Team of 10 Makes Superior Health Linens a Winner
Diverse ownership team is key to success

No matter how good a quarterback is, a football team can’t be successful without a group of talented and dedicated team members playing alongside him. That analogy also holds true for an organization.

Scott Reppert became president and chief executive officer of Superior Health Linens, LLC (SHL), a regional healthcare laundry business, in December 2007. Reppert, who had been with SHL for about a year and a half before that, has years of experience in the healthcare linen industry and an ability to relate to people. And, the Appleton, Wis., native understands both football and success: he is a former Lawrence University (Appleton) football standout and inductee into the College Football Hall of Fame.

He also appreciates the role teamwork plays in success. With the help of Bill Witowski, chief financial officer, who joined SHL in May 2005, and Greg Schermerhorn, chief operating officer, who joined the company in December 2006, SHL has assembled an ownership team of 10 owner/managers who come from very different disciplines but have a single, common goal in mind.

As Reppert recently explained to a prospective client, a football team doesn’t take the field with 11 quarterbacks and expect to win the game. “In SHL’s case, we know our goal is to improve customer service and as a result, we retain customers and earn new customers. What is unique about our process is that maintenance, production, customer service, sales, merchandise, finance and management share ideas any time we are presented with a customer’s or prospective customer’s problems, and we solve the problem. As a result, we either add a new customer or retain an existing customer.”

In many companies, various disciplines may be relegated to second-class status. Merchandise management says, “no, we won’t add a new item”, and solving a customer’s problem suddenly becomes less important than maintaining the status quo on product mix. It is not easy to manage through change in product offering and maintain a profitable business.

“Somehow, with everyone’s cooperative spirit and focus on solving a customer’s dilemma, we manage to make decisions and solve problems while running a successful little business,” Reppert explains.

A Bright Future
The current management and leadership team bought Superior in December 2007. Since that time Superior’s customer-focused products, performance, and service have resulted in growing from 24 million pounds to over 72 million pounds of laundry being processed. In 2007 Superior had 2 plants, one in Madison and one in Cudahy, Wisconsin. Since then we have added facilities in Batavia, Illinois, (in 2009) and two more facilities in Joliet, Illinois, in 2011.

Superior employees continue to benefit from good wages, great company-sponsored health insurance and 401K, and, most importantly, work environments that are safe, productive, and state of the art. Happy employees are often more productive. Happy customers are more inclined to be loyal, too. And the team approach to ownership at SHL brings the team closer to the employees and customers than ever before.

For our customers, customer-focused means we work to keep your costs down by using great products and Superior-driven tools that help identify areas to improve utilization of linen and products. In 2011 we expanded our on-site customer distribution, too. Superior can own the linen process from clean delivery to soil pick up and in doing so keep costs low and provide product quality that meets the health care industry’s very high requirements.

Superior will add more plants as customers commit volume in new markets.

SHL’s Quarterback
“I think my primary job is to keep everyone on the same page, thinking optimistically and letting them all do their jobs without interference from me,” Reppert explains. “It is easy to do my job when I have so much confidence in the rest of the team of owners.”

Reppert is always available via cell phone and is often conducting business well until midnight. “I’m a hands-on manager but I’m not afraid to delegate,” he says. “It’s important to set the right tone and sometimes that means being there when they don’t really need me.”

“He keeps everyone focused on the right things, which improves our chance of being successful,” says Witowski.

Greg Schermerhorn, chief operating officer, agrees: “He gives you a lot of latitude, and he provides the vision. He’s very open to change.”

“While Scott has been a huge influence on the organization, the heart of the company is the people who work here,” says Schermerhorn. “It’s a well-functioning and truly respectful group of people. None of our successes would be possible without the hard work of our plant and distribution employees. The health of our organization depends on their efforts as much as those of anyone in the ownership group. We have made it our No. 1 goal to provide our employees a work environment that they can be proud of; and that has translated into the tremendous success we have experienced so far.”

Many of the owners have known Reppert for years, some at previous employers. Steve Shabat, general manager of the Batavia facility, met Reppert when Shabat graduated from college. Their paths crossed a few times in the years since and when Reppert was forming the ownership team, Shabat was the last member added.

“Everyone brings something to the table that no one else has,” explains Shabat of the team’s dynamics. “Scott realized he needed a team and assembled a strong one around him. All opinions are listened to and respected, and we make decisions collectively.”

Each week the ownership team touches base through a conference call. Here they report on sales activity, employee issues, linen purchases, maintenance updates and customer service issues. These weekly calls are an important step in addressing trends before they become problems. And most owners don’t go more than a day or two without talking to each other.

“Even though we’re all owners, each knows his or her defined roles and each is in close touch with employees and customers,” Shabat says. The company is now structured to eliminate the layers between the top management and customers.

In addition to listening to his fellow owners, Reppert also sees the importance in letting employees have their say. “A lot of managers tend to think they know everything and that’s a big mistake,” he explains. “We value the thoughts and ideas of all employees. A lot of time the answer is in front of you if you just look and listen to others. Ten of us are the owners; we need to be respectful of each other’s ideas or the synergy we create together can be lost. I think to a large degree—while I am CEO—Greg has played the quarterback role a great deal. It is that kind of respect for each other that makes us a strong team.”

A Team of Winners
Each person has a key role in the success of SHL. For instance, our merchandise manager and Milwaukee bookkeeper goes out and quotes business and tests everything. Last year, SHL saved $400,000 on linen purchases thanks, in large part, to her efforts. While saving money is important, the quality of the average item purchased has been improved through better buying practices, too. And SHL has had other successes as well.

Our Engineering Director wanted to buy a new lighting system for the plants and as a result SHL dropped its lighting amperage in half. And that wasn’t enough—the maintenance team also discovered the company could “go green” in lighting one of its plants by buying the power needed from a windmill farm.

Schermerhorn found a vendor who would help SHL recycle the plastic bags used to collect soiled linen—reducing the company’s landfill waste by 6,000 pounds a month.

Through our Production Management Team's efforts to better train and encourage employees to perform at standard, turnover is under 12 percent.

Witowski worked tirelessly to find employee insurance that while costing SHL more provides affordable, high-quality coverage for more than 75 percent of SHL’s employees.

All the owners/managers contribute to making changes every day—too many changes to cover in one article.

“In general, we have a guy in Scott who’s tremendously talented in his knowledge of how to manage our business and relate to people and make our business exciting,” says Witowski. “And behind him is a really talented and committed team of people.”

SHL’s team of owners includes Bill Witowski (chief financial officer), Greg Schermerhorn (chief operating officer), Tim Pruett - general manager - Cudahy (Milwaukee), Steve Shabat - general manager – Batavia (Chicago), Roger Lewis - general manager - Madison, Juan Guillen (director of operations), Jennie Swartz (customer service manager), Bryan Immergluck (sales manager) and Craig Billstrom (director of engineering).*

*Since the publishing of this article Superior Health Linens has purchased the Joliet, Illinois business previously known as Premier Laundry Technologies.