The Costco Connection

I T ALL BEGAN because a college student needed spending money.

In 1953, Don Aslett, a farm boy from southern Over the next 60 years, Aslett rose to become the self-styled “King of Clean,” operating a nationwide janitorial empire with annual revenues of $190 million; authoring more than 40 books, such as Clutter’s Last Stand and How I Swept My Way to the Top: The Don Aslett Story; appearing on QVC, The Oprah Winfrey Show and several other nationally televised programs; serving as a motivational speaker for business- and government-related entities; and, in 2012, establishing the Pocatello, Idaho–based Museum of Clean.

After his teenage years on the family farm, Aslett attended Idaho State College (now Idaho State University). Being on “his own pocketbook,” he says, he offered himself

The king of clean

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for hire as a cleaning man.

“To earn my way through school, I started cleaning toilets, washing walls and waxing floors,” says Aslett, now 80 years of age and still active in his business. “I hired fellow students to help—first a few and then up to 100. Many of them stayed with me all the way through school.” Work was part-time between classes and often 14 to 18 hours on Saturdays. Aslett got a boots-on-the-ground education in business risk, scheduling around classes for himself and all his student employees, making payroll, cash flow and balancing home life and social needs as the business expanded to three states.

In 1957, after graduating with a teaching degree, Aslett and fellow student Arlo Luke formed Varsity Contractors Inc. (now Varsity Facility Services). The company continues to do business from coast to coast, employing about 4,200 people.

Aslett considers the Museum of Clean, filled with more than 10,000 antique and modern appliances and cleaning-related items, his crown jewel of accomplishment; it showcases his successful journey from student to long-term professional, and, as he says, “the power and value of clean.”—T. Foster Jones

Top: Don Aslett in his college days. Bottom: Aslett’s “crown jewel,” the Museum of Clean.

AS AN ARCHITECTURE student at University of Southern California, in the early 2000s, Costco member Nat McDiarmid saw technology changing how he and his classmates worked. “Year one it was all hand drafting,” he tells The Connection.

“By year three it was all color printing.”
Seeing a need for a color-printing service
among his classmates, McDiarmid bought a
printer for about $5,000 and started a business,
PlotPro:pm, in his 250-square-foot apartment.
The business did so well that he rented a small
office and ran as many as six printers at the
same time, often with a line of students out the
door. All the while, he attended classes during
the day and worked assignments between
print jobs at night.

Why did students choose his service?
McDiarmid explains, “I processed orders effi-
ciently and accepted large files online, making
it easy for students. I created an exact system to
fulfill my client’s needs.”
After completing his architecture degree,
in 2004, McDiarmid took a job in general con-
tracting; with a business partner, he contin-
ued to produce large-scale color prints for
students. After about two years, he decided to
pursue his printing business full time. It
expanded to the point where he had student
reps working on each local campus in the
architecture, art and design schools. But with
Big-picture branding

the financial crisis of 2008, business began to dry up. Fortunately, by that time McDiarmid had taken on professional clients who had once been student clients.

In 2011, McDiarmid incorporated the business as Brandex, turning its focus to turnkey DIY professional signage products to handle all of a company’s office branding, from lobby signs to wall graphics. Big-name clients include Red Bull, NBC and Jersey Mike’s.

Now printing on a state-of-the-art printer, McDiarmid’s latest venture is wallawall.com, which sells snap-up, interchangeable fabric wall coverings that can be printed with any image of the customer’s choice.

Having to balance
school and work
trained McDiarmid
to work long
hours and stay
busy. It “helped
me to try to
maximize
efficiency in
everything I
do,” he says.
—Stephanie E.
Ponder
BUSINESS CLASS

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 39

DON ASLET T

Varsity Facility Services • Pocatello, Idaho varsityfs.com; museumofclean.com TOP TIP: Trust people. Work hard. Never get behind. Keep your word. Be generous (more than fair) with neighbors, merchants and helpers. Be in control of what you have responsibility for.