Business Spotlight: So Fresh, So Clean

The names connected to this 67-year-old Springfield commercial laundry-equipment business in many ways reflect the business acumen and unique character of the Ozarks.

John Morris Equipment and Supply Co. was founded in 1949 by John A. Morris, the father of Bass Pro Shops founder Johnny Morris. The equipment business today is owned by the Morris patriarch’s sisters – Carol Robinson, Jo Ann Junge and Susie Henry. It’s run by General Manager Terry Gideon and Office Manager Tara Pendergrass out of the east side of the Brown Derby International Wine Center, owned by Joan’s husband Ron Junge. Of course, another famous Morris-family business got its start in a Brown Derby store: Johnny launched Bass Pro in the 1970s with a stand of lures.

John Morris Equipment serves a host of notable names, as well.

From O’Reilly Hospitality Management LLC to Mercy Springfield Communities, Dutch Maid Laundry, Prime Inc. and Missouri State University, Pendergrass says Morris Equipment and Supply has 1,000 or more active clients primarily located in Missouri and northern Arkansas. In a given month, the company may service or collect coins from the machines of roughly 200 clients. Other notable customers include the Ozarks Regional YMCA, Myer Hotels Inc. and Walker Hospitality Group. Gideon says the company has even sold a washer that can hold 100 pounds of jerseys and a 120-pound-capable dryer to the Kansas City Chiefs for the practice facility in St. Joseph.  

“We do a lot in hospitality, whether that’s in hotels or resorts. We’ll sell them coin equipment or on-premise laundry equipment to wash their sheets and towels and so on. And that includes a lot of different types of places,” Gideon says, adding the company, which also sells dry-cleaning equipment, sold washers and dryers to Greene County before the jail opened in 2001.

Last year, Morris Equipment began taking on some new brand names of its own – Electrolux, Wascomat and Primus – amid industry changes. Gideon says Primus multiload washers and dryers, added in the fall, used to be available from the company’s longtime sole machine supplier, Maytag, which has been a division of the Whirpool Corp. since 2006. Wisconsin-based Alliance Laundry Systems LLC acquired the Primus brand in 2014.

Mark Schram, North American sales manager for Alliance Laundry, is working to establish distributorships across North America for Primus. He says 16 distributors are in place, representing about 80 percent of the coverage goal to bring the international brand to more U.S. markets.

“We contacted who we felt were the best distributors in a marketplace and selected John Morris [Equipment] for Missouri and the northern Arkansas area,” Schram says.

He says Morris Equipment will be setting its own prices for the Primus products, which range from top loaders than can handle 16 pounds to a tumbler than can hold up to 200 pounds.

Morris Equipment’s Maytag relationship dates back to 1958, and black-and-white pictures on the wall show John A. Morris with Maytag officials.

The additional suppliers are designed to help the company, which operates with two warehouses in town, maintain recent modest growth. Morris Equipment’s annual revenues have increased around 3 percent in recent years, officials say, declining to disclose sales figures. Revenues were largely flat during the recession, and the business has been through up and down cycles throughout its history, says Gideon, a 30-year company veteran.

Area competitors include KeeWes Equipment Co., Metro Appliances and More, TMS Laundry Equipment, Performance Laundry Equipment Inc. and Loomis Bros. Equipment Co., which primarily serves the Kansas City and St. Louis areas.

To stand out, Gideon makes himself available by cellphone to clients 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

“That’s how we try to gain our edge. If you’re dealing with us, you’re not dealing with some huge business office,” Pendergrass says.

Morris Equipment sells and leases commercial laundry equipment with smaller units ranging from $800 to $1,200 and larger models – which can hold up to 275 pounds – priced around $48,000. Typically, washers cost a little more, and common business orders include two to three washers and dryers each.

Laundry supplies, such as detergents and clothes folding tables, also are for sale, and leasing machines is an option on certain models. But well over 50 percent of revenue comes from equipment sales and service.

“Sales and service is our bread and butter,” Pendergrass says.

Gideon expects the new supplier relationships will boost revenue growth above the recent 3 percent benchmark.

John Phinney, asset and special projects manager for Springfield-based O’Reilly Hospitality, says Morris Equipment has supplied washers, dryers and related equipment for the TownePlace Suites, Hilton Garden Inn and DoubleTree Hotel in Springfield.

“At the new TownePlace at the corner of Cherokee and National, all the equipment there is from John Morris,” he says, noting laundry carts and folding tables came from the company too.