Founded in Detroit in 1967 by Joseph Shulevitz with his two brothers Melvin and William and Winston T. Ely, Garment Corporation of America (GCA) is still going strong. Still a family-owned and operated business to the core, Joseph Shulevitz remains chairman and CEO, while his son David has been the company's president for the past seven years.
"Before starting GCA, my father and his brothers were involved in the industrial laundry business," explains David Shulevitz. "At its inception, GCA's primary category of customer was the industrial launderer. Rental and industrial laundries would purchase uniforms and rent them out to their clients. Since all of the brothers were experienced in that side of the business and knew it well, the new venture into uniform manufacturing was a logical step."
Garment Corporation of America has been a leader since its beginning, a pioneer in the use of poly/cotton blends for industrial uniform manufacturing. "Durability was a major focus, from the very beginning," notes Shulevitz. Given their background, the Shulevitz brothers knew that the uniforms they were producing had to have longevity in order to be profitable for the industrial laundries. He says, "Typically, these garments were purchased and rented out on a two- or three-year contract. They had to last for the term of the contract, looking as good on the last day as they did on the first. My father is very involved with the mills and experiments with different blends in order to maximize garment life."
As the company grew and widened its customer base, the Shulevitz brothers discovered that non-laundry customers loved their fabrics as well. Durability in an industrial laundry setting meant an even longer life span in a home laundry environment.
It was in 1981 that David Shulevitz left a successful law practice to join Garment Corporation of America. It was actually a homecoming of sorts, since he was never far from the business at all. He reflects, "I grew up in this business. While I was an undergraduate, I worked at GCA in a number of different capacitiesøin the warehouses and selling uniforms while I was in law school. For a time I even managed our Baltimore distribution center. After I had graduated from law school, I continued to do consulting work for GCA."
By the time his father asked him to work for GCA full-time, David Shulevitz thought it would be an easy decision, but it was not. Despite his affection for the company, he really enjoyed the practice of law. "It was a difficult decision at the time," recalls Shulevitz. "But as I reflect back, it was the best decision I've ever made in my life."
GCA has grown beyond its original facilities in Detroit. In 1975, the company moved its operations to Miami, Fla. Today, it has 16 different locations including its factories and distribution centers, with a St. Louis facility scheduled to open this month. In fact, GCA has several factories in Alabama alone. "In addition to our U.S. locations, we have facilities in the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua and Mexico, and distribution centers in Miami (apart from the corporate headquarters), Atlanta, Baltimore, Dallas, Los Angeles, Detroit and Sacramento, all supported by a work force of well over 1,000 employees." With so many locations to serve their customers, GCA is only one or two days away via package delivery from each of the fifty states.
Like any successful business enterprise, GCA utilizes the latest in technology to facilitate their sales efforts. "Our system is capable of taking orders directly from the Internet," says Shulevitz. "We also do a tremendous amount of EDI (electronic data interchange) computer-to-computer orders that bypass the Internet. I would estimate that together, EDI and the Web comprise about 25 percent of our business, with EDI being the larger part. One of the things my father has always stressedøand has passed along to meøis his belief in state-of-the-art information services. We were probably among the first companies to be 'online' in the late '70s, with all of our software being written in-house, which enabled us to keep electronic records of inventory."
Shulevitz is quite optimistic about the future of Garment Corporation of America. "We expect the next 12 months to be a record year. We've never grown at a faster pace than we have at present. The categories of uniforms people are wearing today and the multitude of fabrics are changing rapidly. The uniform industry is evolving and we are keeping pace."
For David Shulevitz, relationships are key to the success story of GCA. He says, "We are very loyal to our distributor network. I believe that we are a service company to a large degree. I understand that a distributor can go to a variety of sources for the type of product we have, and we work hard to provide the best possible service to our customers. The fact that our distribution centers can ship promptly is an enormous plus. Over 98 percent of our orders are shipped the same day if the order is received by noon. We have developed a reputation for being very flexible in working closely with our customers in putting together custom programs. Sometimes, we even act as a fulfillment house. We do a lot of shipping for our customers because they trust us with their customers. They know we won't compete with them."
GCA moves forward... another family-driven business that thrives.
In 1896, a small sweater mill in San Francisco produced 100 percent wool sweaters for the University of California at Berkeley's student awards program. Over one hundred years later, that same sweater manufacturer, San Francisco Knitting Mills (SFKM) continues to manufacture apparel for the uniform, career wear and school apparel markets.
Times change, of course. In 1933, SFKM was purchased by a Chicagoan eager to escape the merciless winters in the Midwest. He continued to manufacture the 100 percent wool sweaters for the local colleges, but also created a lighter weight version suitable for retail sales. Kent Herring, marketing director for SFKM and its unofficial historian, notes, "In the 1950s, the parochial schools began wearing uniforms and that's how our company got into the school market. Back then, they were working with the 100 percent wool, heavyweight sweaters, as well as doing uniforms and the college award sweaters." Purchased by CEO Ken Knoss during the mid-1970s, San Francisco Knitting Mills has grown to include two separate divisions. The parent company, School Apparel, Inc., produces school uniforms for private and parochial institutions, and their career division was launched with an emphasis on the postal and blue goods' markets. Herring says, "Under Knoss's leadership, we've continued strongly with the school sweater business model and on the career side, as we've grown, we've gotten into larger national accounts."
Herring explains that their major focus has been in sweaters for the career line, which feature an exclusive product called Pil-Trol¨ V57. "There is other product called Pil-Trol¨ out there, but ours has the V57 ingredient," he continues. "It is a fiber ingredient that is actually blended with the Pil-Trol¨ in the basic composition with the yarn--and basically, it is a performance enhancer that adds to the sweater's durability. In other words, extra-strength Pil-Trol¨."
As the first mill to adopt Pil-Trol¨, San Francisco Knitting Mills remained patient as the product's initial performance flaws were ironed out. Recalls Herring, "Our owner had the foresight to understand that the Pil-Trol¨ component would ultimately take its rightful place in the marketplace. We've worked with it; perfected it over the years."
SFKM's home office is now headquartered in San Bruno, Cal., about 12 miles down the coast from San Francisco and from which all business operations are conducted. Their growth dictated several relocations to larger manufacturing facilities within the San Francisco area during the '70s and early '80s. In 1984, in an appropriate coincidence considering the location and history of the Gold Rush, SFKM acquired the Levi Strauss plant in Star City, Ark. Sixteen years later, the mill operates with a work force of 450 employees. Additionally, SFKM has three factories in the Dominican Republic employing 400 people.
Among San Francisco Knitting Mills' larger accounts is the United States Postal Service. Kent Herring explains, "There are several different unions involved--clerks, superiors and work groups--each of these programs is specified by the government. We offer product for all of the postal categories: we even include socks and knit shirts in our line and have developed a reputation for being one of the leaders in the knit shirt area of the postal market for mail carriers." Herring goes on to explain that SFKM works with different distributors who supply the postal industry, who will, in turn, sell the pieces--the bags, boots, knit shirts, etc.--to the postal service.
For other national accounts like UPS and FedEx, San Francisco Knitting Mills sells to big uniform suppliers and programmers who carry contracts with large end users. "They'll buy a sweater and turtleneck from us and they go on to source the complete uniform. The supplier will do the design work and coordinate the procurement of the full uniform. Usually, in these large programs, our sweaters are the core product in the application," Herring notes.
In addition to these parcel delivery corporations, SFKM also works with the airline industry, counting Southwest and American Airlines among their clientele. They also outfit governmental agencies such as the United States Customs Service.
Broadening their product line is an ongoing mission for San Francisco Knitting Mills. Herring says, "We are always expanding our inventory to include items such as 65/35 percent cotton/poly pants, basic knit shirts and oxfords." According to Herring, there is no reason to slow down a good thing. "We have been branching out like this in the last two years because we find that one of our core confidences is in value and durability, beginning with the basic raw materials, to the construction, to the ultimate performance with the end user.
"We have established our niche by paying attention to three focal points: the quality side of the house, friendly customer service and on-time delivery. We also do a really good job in terms of color consistency in all of the programs and selecting those raw materials that will hold up over time, thereby maintaining their value to the customer. We've been doing that for a long time in our school apparel and it has translated nicely into the career side over the last few years. Once you have quality built into your processes--in raw materials and manufacturing--it's a natural extension for us on the career side."
For Herring, it all comes back to one basic principle at SFKM. "The uniform is our business. It's what we do best, and we stick to that."
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