Background
Every day there is a big pile of dirty laundry from the 4.1 million hotel rooms in the United States. Most of it is cleaned in on-premise laundry facilities at each hotel. Faced with the financial demands of re-equipping older laundries as well as the shortage of competent management and production staff, hotels are now willing to consider out-sourcing this important service to qualified suppliers.
Hotel/Casinos in the Atlantic City, Las Vegas, and Biloxi, have recognized the benefits of out-sourcing their laundry requirements. Large, dedicated laundries provide cost-effective service using "state of the art" processing facilities that maximize economies of scale. One of these laundry companies, Gulf Coast Laundry Services(GCLS), has developed a successful business model serving casino/hotels and has expanded it to include hotels in New Orleans, Louisiana. as well as Mobile, Alabama.
Gulf Coast Laundry Services
From 10,000 pounds a day to over 80,000 pounds a day. From 18 employees to over 140. In seven years, Gulf Coast Laundry Service (GCLS) has grown to become the largest privately owned commercial laundry in the southeastern United States.
In June, 1997, as the 1,780 room Beau Rivage Hotel was under construction, there was no commercial laundry resource available to handle the daily requirements for this large property. Grand Casinos, with 1,000 rooms was in the process of doubling their size as well. Neither of these companies had plans to operate on-premise laundries. The owners of Beau Rivage, Mirage Resorts, Inc., asked their Executive Director of Laundry Services, David Gross, to build a laundry facility to handle their needs. They wanted it to be a private enterprise with Gross owning and operating the facility. Using the momentum that was created by this decision, Gross solicited Grand Casinos to join in the project. They not only decided to have Gross provide laundry services to their properties, but also gave their assistance to help get the laundry open by February 1, 1998, to handle their new Bayview Hotel.
With a little over 100 days to accomplish the task, Gross convinced Mike Uriz to join the team and manage the project. Along with David's wife, Patti, they designed, built, equipped, and staffed the laundry in time to handle the Grand's new hotel. In 1999, Steve Florence joined the executive team to provide additional depth and experience to our growing enterprise.
Excellent Service = Sustained Growth
Each hotel served by GCLS has unique requirements. The GCLS business model allows for a tailored approach to customer service. The processing and handling systems can accommodate any re-usable textile items. Our customers expect and receive high quality, consistent cost effective processing of all textile items. All service issues are handled with a high "sense of urgency". The results have been dramatic. Our customers are our best sales force.
As you can see from the chronology, the growth has been steady and significant
over the past seven years. In fact, revenue growth was so substantial
that we received national recognition by INC magazine.
With record
revenues of $6.4 Million in 2003, GCLS achieved a place on the INC
500 list of fastest growing privately held companies in the United
States. With a five year revenue growth of 571%, the company was
ranked No. 310 on the list.
