Red River Sanitors Inc. celebrates 50th
In 1963, Claude E. Young began building Red River Janitorial Services from the ground up.
Unafraid of a hard day’s work, the then 33-year-old Young served as the company’s only employee for several years. By day, he donned a suit and made sales calls to potential customers. At night, he exchanged the suit for work clothes and returned to those customers to do the work.
“My father started the business with a used vacuum cleaner that was given to him by my grandmother,” current President and Chief Executive Officer Michael B. Young said. “In the early years, he focused on general office cleaning.”
Today, 50 years later, Red River Sanitors has grown to 900 employees providing services to more than 500 commercial accounts, including office buildings, manufacturers, medical facilities, retail shops, schools and government agencies. The company has five locations and provides services in Louisiana, Arkansas and Texas.
“We provide specialty services including carpet cleaning, crime scene clean-up, stripping/waxing floors, marble floor restoration, fire and water restoration, construction clean-up, lawn care and many other services,” Young said.
Over the past five decades, the sanitation business has evolved from a mom and pop operation to a professional corporate enterprise complete with high-tech equipment, employee training programs, computerized record and time keeping as well as state-of-the-art automatic equipment which allows quicker customer response time and more efficient service.
“In order to stay competitive in today’s market, you must hold business designations such as the Clean Industry Management Standard Green Building Certification, be active in the Worldwide Cleaning Industry Association and the Building Service Contractors Association International,” Young said. “And you have to participate in annual peer group audits as well as offer multiple services to your customers.”
The world has gotten plenty more contaminated and disease-ridden since Red River Sanitors opened for business. To combat today’s contaminants and diseases, Young said sanitizing chemicals have replaced disinfectant chemicals.
Today’s corporate world is also more sophisticated and security-conscience said Young, which means they are more selective when hiring serviceproviders like sanitation companies.
“They want to hire companies like ours who are licensed and bonded, run nationwide background checks and complete e-verify (making sure employees have valid social security numbers),” he said.
One positive change the company has seen over the years is the disappearance of the office ash tray. “On every office desk there used to be an ash tray that we would have to empty and wash,” he said. “Today there are no ash trays on desks.”
One service offered by Red River Sanitors that lends itself to the dramatic is the crime scene clean up.
After the horror of certain crimes, someone has to restore and sanitize the environment. “We have a special division trained to clean-up the scene of any crime and we’re are available 24 hours a day for this service,” he said.
Young said it’s their commitment to quality control, their computer software capabilities and their 24-hour customer call center that set them apart from competitors.
Quality control managers assigned to each account perform monthly inspections on-site to ensure that the services being performed are in accordance with the customer’s contract and expectations.
The company uses the most up-to-date computer software programs to manage the business. “We use a computer software program written specifically for janitorial companies to manage our accounting, and work scheduling,” Young said. “It includes an automated time-keeping system which allows our janitorial staff to check in and out from their assigned buildings.
If an employee fails to check in, the system automatically alerts an area manager. “ Red River Sanitors celebrated its 50 anniversary and customer appreciation ribbon cutting Sept. 24. More than 100 attended including Shreveport and Bossier Chamber representatives, customers and management staff. Also attending were Oscar Johnson, a member of the company’s janitorial staff for 45 years, and Kenny Adcock representing Nabisco, a corporate customers for 46 years.
– Jeff Slaughter
