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It was announced shortly before Christmas that Chris Sander, Managing Director, Johnsons Apparelmaster, would be promoted to Divisional Managing Director of Johnson Textile Services, comprising two operating divisions with a combined turnover of £140 million. His new responsibilities include responsibility for 2,500 staff operating from 25 sites across the UK, providing laundry and garment rental services to 60,000 customers who provide their respective employees with over one million clean, protective, garments and uniforms every week. Not just businesses large and small, but major outdoor events like Wimbledon, The Cheltenham National Hunt Festival, The Open Golf Championship and most Premier League Football clubs, all are serviced with their clean and bright linen and corporate clothing by Johnson Textile service people. Sander's new appointment crowns a career filled with successful accomplishment at all levels in the laundry business including starting as a nine-year old 'van boy' on a domestic laundry round from the then Lakeland laundry branch in Carlisle, via Management Trainee on leaving school also with Lakeland, in a variety of shop-floor roles in a considerable number of towns across the North of England. Two years at Derby College learning the theory to overlay the practical challenges of working life at Lakeland, saw evermore achievements, won at the 'chalk face' of serious academic studies. The H U Jackson Memorial Prize for best performing student across all textile subjects during the two-year course, and in successive years the Albert Thompson Intermediate Prize for best student in Laundry and Drycleaning in year 1 and then the Albert Thompson Advanced Prize for the best performing student in year 2. No mean achievements for a young man with a full time job to keep up with. On graduation in 1979 and at only 21 years of age came the first of many promotions when Lakeland Pennine made Chris, Production Manager at their Industrial Workwear Plant in Kendal. In an understandable desire to expand his professional experience; in 1981 Chris relocated to Leeds and to Rentokil Initial at their Leeds Workwear plant. Three years later, a further rung on the ladder came within reach and the move was made to Johnson Service Group first in Cardiff and then Bristol, as, successively, Rental General Manager for South Wales and then Rental Manager in Bristol. These roles were ably fulfilled and, in 1991, he was promoted to Rental Director and then to Regional Director of Johnsons Laundry Division before becoming Stalbridge Director of Linen Services in 1997 - two years before becoming Managing Director of Stalbridge and also a Director of Connacht and Court Group in Ireland and Director of Johnson Group, Central Laundries. The continuation of the Sander success story led, in 2002 to Chris becoming National Operations Director of Johnsons, followed in 2003, by Managing Director - Johnsons Apparelmaster. Still the upward trajectory continued and he joined the Johnson Service Group Management Board in 2005 before finally taking over the Divisional Managing Director's chair of the entire Johnson Textile business on 1 January 2007. Chris Sander has, throughout his years of unstinting service to the Johnson Service Group, and to the UK Laundry Industry as a whole, pursued a very creditable and praiseworthy career path which few others in any organisation, providing services on an equivalent scale to any industry, can expect to achieve. Laundries are about commitment to customer service as well as to colleagues and the Company. Success is a measure of how well a person fulfils each of these demanding challenges, yet all the while still managing to be approachable, sincere and professional. Chris Sander, at just 48 years of age, exemplifies all these characteristics and his success is mirrored in the performance of Johnsons Laundry and Rental Divisions. Our industry should be very pleased to offer him warmest congratulations on his new appointment and recognise that by his career, a very substantial performance benchmark has been set. I C Scott - 3 January 2007 Back to Memebers' Press Release |