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The Klinke kids came backPamela Cotant
It started when each of his three kids entered the business as eighth-graders working behind the counter at the first location, 4518 Monona Drive. At the time, his mentoring role involved getting them excited about the business so he could pass it on some day. Apparently, his strategy worked. His oldest child, Jennifer, 35, returned to the family business in 1994 after graduating from Valparaiso University. Now Jenn-ifer Olafsson, she worked there for 10 years before marriage took her in a new direction, and she now lives in West Bend. The middle child, Rich, 33, came back in 1995 after he too graduated from Valparaiso. "I just never really had a second thought about going someplace else," said Rich Klinke, president of the Wisconsin Fabricare Institute and a council member for the state Dry Cleaner Environmental Response Fund Program. The youngest, Steve, 29, went to Washington University in St. Louis, working in London during his junior year for Reuters News Service. He had thoughts of working for a few different companies before rejoining the family business where his mother, Marsha, also worked for about 22 years, becoming chief operations officer. But after graduating from college, Steve Klinke returned to the fold in 2000 as the company was growing rapidly and expanding to Waukesha County, where it now has four locations. "Why delay the inevitable?" was Steve's thought at the time. "I'd rather just jump in now and just start running," he said. Jim Klinke had his children learn from the ground up until they knew every aspect of the business in an industry dominated by mom-and-pop operations. When the children were young, they even served as models for ads. Since those early days, Jim Klinke's job as mentor has changed. As he eases out of the business at age 60, Klinke sees his job as keeping an eye on the big picture and imparting some business wisdom. More often from the outside looking in, he gently guides his sons in the areas of location selection and philosophy. They in turn appreciate being able to bounce ideas off their dad, a role Jim Klinke's father filled for him. Maurice Klinke also was a mentor for his son, Jim Klinke said. This month, 30 percent of the company will be transferred to each of the three children while their father retains 10 percent as part of a succession plan. In turn, Rich and Steve will buy out their sister's interest. A company policy established by Jim Klinke requires any family member who leaves the business to return within five years in fairness to the others who are running it. Jim Klinke -- who is a member of Management Concepts, a group of privately owned dry cleaners from around the country -- said he discovered the importance of a succession plan when he saw other family companies "imploding." The companies either didn't do any succession planning or it occurred too late or was not well-conceived, he said. The first Klinke family business was a chicken hatchery started in 1936 by Maurice Klinke at the site of the current Monona Drive Klinke Cleaners. The company had huge incubators, producing 125,000 baby chicks a month, and was one of the largest poultry producers in the Midwest during WWII. Later, Maurice Klinke converted the hatchery to a grocery distribution warehouse and then a shopping center. When a shoe store backed off from leasing a large space, Maurice Klinke decided to open a coin-operated laundry called Klinke's Econ-o-wash in 1958 after seeing the concept at a national trade show. Within the first year, Maurice Klinke added coin-operated dry cleaners. Maurice Klinke and his wife, Trudy, then started offering pressing, then spotting, then a dress shirt service. The cleaners became a full-fledged operation by the end of 1959 while the Klinkes lived in a home next door. Jim Klinke, who was involved in four sports at Monona Grove High School, didn't work much at the dry-cleaning service then, but after he graduated from UW-Whitewater in 1968, his parents asked if he could help out in the business because Maurice Klinke had health problems. "I didn't want to join the family business," Jim Klinke said. "There was nothing glorious about dry cleaning." Jim Klinke, who was the youngest with three older sisters, said he considered it a moral obligation. "We thought we would give it a good year's try," said Marsha Klinke, who had married Jim Klinke the previous year. "We never moved on." About the middle of the second year, Maurice and Trudy Klinke started to let their son make business decisions, and that became a turning point in his desire to stay on. Figuring now that his father's entrepreneurial skills had rubbed off on him, the younger Klinke began to expand the business into more locations and added more services from alterations to leather cleaning. In 1974, Jim Klinke purchased a uniform rental franchise and turned it into a business that won many awards and became one of the industry's fastest-growing companies in the country. After an epiphany led Jim Klinke to realize he wanted to spend more time with his family, he sold the apparel company to Cintas Corp. in 1990 to reduce his work hours. He also wanted to put his energy toward finding better locations for his dry-cleaning stores, adding processing to drop-off locations and developing a commercial real estate business. The company began buying parcels and building Klinke Cleaners stores and other space to lease. The company also is involved in several philanthropic efforts through the Coats for Kids, Suited for Success and All Dressed Up programs that provide clothing for people in need. While the move to sell the uniform rental business, which served 675 customers, gave Jim Klinke more time than when the family combined it with dry cleaning -- a service industry with its own challenges -- that period proved pivotal for getting the children on board. Because Marsha Klinke, now 60, worked at the dry cleaning end of the business while Jim Klinke worked at the 30,000-square-foot uniform rental plant on Vondron Road, dinner time was the chance for them to exchange news about their respective days. "That was mom and dad's informal meeting every night," said Rich Klinke, who now has three children, ages 5, 3 and 1. "We would chat on and off all the way to going to bed," said Jim Klinke, who also could talk business with a sister, Lois Offerdahl, who worked in the office for about 25 years. Rich Klinke remembers the family talking business "24/7." "You learn about it whether you want to or not," Marsha Klinke said. Steve Klinke, now father of a 2-year-old, said it was this atmosphere and his father's attitude that helped him decide the family business was where he wanted to be. "His enthusiasm was just so great and so fun," said Steve Klinke. Pam Cotant is a Madison freelance writer. She can be reached at pcotant@mailbag.com. pcotant@mailbag.com madison.com ©2009 Capital Newspapers. All rights reserved. |
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