Tulsa World June 2003
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Business Focus: Cleaning up

The following article appeared in the June 29th, 2003 Issue of the Tulsa World Newspaper

Thu Le (left) and Maricela Diaz operate a blanket-folding machine at Superior Linen Service Inc.'s facility in Muskogee.  In May, Superior Linen dedicated a $1.8 million, 10,500-square-foot addition to the Muskogee operation, bringing it to its present size.
 

Specialty launderer is key player in four-state region

Doug Waldman, president of Superior Linen Service Inc., says the company washes more than 600,000 pounds of linen a week and more than 1 million napkins a month.
 

Superior Linen Service Inc., the Tulsa-based linen supply and laundry service with plants in Tulsa, Muskogee and Springdale, Ark., has prospered by specializing and allowing its customers to do what they do best.
Based in Tulsa but serving 4,000 business customers in southern Kansas and Missouri, western Arkansas and Oklahoma, Superior Linen Service has grown from 20 employees when it was incorporated in Oklahoma in 1984 to 350 today. Two-thirds of its business is laundering linen napkins, tablecloths and garments for restaurants and country clubs; the remainder is supplying clean bed sheets, towels and operating room linen to hospitals and the health care industry.
"We wash over 600,000 pounds of linen a week. We do over 1 million napkins a month," said Doug Waldman, who is president of Superior Linen and whose grandfather, Irving Waldman, started the business in Tulsa in 1954 as Industrial Uniform and Towel Supply. "We are able to do it a lot cheaper than our customers could do it themselves. Our labor, utility and water savings more than make up for our distribution costs."
In its four-state territory, Superior Linen has about 15 competitors. Some compete only regionally or lo cally. A few do business throughout the four-state region.
Waldman said the linen business is mostly a regional enterprise.
"It can't be mass-marketed because the customers are so different, which is why we specialize in the high end of the business -- country clubs and restaurants -- so we can partner with our customers and find out what their needs are," Waldman said. "In the nicer restaurants and country clubs, you have to be in there almost on a daily basis to learn who their customers are and what they need."
With its corporate offices in Tulsa, the company operates industrial laundry plants in Tulsa, Muskogee and Springdale, Ark.
Its largest plant is the 50,000-square-foot facility at 534 S. Rockford Ave., a half-mile north of Hillcrest Medical Center in Tulsa. That plant employs 140 people.
The company's second-largest plant, at 40,000 square feet and 100 employees, is in Muskogee at 3300 S. 24th St. West. It is the plant that specializes in service to the health care industry. In May, the company dedicated a $1.8 million, 10,500-square-foot addition to the Muskogee facility, bringing it to its present size.
"The cleaning processes, the chemicals and merchandise -- bed linens, sheets, towels, operating room linen -- are completely different from the hospitality industry," Waldman said.
The 35,000-square-foot Springdale plant at 1648 E. Mountain Road has 100 employees. It serves hospitality customers in western and northwestern Arkansas.
While Waldman prefers not to air his dirty linen in public, he said Superior Linen is able to remove tough stains through the use of advanced washing machines and special chemical processes that can only be used in an industrial setting. The company has six or seven chemical solutions that can remove harsh stains yet don't harm the linen, he said.
"We consider ourselves to be an environmentally friendly company that reuses cloth napkins as opposed to disposable napkins," Waldman said. "Our health care plant in Muskogee uses 1.5 gallons of water for every pound of linen we wash. A home washer would use 10 gallons of water per pound of clothing, depending on the age of the machine.
"We use computer-controlled industrial washers. Our largest is a 12-module tunnel washer that holds 1,300 pounds of dirty linen at the beginning of the cycle and spits out 130-pound loads every 90 seconds. Nobody has to touch the linen from beginning to end. It's all done by conveyors."
Superior Linen's other environmentally friendly component is the reuse of water. During the laundry process, final rinse water is recycled for use as the initial rinse for soiled linen, Waldman said.
In Tulsa and much of its service area, the company's business has been depressed for the past couple of years.
"We're still adding customers, but our existing customers are doing less business than they did a couple of years ago," Waldman said. "In the last couple of months, it's leveled out or is slightly headed upward, adjusted for seasonal differences. It's not going down anymore."
It's a different story in Northwest Arkansas where Superior Linen's business mirrors the local economy.
"In the Northwest Arkansas market, it's still booming, still growing rapidly," Waldman said.

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