In the News and Media

Written by Lisa Leitz (Editor, Independent Review)

Dust, mud, gravel, seeds, even small dead frogs…lots of things end up tracked inside homes and businesses out here in farm country.

“We really do it all,” said Tino Martinez last week at his family’s company office in Othello.  Martinez, a soft-spoken young man with a shy smile, is the marketing director for Dura-Shine Clean, a residential and commercial cleaning company owned by the Martinez family that began when Tino was just fifteen years old.

And no, we’re not making up the frog part.

From cleaning Columbia Basin Health Association’s medical facilities in Othello, Connell, and Mattawa, to Whitman Bank in Royal City, to Lep-re-kon groceries in Mattawa and Othello, to the Syngenta seed plant in Warden, Dura-Shine employees are busy spiffing things up after most of us have gone home to bed.

The Othello family’s business had humble beginnings back in the early nineties, when one of the Martinez boys unexpectedly died.  Dura-Shine’s executive director Carlos Martinez became somber for a moment when he talked about the family’s need to supplement their income in order to pay for this brother’s funeral expenses.

Their mother, Conception Martinez, was already working full-time on the processing line at Simplot, but she started cleaning evenings and weekends to help pay for her son’s funeral and also put food on the table, as did the other Martinez family members.

Truth be known, Carlos says, the family actually worked for another cleaning business in Othello for a little while. “And we couldn’t believe what we were being asked to clean with,” he said. “the chemicals weren’t good, we didn’t have the right tools, they didn’t give us enough time…we knew there had to be a better way.”

So the family put their seven heads together and started making phone calls. “We did our research,” Martinez said, which included contacting professional cleaning business associations.  “We decided to do our homework and learn from the mistakes other people had made.”  With the Martinez matriarch’s meticulousness, and her children’s willingness to work hard, the business soon took off.

The company received a “best of business” award for 2009 in the building maintenance services category from the Small Business Commerce Association in San Francisco.  The SBCA award program recognizes the top 5% of small businesses throughout the nation, and uses consumer feedback to identify awardees.  “Award winners are a valuable asset to their community and exemplify what make small businesses great,” stated a press release from the SBCA.

Some days, Carlos said, he wakes up and can’t believe the family’s success.  They now employ about 60 people, 24 of those full-time, and have clients in a huge area ranging from Walla Walla to Yakima, Warden to Moses Lake.

The Martinezes attribute their success to hiring people who also believe in their mission.  “We clean a building in the Tri-Cities where 600 employees work,” Carlos said.  “So if just one of those employees notices their wastebasket wasn’t emptied one time, and says something to their boss on the floor, that makes us look bad,” he said.

The biggest issue in the industry is quality, he said. “A lot of people just think all cleaning companies are the same…people will do a good job for six months or so and then start letting you down,” he said.  “We’re different.”

The company is responsible for seeing that their employees have the best chemicals, tools, and training to do a good job, he noted.  The two Martinez brothers could barely schedule time to meet last week, since they were readying for a big employee appreciation dinner that they host for their workers every year.  “We’re lucky, and we’re blessed…and we’ve got great people working for us and we’ve got great clients,” Carlos said.

The company’s first customer was the late P.J. Taggares, and even though Taggares’s building on Broadway in Othello was sold after his death, the company is still cleaning it – seventeen years later.  “We’ve built our business wholly through word of mouth,” he said.  “People know we do a good job, and we’ve had customers with us for twelve, fifteen years…and we clean pretty much this whole town,” he said, grinning.

What’s the biggest challenge the company has had to face?  Carlos said he believes it’s staying engaged in the communities they work in.

“I consider Othello my home,” Carlos said.  “I was born here, my wife was born here, my first child was born here.”

But he recently made the decision to move to Tri-Cities so he could follow the business there more closely, he said.  The company owns a 5,000 square-foot warehouse where inventory, supplies and equipment are shipped.  “It was a hard decision, but the company needed to grow,” he said.

But even so, Martinez said he still wants to be involved in the Othello community.  “Making sure we’re still engaged here is really important to us,” he said.

Nobody in the family has a degree in business, but as the company’s gotten bigger, Carlos said they frequently rely on help from their attorney and accountant.  “We had 35% growth last year…and that was a Recession year,” he said.  “That’s pretty amazing…I’ll take that any year.”

Four of the five Martinez children still work for Dura-Shine, and that results in a little friendly family competition, Carlos said.  The company recently received a call to clean at an event in Connell, and Carlos said when he talked to his mother about whether the Tri-Cities office Carlos manages or the Othello office his mother manages should handle the event, his mom promptly informed him her office would be handling the call.

“She said, ‘we clean better than you guys do,’ “, he said, laughing.  “But that’s OK, that competition between those of us at the company – we’re always looking for ways to be better – that’s what makes us who we are.”

In the photograph:
The Martinez family: (front, from left to right) Dura-Shine president Concepcion Martinez, Carlos’s daughter Aleeza Martinez, and executive vice president and CEO Carlos Martinez. Back row: Marketing director Tino Martinez, distribution manager Florentino Martinez, operations manager Jonathan Martinez, office and human resources manager Mona Lisa Martinez, and account executive and business development manager Patricia M. Fernandez.

By Mary Hopkin
editor@tricitiesbusinessnews.com

Linda Cowdrey knew there would come a time when she would have to have someone come in to clean her Kennewick home.

Cowdrey, who has breast cancer and lives alone, was getting along – able to wash dishes, dust and do light cleaning.  But washing the floors and scrubbing the bathroom were out of the question, she said.  She doesn’t have the energy or strength.

She was prepared to hire someone when she found out about the Cleaning for a Reason program through a breast cancer support group.

Cleaning for a Reason is a foundation based in Texas that caters to women cancer patients, offering free home cleanings once a month for up to four months.

Dura-Shine Clean is the local partner that provides the cleaning service and that sent two workers to clean Cowdrey’s home.

Carlos Martinez, Dura-Shine’s senior vice president and CEO, said he was inspired  to participate in the program after meeting its founder, Deborah Sardone, at an industry conference.

“It just sounded like a great way to give back to the community,” said Martinez. “They are going through a hard time so this really means a lot to them.”

Martinez works with local hospitals, hospice organizations and otheres to get the owrd out to cancer victims that the service is available.  He said Dura-Shine Clean averages two to three “Cleaning for a Reason” services a month right now, but he’d like to be doing one a week.

“We really want to get the word out and let people know about this,” he said.

As of November, the Cleaning for a Reason national partners had cleaned more than 2,000 homes at an estimated donated cost of $350,000, according to the Foundation.

The Foundation recruits residential housecleaning businesses to donate time and money.  Each cleaning company commits to serving at least two free accounts a month and contributes monthly financial pledges that are used to help sustain the base operations of the program.

Cleaning for a Reason now has more than 350 partners throughout the U.S. and Canada.

“We are the only partner in the Tri-Cities,” Martinez said.  “But there is one in Yakima, too.”

Cowdrey said the two Dura-Shine Clean workers that came in and cleaned her house did a really good job and helped “ease her load.”

“I was really grateful,” she said.  “They came in and got right to work and they’ll be back this month.”

Sometimes the small things most people don’t think consider, like having a clean house to come home to when one has been through chemotherapy and isn’t feeling well, that mean the most.

“People are so appreciative,” Martinez said.  “We’ll even have family members call us to thank us.  We figure, we’ll focus on their cleaning sothey can focus on their health.”

For more information, go to www.cleaningforareason.org or call Dura-Shine Clean at 946-2018.

Small Business Commerce Association’s Award Honors the Achievement

SAN FRANCISCO, November 8, 2009, Dura-Shine Clean has been selected for the 2009 Best of Business Award in the Building Maintenance Services category by the Small Business Commerce Association (SBCA).

The Small Business Commerce Association (SBCA) is pleased to announce that Dura-Shine Clean has been selected for the 2009 Best of Business Award in the Building Maintenance Services category.

The SBCA 2009 Award Program recognizes the top 5% of small businesses throughout the country.  Using consumer feedback, the SBCA identifies companies that we believe have demonstrated what makes small businesses a vital part of the American economy.  The selection committee chooses the award winners from nominees based off information taken from monthly surveys administered by the SBCA, a review of consumer rankings, and other consumer reports.  Award winners are a valuable assett to their community and exemplify what makes small businesses great.

About Small Business Commerce Association (SBCA):
Small Business Commerce Association (SBCA) is a San Francisco based organization.

The SBCA is a private sector entity that aims to provide tactical guidance with many day to day issues that small business owners face.  In addition to our main goal of providing a central repository of small business operational advice, we use consumer feedback to identify companies that exemplify what makes small business a vital part of the American economy.

SOURCE: Small Business Commerce Association

Article by KVEW 42 (ABC):

RICHLAND — The economic recession is forcing many companies to close, but a Tri-City cleaning business is on the rise.

Dura-Shine Clean began serving the Tri-Cites six years ago from Pasco.

Today, the business holds it’s grand re-opening at a new, larger location in Richland.

Dura-Shine Clean’s business grew 30% last year.

This year, it’s seeing a 20% increase on top of that.

The CEO tells us the new location is four times larger than the Pasco location.

And the growth in business allows him to hire more employees.

“We built this company with great processes and great staff and so therefore we are thriving in a time where the recession is going on” said Carlos Martinez, Dura-Shine Clean CEO.

Martinez says he gets service calls from as far away as Yakima.

He says if business continues to grow, he could start a new office in central Washington.

Article by The Tri-Cities Area Journal of Business:

Concepcion Martinez and her sons Carlos and Tino started Dura-Shine Clean in 1993 to make a little extra cash.

Sixteen years later, the small office cleaning company that started in Othello, has 40 employees and a fleet of 11 vans.

Carlos Martinez said the family didn’t know much about cleaning when they started.

“One of our family members worked for a company and they were always complaining about how poor the cleaning was,” said Martinez, senior vice president and CEO. “They were just frustrated with the quality of the janitorial service. We thought, ‘It doesn’t make sense to pay a lot of money and be unhappy with the result.’”

The family started Dura-Shine with a primary focus on office cleaning and janitorial services in a single office.

And after about nine years cleaning part-time, Carlos Martinez knew he had to make a choice.

“I reached a crossroads,” he said. “Do I stay with my day job and leave this? Or do I do this full-time? I decided to do this full time. It needed more attention and I decided to go for it.”

In 2004, Dura-Shine opened its Tri-Cities office. Hapo Credit Union contacted the company about construction site cleanup and after some research in the area the family decided it would be a good place to open an office.

The original office is still run by Concepcion Martinez.

Martinez said Dura-Shine saw 30 percent growth in 2008 and business is up 20 percent in the first six weeks of 2009, he said.

Beverly Rivas, Richland branch manager of the Bank of the West, said she was impressed with the company after just a few weeks of service and surprised at the attention to detail.

“We’ve never had our phones cleaned before,” she said. “The first day we came in after a cleaning, we were just amazed at how outstanding it was. I’ve been very pleased.”

About 90 percent of Dura-Shine’s business is commercial or industrial, Carlos Martinez said, and the rest is homes.

“At first I wasn’t even going to monkey around with residential,” Martinez said. “But we ended up doing a lot of businesses and we’d have executives and even employees asking if we could do their homes because we did such a good job on the business. They trusted us at their office and they knew they could trust us in their homes.”

That trust is important to the Martinez family.

“We’re serving our clients,” Martinez said. “People are giving us the keys to their facilities and trusting that when they come in the morning, everything will still be there. We take that seriously.”

Dura-Shine Clean offers virtually all cleaning services, including windows, carpet and hard floors, upholstery, construction site clean-up, exterior washing and janitorial training.

“I’ve always felt that we’re based on quality. If you put up a good product, they’ll buy it. In this industry, a lot of companies will try to go for the dirt-cheap businesses, going for the lowest bid, but you get what you pay for,” Martinez said.

The company has about 40 employees, with 22 working out of the Tri-Cities office and they expect to hire more workers this year.

The Martinez’s consider their employees part of the family.

“Our first employee is still our first employee,” Martinez said. “That’s unheard of in this industry.”

Most cleaning services have high employee turnover, he said.

“We have high retention and low turnover – that makes a difference, and it makes a difference in our quality,” Martinez said.

Martinez said he tries to treat his employees well and hopes to provide benefits like healthcare and retirement plans to them soon. He said that most workers make more than minimum wage, and the company tries to reward its employees.

Last year, the family took employees and their families –more than 170 people –to Silverwood Theme Park for a day. The company paid for tickets, meals and travel costs. The trip cost more than $7,000.

They have also helped employees get GED’s and learn English. They would like to provide those opportunities to more employees and might make a company-wide effort on education and citizenship. Employees know the management hasn’t let their suits and ties change their attitudes.

“I can sit here and talk about quality all day, but if they don’t keep it up we’re not any different from anyone else out there,” Martinez said. “I’m not afraid to go in and clean a toilet. I’m glad to do that. We’ll go in as a staff and clean the place for the first time, setting the standard, then they keep it up.”

Cleaning costs depend on the size, number of employees and frequency of cleaning. Some businesses have daily service; others opt for weekly and some are bi-weekly. Residential cleaning prices fall under the same guidelines.

Martinez said the company offers cleaning services 24-hours per day, seven days a week, to fit into any schedule clients need.

Carlos Martinez said he knows his company doesn’t have the lowest prices, but said they offer the best services.

“This industry has so much turnover of janitorial services,” he said. “The national average is that there’s a turnover in janitorial staff every 24 months. That’s because so much of the time people take the lowest bid, which is not usually the best quality.”

One of Martinez’s goals is to continue growing Dura-Shine.

“We’re going to continue to be committed to quality,” he said. “Often as a business grows they lose that commitment, but we’re not going to do that. We want to have measured and controlled growth.”

Martinez said he would like to open another office in Sunnyside or Yakima in the next five years.

Quality, while important, is only one part of the business. Martinez is a member of all the Tri-Cities chamber of commerce organizations and attends many community events. Since the business has had stable growth, he’s been more involved.

Those kinds of connections are invaluable, he said.

“It’s very important to us to be involved with the community and give back,” he said. “We want to continue to do that and continue to grow our business. Our first client is still our client, and that’s something we’re very proud of.”

Dura-Shine Clean is at 1841 Terminal Dr. in Richland and (509) 946-2018.  They are online at www.dura-shineclean.com.

Article by The Tri-Cities Area Journal of Business:

This issue marks our inaugural “Young Entrepreneurs” section, starting on page 11. The feature celebrates those youthful business leaders who stand out in their field, accomplish great things today and will likely continue to shine for the rest of their careers.

For the past few months we’ve been promoting the nomination process, and nominate you did. We received far more recommendations than we’re able to include, and choosing from such a pool of talented individuals proved quite challenging. Ultimately, we tried to pick dynamic visionaries from a variety of industries.

We hope this section encourages mentoring, and that the more established members of our business community embrace the contributions of their younger colleagues.

From achieving high levels of success in their given professions to excelling within their own companies, this hardworking, dynamic group of young leaders proves their future—and that of the Mid-Columbia business community—is bright.

All Young Entrepreneurs’ photos were taken by Eric Schultheiss, owner of Essence Photography, located in historic downtown Kennewick. Reach him at (509) 531-0034 and view his portfolio online at www.essenceapc.com.