Couple clean up at business awards

Talent ID Recruitment Employee of Year winner Janine Richardson.

A third generation connection to drycleaning brought Ricky and Kylie Brackfield to Rotorua from Wellington a decade ago.

Kylie Brackfield's grandfather had run a drycleaning businesses in Taranaki. The business was taken over by her uncle, who tipped her off about a drycleaning business that was up for sale in Rotorua.

"I grew up being familiar with the business, but I never thought of it as a career for myself," said Ms Brackfield, formerly a travel agent while her husband worked as a motor mechanic.

The couple made the move in 2005, buying Rotorua Drycleaners, and soon added the local licence for national rental operation Apparelmaster. The decade building up the business has paid off with two category wins at this month's Westpac Rotorua Business Awards.

The business is divided into three business units:

-Apparelmaster Rotorua - an industrial arm, which provides an extensive range of rental workwear, mats, towels and first aid kits

-Rotorua Drycleaners - the retail arm, which provides onsite drycleaning and a self-service laundromat

-Linenmaster Rotorua - the commercial arm, which caters to the accommodation and hospitality sectors, including hotels/motels/backpackers/medical centres and private hospitals

Linenmaster was created by the company three years ago and shares the same rental programme methodology as Apparelmaster, but is separately branded.

"It was born out of a need because we realised there just weren't enough linen operators in the market," said Ms Brackfield, who looks after customer care across the business.

The company's innovations include being one of just two laundries in New Zealand to have invested in Radio Frequency Identification for its linen supply, and the only laundry using RFID for both linen and rental clothing.

This year was the first time the company had entered the business awards.

Ricky Brackfield, who serves as general manager, said entering had been wonderful for the business and the team.

"Having experienced the entire process we are total advocates now for businesses to get involved and enter these awards," he said, noting that the judging allows the company to run a series of checks and balances on how it is performing.

As well as the company winning the service category award, operations manager Janine Richardson, picked up the Employee of the Year Award.

"The whole experience was an eye opener," said Ms Richardson.

"It was a huge amount of work, but it was totally worth the outcome. It was such a positive experience to have gone through."

Service category lead judge Blair Millar, the chief executive Whakarewarewa - The Living Maori Village, said the business had set lofty goals for itself and had gone out to seek support to take their business to the next level.

"They are extremely good at what they do," he said. "And they have put lot of effort into assisting and mentoring their staff, who are obviously their best asset."