When the blue Jani-King car comes down the road, it likely is being driven by Rich Henderson.
He doesn't mind the looks if it means he's being noticed by potential customers for his clients.
"Our business is to sell cleaning franchises," Mr. Henderson said. "We help put people in business."
Mr. Henderson and a partner have the rights to Augusta and Savannah, and they recently opened a new territory across the state in Macon, so it wouldn't be surprising to see the Jani-King car there.
The Augusta office has only six employees but it manages more than 25 franchised business owners who employ hundreds of people in the area, Mr. Henderson said. It is a similar situation in Savannah -- and maybe soon in Macon.
"It is not a bunch of uneducated people out there pushing brooms," Mr. Henderson said.
All are commercial, not residential, cleaners.
"It is the bigger side of commercial cleaning; it is the more involved side, doing places like hospitals and schools and theaters and hotels," he said.
They are "people who have been in corporate America and have wanted to take a shot at running their own business," Mr. Henderson said.
He has franchise cleaners who are husband-wife teams, single moms, retirees, teachers and police officers seeking money on the side.
Unlike other franchise businesses, Jani-King finds customers for its new entrepreneurs in addition to training them, Mr. Henderson said.
Greg Lard, a former employee, is Mr. Henderson's partner. In 2006, they relocated to Augusta from Mobile, Ala., to open a new territory for Jani-King. Mr. Lard now manages the Savannah territory.
"He knows more about Jani-King than anyone I've met," Mr. Lard said of his former boss. "In most respects. he's seen everything before. He knows what the outcome will be."
When Mr. Henderson was a vice president in Mobile, his job was to open new offices. Now it's up to him to oversee the establishment of the Macon site.
The three cities might not be the end of their expansion plans.
"I'm a glutton for punishment," Mr. Henderson said. "I do aspire to have more regions."
There are available territories in Florida, he said, but South Carolina is locked up.
"When you're a radar man in the Navy and the radar is off, there's only one thing to do. You clean. That's what we did in port," Mr. Henderson said.
His friends always joked that they should all get good janitorial jobs when they got out of the service.
"I'm the only guy that made good on that," he said.
Aviation geek
When Mr. Henderson got out of the Navy in 1993, he tried to get a job as an air traffic controller, although there were few openings.
"No one was impressed by my ability to run planes into each other," he said.
Mr. Henderson was an air combat controller on the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal. His duties differed from those of an air traffic controller in one important aspect -- his job was to direct jets into one another, not away.
"Once a jet takes off, it is the air traffic controllers that get them departed. Once they are in the fight, there's a controller that's watching the fight," Mr. Henderson said. "When they are in the fight, on radar it looks like a blob."
Mr. Henderson served on the carrier during the Persian Gulf War.
"We did circles at the corner of Syria and Turkey," Mr. Henderson said. "We did good work. I was proud of my service."
After five years in the Navy, Mr. Henderson did a few odd jobs around his hometown of Baton Rouge, La., before landing a sales position with the local Jani-King franchise.
The 39-year-old finally is doing what he's been wanting to do since he was a teenager: learn to fly.
Mr. Henderson is a self-described aviation geek.
His office on Wheeler Road has a signed print of a painting of the Marine Corps fighter pilot Maj. Gregory ''Pappy'' Boyington and his World War II Black Sheep squadron.
Behind his chair is another painting, of a World War II Curtiss P-40 used by the Flying Tigers. There's also a Flying Tigers uniform patch in the frame.
"I was too much of a teenager to let my dad pay for flight lessons," Mr. Henderson said. "I was in the Navy, but I didn't use my GI Bill for it."
Mr. Henderson is 15 hours into the 40 hours of training it will take to get a license.
"That's all I've heard out of him for the three years that I've known him, wanting to get his pilot's license," Mr. Lard said.
The business might need it if the men decide to expand into cities beyond the Southeast.
"We're always looking to expand, for new areas to move to throughout the country. We're free to move anywhere we want to," Mr. Lard said.
Though Mr. Henderson is a World War II aviation buff, he said practicality will probably take over when it comes time to buy a plane -- a Cessna over a replica.
"There's the general aviation side of me that wants to get something small and fun, a two-seater to have fun on the weekends," he said. "But it has become a necessity because of the expansion of my business and wanting to go to different places (to get a corporate plane)."
It would make his frequent trips to Macon and Savannah less time-consuming.
Drive to succeed
When Mr. Henderson opened the Jani-King master franchising office in Augusta in 2006, there was a lot of driving involved. Unable to sell their house in Mobile, his family lived in Alabama while he was working in Georgia.
Mr. Henderson moved up the ladder in Jani-King after beginning his career in Baton Rouge. There was a promotion to regional director, which prompted the move to Mobile. Then came a promotion to regional vice president of the Gulf Coast.
It was then that he was offered his own territory. The choices were cities in New York, Wisconsin, Michigan, Idaho, Alaska -- and Augusta.
"This is the farthest north I've ever lived," Mr. Henderson said.
Mr. Lard found an apartment and the partners roomed together for the next year while they attempted to get the venture off the ground. "I would have lost my sanity if I was doing it all on my own," Mr. Henderson said.
For that first year, Mr. Henderson would drive home every weekend -- nearly seven hours to Mobile -- and then return before Monday morning. It was an experience like any other new business, with long hours "beating the streets" to find business. Mr. Henderson and Mr. Lard were looking for new franchise owners and new customers.
Mr. Henderson was able to sell the house in Alabama and move his wife and three children to Augusta before Christmas 2007. His wife, Rhonda, now works for the company.
Mr. Henderson met his wife in Baton Rouge. They were "post-high school sweethearts," having gone to the same high school but not dating until after graduation.
"We had similar friends and just never crossed paths," Mr. Henderson explained. Those paths crossed when those friends took them both to Disney World.
Mr. Henderson had attended Louisiana State University for a couple of years for pre-med before deciding he did not have the heart to become a doctor. So he joined the Navy in 1988.
"I joined the Navy and was going away, so we were either going to stay together or not. I wanted to stay together," Mr. Henderson said. They've been married for 20 years.
He was able to complete his college education in the Navy. "Sea college," he called it. The business degree is from Central Texas College, though he never set foot there -- but he's seen a picture of the campus.
Clean approach
Mr. Henderson lives by the credo that he is successful if his franchisees are successful. That was the sentiment of the people who trained him at the start of his Jani-King career 13 years ago.
"It has been my goal to live by that," he said. "We make our money if they are successful."
The average investment for a Jani-King franchise is between $5,000 and $15,000. The more a person pays for a franchise, the more business Jani-King will find the new franchise owner.
The lowest franchise fee is $2,500, Mr. Henderson said, and that is taking into account a veterans discount.
"We guarantee customers to the franchisees to get them off the ground. Everyone wants to be in business, but you've got to have customers," he said.
The average starting revenue is between $4,000 and $6,000 a month.
"We help them develop and market the business," he said.
They also train the new franchise owners on the cleaning chemicals, some of which are not the run-of-the-mill window spray.
Mr. Henderson said he doesn't feel the metro area has been saturated with cleaning firms. He and Mr. Lard did a business study before opening that told them there was an estimated $17 million in monthly revenue available in the area.
"There's tons of room to grow," he said.
Mr. Henderson said he is trying to manage his community involvement. He serves as an ambassador to the Augusta Metro Chamber of Commerce and will be in the next class of Leadership Augusta.
He also spearheaded the establishment of an Augusta branch of the U.S. Green Building Council, which has had four meetings so far, and serves on the Georgia board for green building.
Reach Tim Rausch at (706) 823-3352 or timothy.rausch@augustachronicle.com.
RICH HENDERSON
BORN: Nov. 9, 1969, Baton Rouge, La.
EDUCATION: Business administration, Central Texas College, 1992
CIVIC: Ambassador for Augusta Metro Chamber of Commerce, Georgia board member U.S. Green Building Council
FAMILY: Wife, Rhonda (below), children, Richie, Brittni and Haley
HOBBIES: Hunting, fishing, flying
The Augusta Chronicle ©2010 Morris Communications, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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