customers and employees. TRSA is also strategically focusing on helping the industry recover by launching market specific business recovery task forces and consulting with economists and futurists to provide members with insight into the new emerging post COVID crisis business environment. With your health and safety in mind, TerraSave has canceled several programs and rescheduled others as virtual events.

 

These include the recently completed market sector specific virtual meetings with more than 500 participants. We look forward to seeing you again either virtually or when we can begin hosting valuable networking and information sharing events. Please watch your email for announcements of programs that will provide immediately applicable information and offer strategic insight into the reemergence of the economy and our industry. Thank you. Now back to the episode.

 

PJ, if you could just, introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about, situation you incurred, during your with COVID crisis and your recovery. PJ Dempse with Dempse Uniform and Linen. You know, as Joe mentioned, we’re we we cover, basically, the the mid Atlantic and, you know, a good portion of our business is food and beverage, specifically in a couple of markets where we’ve made acquisitions, down the Baltimore Washington market and more recently in the the New York City market. Those those areas have obviously been the most impacted, You know, that early March time frame in about a 2 week span, that’s when the the bottom really fell out on the the F and B market. New York City first, I think everybody kinda watched that play out live on television, and, and that continues today.

 

So in that market, we were we were down, 90, 95%, literally in a matter of weeks. Our F and B business in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Maryland wasn’t too far behind. I I know everybody talks about unprecedented. In in our company’s history, we had actually, in 60 plus years, had never had a layoff. And 2009 was actually the only year that the company didn’t grow.

 

We were off by 2% that year. So we were, to say, unprepared for, you know, not that anybody’s prepared for a 90% drop. But even in the markets where we we just had where we had a little more diversification, where we were down, you know, 30, 40, 50 percent that required some some pretty quick adjusting. What we’ve seen, so far, and I will I will echo what what Jim mentioned about TRSAs efforts. Our Pennsylvania governor ordered all non life sustaining businesses closed.

 

We decided that we were life sustaining, made up our own little placards, but it was really nice to have TRSA actually go to work for us there and and legitimize that. On the F and B side, we saw the the takeout, restaurants kinda after the initial, you know, drop. We saw takeout restaurants, ones that were takeout friendly come back, the soonest. A lot of them were busy, but, but only using aprons and towels. So a lot of the, you know, mats and facility service items that we that we supplied to them weren’t weren’t part of the the the mix at that point.

 

We we did see that a lot of places were open that we didn’t, we didn’t really they were not necessarily calling us. So, we established some calling teams and worked to to retrieve product and in some cases, reestablish service, or in some cases, sign suspension agreement to suspend the service. The going was pretty slow for a little while until early June when, parts of our area parts of our service area, allowed outdoor dining to come back. So we saw a first little bump with that. I actually saved, the first linen order that we got from a customer in Maryland.

 

It was it was very exciting. We hadn’t processed the napkin in a little while. In late June, when we got the more markets opening up and dine in restaurants, allowed to serve customers even in a limited capacity. We saw, a nice little rebound there. Still dead in New York City.

 

Again, I think you guys can kinda watch all that, play out on television. And in markets like Washington DC, major markets, riots did not help. I think we’re we’re kinda in a holding pattern right now. Last last few weeks have been week over week growth, but nothing like the the big bumps we got when outdoor dining and then, limited indoor dining was permitted. And and I think that, we’re just thankful that, our entire company is not reliant on the F and B business.

 

And, you know, much much like Jim mentioned, our our industrial business, held up remarkably well during that that period of time and is, almost back, in full. So that’s that’s carried a lot of water for us during, during this downturn. Like to thank my dad if he’s listening while he, prepared us not only, you know, to to manage the company fiscally responsibly, but but to be, to be diversified, that’s that’s helped as well. Thanks, PJ. I’ve been doing diversification of product and market mix has come up continually in any discussions we’ve had about surviving the downturn and then recovery.

 

So obviously critical. Corey, a little bit about the what’s going on with you and the hotel space? We are strictly a laundry provider for hotels. With that being said, we were hit extremely hard by the the COVID situation. Almost all of our hotels shut down, with the exception of a couple of timeshares that we have and saw over a 90% drop in our business.

 

I would say we’re right now, we’re at about 40% back of where we were, But with everything going on right now, there’s still the uncertainty with what the hotels are gonna be doing moving forward. Everybody’s kind of getting in the wave of opening back up their hotels, and now we have hotels that if they were on the fence going into this, they’re delaying it until August, and also, others are considering closing back down. So we’re we’re still monitoring the situation. If you missed TRSA’s virtual leadership summit in July, visit TRSA’s on demand learning center at www.trsa.org/ on demand to get access to the full program, including the keynote address, breakout sessions, and panel discussions. Topics will benefit each level of your leadership team, from CEOs and c suite executives to next generation executives and emerging leaders.

 

Additionally, you can access a variety of materials on COVID 19 specifically designed for members of the Linen uniform, and facility services industry at www.trsa.org/covid19. Thanks again for tuning in to today’s episode. And as always, make sure you subscribe, rate, and review our show on iTunes, Google Play, and Stitcher. Additionally, follow TRSA on Facebook at trsaorg, on Twitter at trsa, on LinkedIn at Textile Rental Services Association of America, and on Instagram at trsa.org.