Harris YMCA Hires Budd Group for Janitorial
It’s no easy task to constantly clean a 120,000-square-foot work-out facility that’s open 17 hours a day. But according to Tim Gallant, the program director of the Harris YMCA in Charlotte, The Budd Group’s janitorial team is doing a heck of a job.
It takes about 17 Budd employees, including a few who work a third shift, to keep the second largest YMCA in the country clean, Gallant said. The Harris Y, which recently celebrated its 25th anniversary, has 25,000 members. Until late last year, the Y struggled to keep up with the constant demand for clean floors and laundered towels with its own internal staff.
Outsourcing janitorial services to The Budd Group actually increased the amount of housekeeping service while cutting overall costs, Gallant said. “We were able to save about 8 percent overall while still getting better coverage.”
Janitorial service from The Budd Group has been a “dramatic improvement” over the way things were done before, he added. “We had always done things the same way, and The Budd Group brought with them a fresh perspective for getting the job done. They didn’t just agree with everything we said. They were able to point out things we were never able to see.”
Two other companies bid for the Harris Y contract, but The Budd Group stood out among its competitors, he said. “We were really impressed by our talks with Paul (Vucish, regional vice president) and Charles (Keenum, janitorial division manager). They were very honest about what they could and couldn’t do. They told us up front it would take 30 days to get settled and to truly learn our facility. We were pleased with the quality even in the beginning, but it just kept getting better.”
Gallant says he “highly recommends” The Budd Group to other companies. “They’ve done everything they said they would do, and even when we’re satisfied, they’re trying to figure out a way to do it even better!”
