Oregon Dry Cleaners Association

AWARENESS is the word for our industry this year! Why? Because of inspections, the Air Quality Division of DEQ, OSHA, & other rules and regulations.

Are you AWARE of the inspections of Dry Cleaners being performed by DEQ?

Are you AWARE of the fact sheet created by the Air Quality Division of DEQ?

Are you AWARE of the OSHA requirement about a card carrying first aid person?

Are you AWARE of federal rules regarding light bulbs, used oil, & aerosol cans?

If you answered no to any of the above then you need to be a member of the Oregon Dry Cleaners Association (ODCA). Why? Because ODCA is AWARE and working very hard to get this information out to their members.

Are you AWARE that ODCA has 3 members that sit on the DEQ Advisory Committee and because they are there an erroneous fact sheet put out by the Air Quality Division of DEQ was pulled from distribution!

Are you AWARE that ODCA receives an inspection report and is working on a program that will provide pre-inspection information & education?

Are you AWARE that ODCA is planning a seminar on Material Data Safety Sheets and a first-aid class?

Now is the time to become AWARE! If you haven't renewed your membership or never been a member, take the time right now and fill out the application you received with this letter or go on-line at w ww.oregondrycleaners.org and Become AWARE!!

Business/Store Name:
Bob's Dry Cleaners & Laundry located in beautiful downtown Florence

Owners name: Bob & Leslie Kettenhofen

What made you decide to go into dry cleaning? Eleven years ago I was living and working(an easy 40 hours per week) in Portland, and Bob was working in Alaska, and we hosted a family reunion in Florence. While we were in Florence, Bob opened the newspaper and saw there was a dry cleaners for sale. He says to me " look we could live at the coast and own our own business!" well the rest is history......

When did you open your first Dry Cleaners? October 1, 1994
Do you still have that location? Yes
Did you build the Plant or buy an existing store? We bought an existing plant that had been in the same location since 1960

Did you have Dry Cleaning Experience when you Started? We stumbled in blindly, but on the recommendation of Neil Tompkins the original owner of our cleaners, Bob went back to IFI and attended both the Begriming and Advanced classes.

How many Employees do you have? We are currently employee less, but we're having a strong year, and running out of hours in the day to get everything done.

How big is your Dry Cleaner? We have a 15lb Donini
What type of Solvent are you using? Perc
How long have you been using this solvent and specific reasons for using that one?
Living in a retirement community we need something that really cleans. We also do a lot of wetcleaning!

Are you doing your own shirts? Yes
What type of Shirt Unit are you using? Ajax Lay down Unit
Do you do Wet Cleaning? Yes

What’s the Best Piece of Equipment you Purchased? our shirt unit, we were originally doing shirts on an old Hoffman Utility Press.
What’s your Dream Piece of Equipment? - something that will do all the shirts, without us being involved :-)
Give us a brief rundown on your other finishing equipment: Cissel Puff Irons, Cissel Pants Topper, Forenta Susie, Ajax Shirt Unit, and a Forse Fast Feed Legger/Utility Press

Are you using a POS system? yes
What POS System are you using? Cleansuite - www.cleansuite.c om

Do you have a website? Yes
If you do what do you feel it’s done for you? Well as most of you know, I design websites for a living as well as working at the cleaners. That being said the only reason I put up a site for my cleaners is I felt that I had to. When I first put it up in 1999, I figured most of our customers would never look at it. Part of that being that the average age of one of our customers is 70 and I figured that most of them weren't using computers. However, I get a question a week from our site. I try to keep interesting news pieces up, I post a different coupon each month, usually promoting a service that people might not be aware we do. And this month I launched our Online Newsletter. The feedback from our site, has been phenomenal, and it's really inexpensive advertising.
Please give us the url: www.bobsdrycleaners.com

What’s the Best Dry Cleaning Show you’ve attended? Well the last Clean Show in Vegas is the first big show we'd attended, it was fabulous! But I really get a lot out of ODCA Conventions and classes.

What Associations do you belong to? ODCA, IFI

Do you have an interesting or fun story about something you’ve found in a pocket? Or an Odd Request at the Counter? Or just something fun you’d like to share about working in the industry? Oddest request at the counter: Can you get Bong Water out of my Wool Jacket? Then there's the lady who called to see how much it would be to clean her Drapes. We told her we did it by the pound. And that she could get a general idea by weighing herself holding the drapes. So she arrives at the counter, and says " I weigh 165, how much is it going to cost to clean my drapes? Thank goodness I was behind the mark in counter, as I was rolling on the floor laughing. Bob amazingly enough managed to explain it with a straight face.

One last thing we won the Tom Mosher - Dry Cleaner of the Year Award in 2003, but we didn't get around to doing our press release until just recently. I'm adding that here as this was the best Advertising we've ever done. I wrote up the release emailed it to Our Newspaper with the picture, and a week later Voila there it was. You should do this with any award you win, Certificate for a class you receive, etc... It's easy and it's FREE and your customers will love it. I've had customers coming by for 3 weeks now congratulating us, I've also received cards in the mail. So feel free to use mine, and re- write it to suit your cleaners.

Bob's Dry Cleaners wins Dry Cleaner of the Year Award

Leslie & Robert Kettenhofen were presented with the Oregon Dry Cleaners Association, "Tom Mosher" Dry Cleaner of the Year award which is given annually to dry cleaners for participation in the Association, the Dry Cleaning industry and their community. Tom Mosher was President of the Oregon Dry Cleaners Association in 1966 when he passed away, his wife Lois finished his term. To honor his dedication to the industry, the ODCA annually presents the Tom Mosher Award. This award recognizes the Outstanding Dry Cleaner of the Year, and this is the second time that the Florence Dry Cleaners has been the recipient of the award.

Neil Tompkins who started the dry cleaners in 1955 won the award in 1968. The cleaners was originally located on Maple Street across from the Siuslaw news. Neil moved the cleaners in 1960 to it's present location and was the first tenant to open in the Dunes Village shopping center.

Neil Sold the cleaners in the mid-eighties, and it went through several owners until Leslie and Bob purchased it in 1994. Both owners felt it was quite an honor to receive the award and posed with the plaque which travels from dry cleaner to dry cleaner each year. A small plaque is given to the cleaner to display permanently. Leslie is currently in the middle of her second term as District 3 Director for the Board of the ODCA, and is Newsletter editor, webmaster and head of the convention committee for the association.

Bob, Leslie & Neil Tompkins pictured with the Tom Mosher Award February 2005

How Dry Cleaning Works - I'm sharing this link as I've just added it to our Consumer Page. It's a really well done report. Dry Cleaners Directory - The internet has become a very large place and it's often difficult to find the resources you are looking for by just using a search engine. If you Search on Google for "Dry Cleaners" the response is 1,510,000 pages or search for "Dry Cleaners Supplies" and you receive 591,000 pages to review. The same with searching for Cleaners Point of Sale or many other things you might need as a cleaner. I don't know about you but I find it extremely difficult to browse through a million pages! So I've been compiling all the resources in one place this is has sections for both the Dry Cleaner and Consumer. Google News - This is a great source for information if you're looking for a specific news topic. "I've used Dry Cleaners in this search"
	Well if you like to read mysteries or even if you don't this is a great light hearted series of books by Dolores Johnson. They all take place with the back drop of a dry cleaners, and Dolores has done her homework in describing one. I first read Homicide and old Lace, when a customer brought it to me, figuring I'd get a kick out of it. Well she was right, I was hooked I've read the previous 6 and this latest one is on my list of things to read. Taking the Wrap: In her seventh adventure, Denver's intrepid dry-cleaner/sleuth, Mandy Dyer, encounters a baffling case of mistaken identity---or is it? After dining at a local mountaintop restaurant, Mandy's friend Laura discovers that someone has taken her coat and left another in its place. The only clue to the owner's identity is an unfamiliar dry-cleaning mark. Mandy's casual inquiries turn serious when a dead body is discovered dressed in Laura's missing coat. An investigation of the remote and forbidding crime scene puts Mandy right in the path of a mysterious mountain ambush and a very slippery foe. Complete List of Dolores Johnson Books

email: webmaster@oregondrycleaners.org

phone: 5419991493

web: http://www.oregondrycleaners.org