Business View - August 2015 197
Just how “far beyond” the company does go can best
be exemplified by its response to Hurricane Katrina in
2005, when it was the only laundry that was able to
provide linen service in south Louisiana and in parts
of Mississippi. Lefeaux recounts how its trucks were
actually escorted into his city by the State Police and
the National Guard when all other traffic was leaving.
“There’s not a lot of companies that would do that;
that would be willing to take that risk to see that their
customers are taken care of.”
Westport takes its role as an emergency vendor very
seriously and the company is available as a back-up
facility in times of crisis or disaster. “We have a huge
generator that runs our plant. We have back-up and
secondary water supplies. If a tragedy happened, and
we lost power in our city, we could run up to two weeks
on diesel [fuel].”
Right now, according to Lefeaux, the company is oper-
ating at about 60 percent of its capacity, but as more
and more rural hospitals merge with larger hospital
systems, he sees the possibility of increased growth
by continuing to partner with them. In fact, by picking
up another six-member hospital system, which the
company is poised to do, its potential output should
grow by 20 to 25 percent. Considering that, at present,
Westport Linen processes 16 million pounds of health-
care linens per year, that’s an awful lot of new laundry.
So, the company plans to upgrade its operations from
eight hours a day, six days a week, to ten hours a day,
seven days a week.
HEALTHCARE
