Business View Magazine - September 2015

88 Business View - September 2015 Business View - September 2015 89 soil and clean. For a small, family-owned company that was one of the biggest investments, barring the fire, that we did. It was a ten-year project. We did that think- ing of the HLAC certification, because we had to totally revamp our plant. We got our certification in January, 2015.” (The Healthcare Laundry Accreditation Council (HLAC) is a non-profit, accreditation organization de- veloped to provide a third-party inspection and accred- iting program for laundries processing healthcare tex- tiles based on the highest standards for patient safety and infection prevention.) Today, Liniform services over 2,000 clients per week, including medical and dental offices, restaurants, caterers, schools, manufacturers, hotels, and many other businesses in a 13-county area in northeastern Ohio. Its 50 employees and nine trucks supply linens, uniforms, mops and mats, and rest room supplies, as well as direct sales items such as decorated polos, T- shirts and other apparel, large capacity hygiene paper products, and soap and skin sanitizer. “Our focus is on small to medium sized businesses. That’s really our niche,” says Jenkins. “We service anything from your local pizza shop to your emergency medical clinic and surgery center – the ‘retail medi- cal.’ We used to do heavy industrial, but we’ve gotten away from that. We wanted to stick with the ‘cleaner soil.’ So we let the Cintases and the Aramarks take all of the industrial.” According to Jenkins what differentiates Liniform Ser- vices from its competitors is its one-stop shop capabili- ties and its excellent customer service. “Our route driv- ers come in; they stock and organize our customers’ shelves. They have the authority to make decisions. We’re small enough so that our service department can still give that personal service, but we’re large enough to compete very nicely with the bigger com- panies. And we spend a lot of time talking to our cus- tomers and finding out what they need, so we use our customer base to improve our services. If one of our customers has an issue, the first priority is ‘Fix it!’ and then let’s deals with what happened. That’s kind of our motto. If a customer calls and complains we fix it. We don’t hassle them and then, after the fact, af- ter we’ve taken care of the customer, we say ‘Where did the ball drop?’ and ‘How can we make sure that it doesn’t happen again?’ That’s our culture and we are proud of that.” Liniform Service is a Women Owned Business, and still a family affair, owned by Ed Jr.’s three daughters and son, Bertha Jenkins, and Pat Shultz, the company’s Vice President who recently retired. It is a member of the CSC Network: the National Alliance of Independent Launderers, and the Women Business Enterprise Na- tional Council. In addition, the company is a TEC, Total Energy Concept, Certified Green Facility, dedicated to reducing, reusing, and recycling. It is an active mem- ber of the Barberton community, devoting time and money to various local charities and organizations. In 90 years, Liniform Service has come a long way from the days when Edward and Albert Good drove around town, picking up laundry door-to-door. And yet, this venerable company still operates out of its original space, and still serves the cleaning needs of its north- eastern Ohio neighbors and friends. PREFERRED VENDORS United Textile Distribution – Headquartered in Gar- ner, NC, United Textile Distribution began as a supplier of textile flat goods in 1990. The company supplies table and bed linens, towels, aprons, hangers, dust control products, and healthcare apparel, such as lab coats, scrub suits, patient gowns, surgeons gowns, and bath robes. www.unitedtextiledistribution.com Healthcare Healthcare