Clean clothes never go out of style.
Irvine-based Prudential Overall Supply has been supplying and cleaning work clothes for auto mechanics, restaurants, city workers, factories and others for 75 years now. Last year, the company had $127 million in revenue.
Some things have changed along the way. For the past few decades, Prudential Overall has run a special clean room division to wash clothes for science labs, where even one stray eyelash could contaminate a multimillion-dollar piece of equipment.
Prudential’s clean room operation is featured in a Smithsonian Institution display. Some of its clean room garb was worn by a doctor in the movie “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.”
The company once made uniforms itself but no longer can compete with foreign makers, according to Prudential executives. The move away from making uniforms to supplying and cleaning them boosted profits, they said.
Chairman Dan Clark is quick to credit employees,there are 1,625 workers companywide at 19 laundry plants and 10 service centers.
“The people who work here are the essence of this company,” he said.
Walking through the company’s Irvine plant, Clark and President Tom Watts exchange “good mornings” with every worker they come across.
Training programs and promoting from within have preserved the company’s family culture, they say.
“We’re very family oriented,” Watts said.
Clark’s father, John D. Clark, started the business in 1932 at the age of 22 after he moved to Los Angeles from Iowa. John Clark died in 1991.
For two years, John Clark worked as a gas station attendant and delivery boy for a launderer that catered to medical workers.
He saw a chance to offer laundry services to other industries, according to Dan Clark.
So John Clark traded in his Model A Ford for a delivery truck. He made $4.86 in his first week. Prudential’s first facility was a small shed made of tin.
The original name was Prudential Laundry, a name John Clark thought suggested strength and character. The name Prudential Overall came later, denoting the typical uniform blue-collar workers wore in the 1930s.
Seven years after starting the company, John Clark’s parents sold their Iowa farm and moved to California to become partners with their son.
Today, Prudential has sites in Nevada, Arizona, Oregon, Texas, New Mexico and Virginia.
Clean Room
In the 1960s, the company got into providing ultra sterile clean room clothes for space scientists. The uniforms are free of any dust or other contamination.
The idea to enter the space race came from Dan Clark’s uncle, Don Clark.
Don Clark came into the business after a career as a professional football player and head coach of the University of Southern California’s football team from 1957 to 1959. He was at Prudential from 1960 to 1984 as an executive vice president, president and chairman.
These days, Prudential’s clean room clients include Intel Corp., Baxter International Inc. and Amgen Inc. The division is about 20% of the company’s business.
The bulk of the business lies in traditional laundry and uniform services.
Prudential offers companies their pick of uniform colors and designs, many with logos on them. It supplies the uniforms and then takes care of them, replacing worn ones. It also offers shop towels, mats and restroom services.
The industry is pegged at about $30 billion a year, according to President Watts. About $13 billion of that is serviced by industrial launderers such as Prudential, he said.
Big players Aramark Corp., Cintas Corp. and Alsco Inc. dominate.
Sales at Prudential have been growing for the past four years at a roughly 5% clip, according to executives. Last year, the company saw a 10% gain, they said.
“The goal is to fill all of the plants to capacity,” Watts said. “Right now we’re running at 65% capacity.”
Prudential has about a quarter of the Southern California market, he said.
The company’s white and blue trucks with an orange stripe down the middle pick up dirty clothes.
Irvine Operation
InNext to Prudential’s headquarters is a 35,000-square-foot plant where 80 people handle more than 70,000 pounds of laundry a week.
At the end of each day, trucks come in with laundry. Just like at home, colors and fabrics are separated before being put into machines.
Prudential’s Irvine plant has four 450-pound-capacity washing machines. A household washer may hold 18 pounds.
The Irvine plant has the company’s oldest equipment. Orders are in for new washers that’ll hold 800 pounds.
The secret isn’t the soap but the shuffling motion of the washers, Watts said.
Clothes are put on conveyer belts where they are dried and treated with blasts of steam to get wrinkles out.
About 5% of the washing is for executive business clothes. The majority is of the blue-collar variety.
The final leg of the process is when the clean clothes are delivered back to businesses.
Dan Clark is the majority holder owner of Prudential Overall, along with other shareholders.
As chairman, he said he sees it as his duty to preserve the company culture his father created.
“I wasn’t planning to get into the business,” he said. “My dad and I had a great relationship. I didn’t want to mess it up.”
Dan Clark first worked as a sorter and clerk for the business.
He came on permanently in 1968 at the age of 22 as a management trainee. He recalls his father “ordering” him to come in after the company lost some key personnel.
Calling Clients
InMaking a hundred visits to clients each year, Dan Clark said he enjoys the time he dedicates to maintaining good relationships.
“The board says I’m wasting my time, but I know it’s important to clients,” he said.
“Dan is the epitome of an employee’s and customer’s advocate,” Watts said.
Dan Clark’s son, John D. Clark, works with the company as a business systems analyst. His first job with the company was working summers as a towel folder.
Other relatives also have worked for the company, including Dan Clark’s aunt Bernice Clark Shoberg, who worked for the company from 1939 to 1983 and was a general manager. Uncle Frank Clark worked from 1939 to 1987 and was a general manager.
Management training programs are key to success, according to Dan Clark.
“We want to develop from within,” he said.
Watts, charged with running the operations, has been with the company since 1975.
He began his career as a delivery driver, following his father who also was a driver with the company.
“I really liked the people, they were very friendly and outgoing,” he said.
Watts moved through the ranks, working as a general manager and operations vice president.
“I’m not much on desk sitting, but getting out with other people and showing them how to do it better is a big part of what I like to do,” he said.
Managing people is Watts’ biggest challenge, he said.
The company has about 20% employee turnover per year.
“It all comes down to getting them, training them and keeping them,” Watts said.
