Banking on Success

For Don Schelling, the bottom dropped out in 1997, before he even became a member of the drycleaning industry.

After working in the banking and accounting professions for almost two decades, Don had suddenly found himself "position eliminated" from his job as vice president and sales manager for the commercial division of a bank. He was 50 years old at the time.

"I had never been unemployed in my life," he said.

It was a very stressful time, especially since earlier that year he had been divorced from his wife of 28 years. Making matters worse, debt piled up enough where Don had to become a bit creative in order to avoid paying rent for a while.

"I house sat for three years," Don recalled. "It was my job to do business development with the bank, so I would know people who were well off. I would also know the people who leave in the summer or people who go in the winter. Those were easy to find. I stayed in two houses for three years - one in the summer, one in the winter, but it was harder in the spring and fall. I moved 11 times then in one year."

Don's nomadic lifestyle, however, did not solve all of his financial problems. "I got divorced in March of 1997. I lost my job at the bank July 31st of 1997 and I still couldn't even afford to park downtown," he said. "One of the greater learnings of my life... here I am a vice president and blah-blah-blah of this bank and I couldn't afford the parking."

So, Don cut a deal with a nearby Roadway Hotel, donning galoshes every Sunday night so that he could hose down and clean their parking lot in exchange for free parking privileges.

"At first, it was absolutely mortifying to me," Don said. "You know how you build yourself up with that self-esteem crap? I realized, 'Who the Hell did I think I was that I was so good that I couldn't do what other people do for a living?' It was a great learning experience for me."

Some people bend with life's pressures; others break. Don simply bounced back.

Five years ago, he invested in a drycleaning plant in Spokane that he describes as "older than hair." He had no previous fabricare knowledge. Since then, he has expanded to six plants altogether in Washington - four Martinizing locations plus two more labeled South Country Cleaners and Schelling's Cleaners. He and his wife, Patricia, have personally painted and remodeled five of the locations.

Nowadays, Don oversees almost 50 employees and has his hands full. Not only does he do the maintenance for all of his stores, but he also does all of the business development, bookwork and general management.

His publicity efforts earned him an IFI Meritorious Award for positive recognition for the industry at this year's Clean Show, although Don is the first to admit that the award is largely the result of the hard work from his staff.

"I don't want to ever have an employee who thinks that I am better than them," he said. "I don't like that. I don't want them to ever think: 'Here comes the hoity-toity boss'."

Instead, Don tries to show his appreciation as often as he can. "Last month, I surprised everybody," Don stated. "I got hold of a company who has five ice cream trucks. They showed up at a predetermined time and everybody went out and got to pick an ice cream. You wouldn't believe the comments I got back from them."

"You never do something like that every month," he added. "Then it becomes an expectation. I just want them to know that it came from the heart. I appreciate so much what they do and how they've done it with class. Part of my job, in my opinion, is to make these people feel better about themselves."

Part of the reason Don can appreciate his employees so much is that he has been one himself for a majority of his life.

He began his professional life in his hometown of Exeter, California. In fact, he had his first job when he was in the fourth grade - the same year his parents had him take etiquette classes in order to learn about proper manners and respect.

Don was first employed as head gardener (and the only one at that) for the Exeter Women's Club. He was a very responsible young man, perhaps largely due to the fact that his younger brother, Curtis, had Downs Syndrome.

"I grew up with an appreciation for people - back then we called them 'special' people. It was a different era," he explained. "People would really say mean things about retarded people and I had a real hard time with that. I never got in a fight, but nobody - nobody - would say mean things about my brother."

As he got older, Don worked a variety of jobs, everything from cleaning up at the local drug store to working in a packing house boxing up fruit. Though he changed jobs a few times, one idea remained the same: Don always wanted to get into a field of psychology when he was older.

"The workings of the human mind are fascinating to me - and I am not a bright person - like how people do things, how they react to things, why they react to things," he said.

Don took a lot of pre-med classes in college, but eventually graduated from the University of Nevada-Reno with a B.S. degree in business.

One college job that still sticks out in his mind is his stint as receptionist at a funeral home.

"It was one of the most fantastic jobs I ever had in my life," Don explained. "I'm not talking about the dead; I'm talking about the living. You learn by eye contact. These people are probably at the lowest ebb of their lives. They just lost their loved ones and you learn whether to talk, shut up, give a salutation, ask them how the Yankees are doing - whatever it is - you learn by reading their faces."

After college, Don was hired by the First National Bank of Nevada. He also taught classes on the cycles of self-esteem, time management and creative problem-solving on the side. Though he has had a variety of jobs, most of Don's work has been in the business development/marketing side of the banking industry.

"Most bankers, as you know, are pretty introverted," he said. "I'm not. I would go out and mine prospects. I had the latitude of picking and choosing my loan officers or accountants, depending on their personalities and how they'd mesh with the prospect client."

In addition to procuring strong, personal relationships with clients, Don also strived to always be honest.

"There's an old saying: 'The big print giveth and the little print taketh away'," Don said. "The one thing that I have in my life that I can carry with me is the word 'integrity'. I don't lie and I don't cheat. We try to do that in our stores. When I say something in my marketing lines, it's the truth."

After Don bought his first plant, he was a bit surprised by the way the customer area looked. "There were gum machines in the lobby, candy being sold by the Lion's Club... a 'Stay Fit' pad that you can tear off to get your fitness membership. What does any of that have to do with drycleaning?" he asked. "I got rid of it instantly. You walk in the door now and everything in here in one fashion or another represents the drycleaning industry. This might be wrong, it might be right, but I don't put up the football team's schedule for the local high school."

Instead, Don prefers to help such causes directly. He's been in the Rotary Club for 28 years - including many years as president and on the board. He is a two-time Paul Harris Fellow and is now on Spokane's board of directors for community development.

For the past four years, Don's plants have participated in a local Coats 4 Kids program, helping to produce over 60,000 cleaned coats in that time. Don is also proud to be environmentally-friendly (three of his stores use hydrocarbon and all participate in recycling programs). He also offers free cleaning for flags and scarves worn by cancer patients.

"There are some things you just do," he noted.

At 57, Don is only slightly younger than the number of hours he works a week, but he still has a lot of energy to spare.

It probably helps that his three children are grown up - including son Christopher and daughters Cortney and Britney, who has worked with the family business for a year now. She is already learning her father's "customer service-oriented" attitude.

"This lady comes in. She has a little son named Mason," Don said. "Mason likes to pick up his daddy's shirts so Britney takes him back to where all of our shirts are hung and he gets to carry those shirts out. That's the customer service I want. By golly, when Mason grows up, where do you think he's going to do his cleaning?"

Even with such customer service, it's a constant struggle to keep the business running well. Don draws a lot of strength from Patricia, his wife of six years. The couple got married about a year before she was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. She suffers from Crohn's disease, as well. It makes for a difficult life for both of them, but Don still feels genuinely blessed.

"If you're in love with somebody, it doesn't matter," he said. "She is my best friend and soul mate and I'll tell that to the world. It's weird for somebody my age to be talking about love. Most people think that people my age are about dead."

National Clothesline
Vol. 40, No. 1, p 6.
October 2005

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