A Clean Sweep Upstarts Battle Giants For Contracts To Perform Janitorial Work

For many years, Bounlam Vorachack logged 12 hours a night tidying up after Spokane office slobs and restaurant patrons. He brushed their carpets, picked sunflower shells out of their keyboards and shined the toilet seats they sat on.

So what kind of life is that for a 37-year-old bachelor?

Good enough that Vorachack, a Laotian refugee, bid adieu to his boss last year to start Boone Janitorial Service out of his North Side apartment.

“It’s honest work; better than no job at all,” says Vorachack, who swam the Mekong River l5 years ago to escape communist soldiers.

While Vorachack may sound resigned, he is intensely motivated to succeed on his own. And he’s not alone.

In an industry where almost anyone with a vacuum can start a company, Vorachack is among an army of entrepreneurs trying to break into an Inland Northwest janitorial market dominated by two companies - Allied Janitorial Services and American Building Maintenance Co.

Theirs is a nocturnal industry, where janitors innocently walk in on executives’ sexual trysts and get blamed for everything from dusty computer monitors to lost records.

It’s also a frustrating business, where desperate managers hire employees sight unseen.

Odds of success for newcomers are low, but that hasn’t kept dozens from trying.

Encouraged by building owners who benefit from price-bidding wars and franchise companies who benefit from expansion fees and royalties, a new janitorial company opens in Eastern Washington or North Idaho about once a month, city business licenses indicate. State records show that there are about 100 Spokane County janitorial companies.

Many are started by people who have worked for other companies and believe they can do a better job. Some have just one employee - the owner.

But nearly as many companies go out of business as start up. Of the 12 janitorial companies in Coeur d’Alene which advertised in the 1991 Yellow Pages, only two of them remain; but 10 new ones have ads in the 1994 Yellow Pages.

“There’s a ton of little companies out there: a wife and husband, me and two mops,” says Bob Whitehead, owner of Service 1 in Spokane and a 12-year veteran of the business.

More than 1,350 janitors worked in Spokane County last year, up from 1,200 in 1993, state Department of Employment figures show.

The rise in the number of small operators comes at a trying time for Inland Northwest janitorial firms. Unemployment rates are down and qualified employees scarce. That’s put upward pressure on wage rates at a time when property owners are seeking to reduce their third-largest operating expense - janitors.

“It’s a real cutthroat business,” says Dave Watkins, the energetic 39-year-old owner of Allied Janitorial Service, the largest cleaning company in Spokane. “We’re in a real squeeze.”

Watkins, who employs 300 full- and part-time janitors, says he’s considering raising his starting wage from $5.25 to $5.50 an hour to attract more workers. That would encourage janitors, who could make more money flipping hamburgers at fastfood restaurants.

Allied and San Francisco-based American Building Maintenance are the biggest commercial cleaners in Spokane, each boasting about $5 million in annual sales. Their janitors clean such buildings as Tidyman’s supermarkets, Hewlett-Packard, Spokane International Airport, and the Seafirst Financial Center.

But they don’t do every building. About 13 million square feet of office and retail space in Spokane County needs to be cleaned on a regular basis, according to a real estate survey by Kiemle & Hagood Co., a large Spokane property manager.

Building owners worry that Allied and ABM some day could merge, forging a monopoly that would command steep rates. That’s led some building managers to experiment with fledgling janitorial services, with a goal of increasing the competition.

“We’d like to see at least three strong janitorial companies in town,” says Craig Soehren, senior property manager for Kiemle & Hagood, which oversees 1.5 million square feet of office and retail space.

Small companies looking to land some big accounts may have an opportunity - if they can keep prices low. But property managers are reluctant to depend too heavily on small operators for major high-rises, which require special equipment and a large labor force.

In recent years, property owners have been successful in keeping cleaning costs from skyrocketing.

In downtown Spokane, property owners in 1993 paid an average of $1.01 per square foot for cleaning. That’s $50,500 a year for a 50,000-square-foot building, according to the Building Owners and Managers Association. But only 7 percent higher than the average rate paid in 1990.

The growing number of newcomers is one reason that prices have held steady. Each owner vies for the same accounts, and boasts that they have superior quality, training and prices. Each guarantees their work, often by doing it themselves.

“To really make the business run, you have to get your hands in the bucket,” says Don Anderson, a former Sears Roebuck & Co. manager who owns one of several Servicemaster outlets in Spokane.

Stan Dotzler is another cleaning entrepreneur who dumped a career - as a manufactured housing salesman in Oregon - to jump into the janitorial trade. He opened a North Spokane franchise office for Environment Control late last year because he believes Allied and ABM didn’t have enough competition.

“There’s plenty of business to support all the agencies,” Dotzler says.

Will McGurk, a 32-year-old businessman who has worked in the past for Allied, ABM and several other companies, says he launched his own company two months ago as an alternative to mainstream services.

National Maintenance Contractors will succeed because it solves the problem of high turnover among janitors by paying them the kind of money normally reserved for owners, McGurk says.

National sells franchises to janitors in exchange for guaranteed cleaning contracts. Under National’s plan, janitors pay a one-time franchise fee that is five times what they hope to earn each month. A $10,000 fee to National results in cleaning contracts worth $2,000 a month; a $15,000 fee gets $3,000 in business, and so on. Janitors also pay 20 percent of gross sales as a royalty to National.

“We’re going to create a bunch of janitors that are paid like Boeing workers,” says McGurk. “You make $14 to $15 an hour in Spokane, and you can do pretty well.”

Dotzler, however, is skeptical of National’s plan, saying it’s a fancy way to lure good janitors from other companies with promises that National may have difficulty fulfilling.

“There’s only so many ways to cut the same pie,” Dotzler says.

But established janitorial services aren’t taking any chances with the deals offered by National or any of the new companies.

Allied rewarded its managers last year with thousands of dollars in bonuses, Watkins says. And ABM threw pizza parties for HewlettPackard crews whenever H-P cited the janitors for superior work.

“Janitors have a very difficult job and I won’t short-change them for anything,” says Cheryl Forbes, manager of ABM in Spokane, one of the few union shops.

But some janitors give the industry a bad name, and business owners regularly blame them for theft, misplaced files and empty toilet roll dispensers.

Kenneth Eldore, who bought Professional Building Maintenance in 1993, says that some of the wreckage is industrial sabotage.

“It ranges from pulling toilet paper out to leaving handprints on the mirrors,” Eldore says. “The next day, a sales person shows up to solicit the business.”

But other janitors are unsung heroes.

In October, while janitor John Kavanaugh was wiping down tables at the NorthTown food court, a woman began choking on pizza crust. Using life-saving techniques, Kavanaugh dislodged the crust from her throat, and returned to his table tops.

“I never was formally introduced to her,” Kavanaugh says. “She left pretty fast so I guess she was embarrassed.”

Vorachack, the Laotian janitor, said cleaning buildings and restaurants often is a thankless job. But with a little imagination and hard work, it can be rewarding.

“I try to make my customers happy, and that makes me happy, too,” he says.

MEMO: A sidebar appeared with this story under the headline “Cleaning up.”