Laundry Service
“I think that’s what God usually does. He takes very normal people, very normal things, and he makes them holy.”
“The joke is I didn't do the laundry at my own house before we bought this business, and now I'm responsible for over 30,000 pounds of laundry every week.” Matt Barnes is the owner of Professional Touch Laundry Services, the most trusted commercial laundry and linen service in the city. Matt communicated in our conversation a compelling vision for how a blue-collar business does the ordinary work of a laundry service while seeing the sacred in the everyday.
Professional Touch Laundry Service was founded by a couple with industrial laundry experience in the late 1990s. In the process of narrowing its focus to laundry of linens for hospitality and events, they developed a durable family business. Professional Touch has weathered challenging financial seasons and storms over 25 years and has become known as the best linen laundry service in the state.
Matt’s approach in buying a business was to find a platform to pastor people in the workplace. “I was looking for a really well-run family business that had history on the front range. Fundamentally, I was looking for a business platform to do more pastoral work.” Matt brought a holy conviction about the culture of a business and the care of its employees. “A desire of mine was to run a business where I could shepherd and care for a population of blue-collar service workers.” That commitment resulted in moving the laundry service from three W-2 employees with a majority of temporary and seasonal staffing to a staff of eighteen W-2 and 1099 employees working directly for the company. “When you give an employee, especially a lower wage employee, some belonging, you can start to build the culture of a business.” Matt’s conviction is crystal clear as he continues, “The culture of the business was a decent, safe, and uplifting place when I took it over. Now it's a joyful place where people have upward mobility and responsibility…they are part of a living cultural organism that is thriving and growing. And…I would argue it's better for profitability.”
The laundry service has grown from a 2,500 square foot space, to inhabit a 13,000 square foot warehouse in an industrial complex in Wheat Ridge, Colorado. Matt’s vision for the culture in the workplace extends to the neighboring businesses creating a shared social responsibility for the industrial complex. The roofers from the roofing company next door provide as a sense of safety for the primarily female workforce of the laundry service. The plumbing business and mechanics from the motorcycle repair shop in the complex have been invaluable with plumbing emergencies or machinery issues. Together the blue-collar businesses are good neighbors who collaborate toward a common good.
Matt offered a compelling Kingdom vision when asked how the story of Professional Touch could inspire readers to love our neighbors who work in blue collar businesses in our city. “Well, for the 99.9% of people that may read this that will never use our laundry service, I would say we do a very normal set of activities with excellence, and we compound trust and service in a way that's really holy.” He continued with resolute conviction, “I think that's what God usually does. He takes very normal people, very normal things, and he makes them holy.” “We need more vocational, committed followers of Christ just taking normal, ordinary things and making them beautiful, because that's what God's always done.”
A blue-collar business owned and operated with conviction about the value of culture and care for the employees is a shining example of the tangible love of neighbors in a workplace. Professional Touch provides clean commercial linens for the city, and equally compelling, provides a place of belonging and becoming for every employee. The laundry service is a sacred place.
Thank you to Matt Barnes for the conversation about the business and his conviction in leading a blue-collar business for the good of his neighbors and the neighborhood.
