|
Tom Slack’s Dust Mop Co. Is a Tight
Operation
By Fred Kardon of the Worcester Gazette Staff
--Appeared February 28, 1977
You won’t see Tom Slack’s Dust Mop Company on the New York Stock
Exchange.
You won’t see it in any list of the country’s top 200 corporations.
And, unless you’re observant as you drive down Route 12 in West
Boylston, you won’t see it at all.
Sandwiched between Friendly Ice Cream and a Texaco station, several
hundred feet over the West Boylston line from Worcester, a small sign—SLA-DUST, SLACK
MOP CO., FACTORY OUTLET---points up a gravel driveway to a white barn.
And that’s Tom Slack’s company.
Slack, 29, a former mechanical designer for a Waltham electronics company, is owner and
sole full-time employee of Slack Mop Co., manufacturers of all-wool dry
mops and dusters.
Founded nearly 70 years ago by Slack’s great grandfather, the company
passed through the hands of members of the Slack clan – Tom’s great uncle,
then his father – until November 1972 when Slack bought out his father.
"I guess I just got plain sick and tired of the rat race of working
for somebody else," Slack said as he sat on a small stool in the first
floor work area of the two-story mop factory and combed the wool yarn of a
mop head.
Hops and Skips
Since Slack took over the company in 1972 sales have grown if not in
leaps and bounds than in hops and skips.
"I guess," he said with a grin, "there are some large
producers of mops and dusters around who make our sales figures look pretty
bad.
"but the product they put out is terrible. It’s all assembly-line
produced and falls apart in six months."
There’s no assembly line at Slack Mop Co.
Making a duster or a mop, Slack said, is a 24 step operation.
Other than a part time assist from two cousins, Brian and Richard Slack,
who make the mop sockets from soft, galvanized wire, and some help from his
wife, the former Karen Wagner of Worcester,
who handles the billing and bookkeeping, Slack is responsible for mop and
duster production and sales.
The complete operation – to make one duster or mop – takes about six
minutes, Slack said.
With the exception of a plastic bagging machine, Slack said, all the
other production equipment is handmade.
The machine that interlocks the wool with the socket, he explained, was
made from and old sewing machine base, a washing machine motor and some
pieces of scrap metal.
"With an operation like this," Slack said, "you have to
improvise a bit."
Where Slack refuses to improvise is on the quality of
his product.
"If there’s anything wrong with our mops at all, " he said,
"it’s the fact that they last so long. That’s not good for repeat
business.
Five Years
"With normal household use a mop or duster should last a minimum of
five years. Probably much longer," he added.
Slack said his company produces 11 models of dusters and mops, from
small hand dusters to oversize commercial dry mops.
Slack, who lives with his wife and 10 year old daughter Debbie, in a
large farm house next to his factory – "it cut down the commuting
time" – puts in a 40 hour week making the dusters and the mops.
While many of his orders are truck delivered, Slack will, upon occasion,
throw some bundles of brooms and dusters in the back of his station wagon
and deliver them locally.
He also tries to make at least 2 trips a month, "looking for new
customers and saying ‘hi’ to my old ones."
"I don’t have a sales representative. I figure if I have a lot of
people selling I have to pay them and that would increase the price of the
product."
"I’d rather put the time in
myself and have total control over what’s happening," he said.
Retail
So Slack sells either at his 308
West Boylston Street factory outlet or
directly to retail merchants or commercial accounts.
Slack’s retail customers include Spag’s, Sawyer’s, The Mart, Aubuchon’s
"and a lot of smaller area hardware stores."
His commercial accounts include West Boylston, Shrewsbury,
Sterling, Lancaster,
Newton and Waltham school systems.
Slack also sells to Popular Club and Vermont Country Store for their
mail order customers.
"One of the aspects of the business that I am trying to
expand," he said, "is the catalogue customers."
"In my first year we were selling 3,000 dusters and 7,000 mops. Now
we’re selling 12,000 dusters and 8,000 mops a year.
"The increase in sales of dusters can be traced almost completely
to the mail order houses," he said.
While Slack said "it would be nice" to have the business grow
even more, "I don’t want to see it get to the point where we would
need assembly line tactics to keep up with production."
He said, "We try to keep our prices as low as possible – the
smallest dusters have a suggested retail price of $1.99 and the largest
industrial mops carry a $21.99 price tag – and put out a quality product.
"We’re not the biggest operation in the world here. But I’ve got my
name on this product.
"And I wouldn’t trade size for pride any day."
|
