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Regis Philbin praises
Arrow on national network TV show...
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clip of the "Live
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We suggest that you read the following story about the event.
The Story...
It
was pretty exciting at Arrow on Wednesday morning, April 10th.
The phones inexplicibly lit up. Every line was busy. People from
all over the country were calling for information about Arrow's
leather cleaning and restoration services, because they had seen
Regis Philbin talking about Arrow Fabricare during his show.
Here's how
it happened. Joy Philbin (Regis' wife), during a cooking demonstration
on an earlier show, spilled oil on a beautiful and very expensive
leather jacket. Show production
personnel, after researching where to get the jacket cleaned
and restored, learned from North Beach Leather's Manhattan store in
New York City, that Arrow Leathercare of Kansas City was universally
recommended as the best in the nation for fine leather cleaning.
So, the jacket
was shipped to us...quickly cleaned & restored ...sent back
to New York...and was opened by Regis & Kelly during the
show the next day. They found a perfect job...and what thousands
of our customers across the country already knew...that Arrow
Leathercare is the best!!! Our many thanks to Regis Philbin &
his wife for the wonderful coverage and very kind words. Please
see Joy Philbin's note of thanks to Arrow on our "Applause"
page. To
replay the video, doubleclick on the box.
[The Independent Magazine, Feb. 2, 2008 (p.15)
Kansas City Comes
Through Again
Kansas City came through
again when nearly 11,000 coats were distributed during the 2007
Coats for Kids campaign. After weeks of collection and
dry cleaning, the coats were distributed to the Kansas City Missouri,
Kansas City Kansas, Independence, and Hickman Mills School Districts.
From there, the administrators and teachers distributed the coats
to the children.
The major sponsors of this year's NewsRadio 980 KMBZ Coats
for Kids campaign were Arrow Fabricare Services, Pride Cleaners,
Sertoma Club of Kansas City, U.S. Army Recruiting Battalion,
Kansas City Missouri office; and KMBZ employees. Supporting this
year's campaign were Gail's Harley Davidson, The Mortgage Store,
O'Reilly Auto Parts, Blue Cross Blue Shield and Carrabba's Italian
Grill.
A total of $16,005 was contributed by many individuals and companies
in our community. All of the money collected was used to purchase
new coats for the children. Over the five years of the campiagn,
a total of 38,577 coats have been collected and given out. Kansas
City has truly risen to the occasion of keeping the children
of Our Town warm in the winter. A clean, previously worn or brand
new coat reached Kansas City kids just in time for winter, thanks
to many of you.
[American Drycleaner, February 2008 (p.142)
Coats for Kids Clothes
11,000 in Kansas City
A Kansas City Coats
for Kids campaign spearheaded by NewsRadio 980 KMBZ distributed
almost 11,000 coats last month to area children in need of warm
winter garments.
After weeks of collecting and cleaning the coats, sponsors distributed
them to four metro-area school districts. Administrators and
teachers then distributed the coats to children.
Arrow Fabricare Services and Pride Cleaners donated drycleaning
services to the effort. Additional supporters included Missouri's
U.S. Army recruiting Battalion, Blue Cross/Blue Shield and several
local businesses.
The campaign also received $16,005 in monetary donations, which
was used to purchase new coats. In five years, the area's Coats
for Kids campaign has collected, cleaned and distributed 38,577
coats to needy children.
[American Drycleaner,
November 2007 (p.82)
Arrow's Gershon Earns
Three DLI Certifications
Bruce Gershon, president
of Arrow Fabricare Services in Kansas City, has earned all three
certifications that the Drycleaning & Laundry Institute (DLI)
offers - Certified Environmental Drycleaner (CED), Certified
Professional Drycleaner (CPD) and Certified Professional Wetcleaner
(CPW)
Operators who earn all three are named Certified Garment Care
Professionals (CGCPs). To achieve this status, they must master
a comprehensive body of knowledge of professional drycleaning,
and pass 12 hours of written examinations to verify their expertise.
"Several new processes are changing the drycleaning business,
and the driving force is environmentalism - the effort to use
gentler methods to clean clothes," Gershon says. "I
like to push the envelope. If my knowledge is tested, employees
respect that. I expect a higher level of commitment from each
of the Arrow employees."
Gershon entered the industry in the '70s as Arrow's third-generation
owner. He was the first midwestern drycleaner to earn DLI's Award
of Excellence.
Blanc Plume - Our
subsidiary that specializes in hi-end bedding: comforters, down
pillows, matelassé, duvet covers and fine egyptian cotton
sheets was featured in an excellent story recently.
To read, click here.
"National Clothesline"...leading
industry trade newspaper, published a very nice story on Bruce
Gershon, President of Arrow Fabricare Services.
To
read, click here.
[American Drycleaner, January
2005, (pp. 46-48)
Special Honors
for Best Renovation Design
Located in urban Kansas
City, Mo., for more than 90 years, Arrow Fabricare Services has
watched the market for its unique blend of retail and specialty
services shift to the suburbs over the years. But even after
following the business with a vast route network and wholesale
business, Arrow never gave up on its venerable processing facility.
Arrow has renovated the plant to streamline internal processes
three times in the last 15 years. But this time, owner Bruce
Gershon made a concerted effort to acquire adjacent properties
and expanded the plant 6,300 sq. ft. with an addition built to
match the original building's brick and mortar construction.
Arrow now occupies 20,000 sq. ft. at this plant alone.
"It's making a world of difference," Gershon says.
"We've been in a cramped space here for a couple of years
while we've moved forward with the plans to expand. I have to
acknowledge the commitment and customer-focused dedication of
the Arrow employees who have maintained smooth workflow in somewhat
difficult circumstances."
In addition to drycleaning, shirt laundry and alterations, Arrow
offers pillow and bedding care, leather and suede service, fur
cleaning and storage, gown preservation and cleaning, and fire
gear cleaning and repair. A second, 10,300 sq. ft. plant in North
Kanssa City houses high-end sister business Blanc Plume and Arrow's
fire restoration operations.
Mainly a production facility, the plant was remapped to enhance
its capabilities. Contractors moved and re-installed 54 pieces
of equipment and installed 14 new machines, including a Union
GreenEarth machine, dedicated to leather cleaning, two Omega
reclaimers, a 30 HP Hurst boiler, a Hamilton hot water tank and
a new screw compressor.
Existing equipment included a Bruske tensioning pant unit, UniMac
washers, ADC and Cissell dryers, Unipress doublebuck shirt units
and a variety of traditional pressing equipment from Ajax, Cissell,
Forenta and Hoffman/NewYorker. The addition helped integrate
all of this machinery into lines covering drycleaning, shirts,
and leathers and furs, as well as dedicated new space to gown
preservation, fur storage and wholesale shipping.
On the other end of the plant, walk-in customers benefit from
a renovated corner entrance with lighted awnings and brand-new
horseshoe countertops from R.J. Papalini. Immediately behind
the counters, a plasma screen touts Arrow's wide range of services.
And behind that, a new "cubby" unit helps hide bulky
items, such as comforters, and screens the factory floor from
view. A recessed DCCS point-of-sale (POS) system manages the
counter, mark-in and workflow.
Part of Arrow's reasoning in staying at its downtown location
was to keep its loyal, long-term employees, and the facility
employs more than 60. But the operation went one step further,
adding climate control, a new employee parking lot and an expanded
break room.
Arrow continues to grow by following the money and tapping new
categories of customers such as garment manufacturers and retailers.
But it has been able to do so by holding onto its roots and letting
the operation blossom from there.
"National Clothesline"...Dry
Cleaning Industry Newspaper announces Arrow's New Building Addition
 
Arrow Fabricare Services in Kansas City, MO, celebrated
its 90th year in business with the grand opening of a new 6,300-sq.-ft.
building addition on September 11. The newly built area quickly
filled with equipment needed for the fur and leather processing.
A two-story temperature-controlled fur storage vault offers protection
for as many as 1,600 coats.
"Hindsight is 20-20"
is a phrase that Bruce Gershon, president of Arrow Fabricare,
now knows well. "If everything had hit the planning target,
we wouldn't have had such a rush at the end," he said.
 The
addition included installation of Union HL 860 drycleaning machine
designed for using GreenEarth Leather Solutions. "We wanted
to provide an alternative to other cleaning methods," explained
Gershon. "The GreenEarth processing does a wonderful job
on leathers."
Two new rotary double-buck
shirt units were installed to increase shirt pressing production
times, though Arrow continues to offer hand-finished shirts for
many customers. Ken Endrizal, an industrial engineering consultant,
provided on-site planning and design for the many work area moves.
"It was literally mission impossible," he said. "All
we had to do was relocate more than 54 pieces of equipment, install
two new Unipress rotary double-buck shirt units, a new rotating
rail conveyor, a new extra large spray booth, a new Union leather
cleaning machine and two Omega reclaimers, two new Unipress 75-lb.
dryers, a new 30HP Hurst boiler, a new 60-ton Kleen Rite cooling
tower, a new screw compressor, a Hamilton hot water tank, a Unimac
60-lb. Washer - and get everything done in 45 days. No problem!"
Gershon noted that Windel Burton
of Burton Installations likened the equipment move to trying
to change a valve cover gasket on a car while the engine was
running."
"The real hero of the
entire project, though, was Ron Hutson, Hutson Repair Services,"
Gershon said. "He'd done it all beforewell maybe not to
this extent, but no matter what went wrong, he never got upset,
he'd just dig in and get it done. There is no way we could have
done it without him."
The next step for the company
is building an employee parking lot on land that adjoins the
new building that was acquired through a condemnation proceeding.
After moving an uninhabited three-story house, the empty land
will be graded and paved, fenced, gated, and finished with nursery
plantings and trees. Now that the turmoil has died down, Gershon
says the effort was worth doing.
"This project was the third major renovation of Arrow's
property in 19 years and I've been involved in each. Now my only
problem is that my hindsight needs eyeglasses!"
N. Y. Times runs
a featurette on Blanc Plume,
Arrow's Fine
French Laundry.
On November
15, 2001, the New York Times featured Blanc Plume, Arrow's fine
french laundry with a complimentary and information featurette
in their "Inside Sources" section of the paper. Much
new business resulted as a huge readership was acquainted with
Arrow's superb standards of quality and services...particularily
for fine, high-quality bedding, down pillows and comforters and
fine and heirloom linen.
KCTV5 does a story
on fine leathercare at Arrow.
Concurrent
with the "Live With Regis & Kelly" feature, Channel 5
in Kansas City did an in-plant story about Arrow's national business
and all the work that it does for many well-known celebrities,
political figures and business executives all around the country.
Arrow gets much of this business because of the thousands of
satisfied customers and because scores of fine leather
manufacturers and designers recommend Arrow's fine leather cleaning and restoration
services. Our thanks to Brian Curtis, KCTV5 reporter for his
excellent story about this interesting fact about Kansas City
and its richly deserved reputation for good work and good
workers.
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