01/28/2004
Diana Richards has a thing for clean floors. She's been making her mark in the vacuum cleaner industry for more than 30 years and is currently the president of Vacuum Systems International Inc., a Cleveland-based vacuum cleaner and service provider.Before opening Vacuum Systems International in 1995, Richards was Operations Manager for a chain of five vacuum stores.
"Retail store employees would bring broken vacuum cleaners into the shops with a $50 petty cash slip to have it repaired," Richards says. "Many time, the vacuum cleaner had a simple broken belt, something clogged in the brush roll or fan, or the hose was clogged with dirt -- all repairs that could have been handled via a troubleshooting call."
The idea for Vacuum Systems International came to Richards after a meeting with a retail chain's corporate office in the Cleveland area. Nine years later, Vacuum Systems International, with 24 employees, serves clients in over 72,000 retail chain locations in North America.
It hasn't all been fun and games, she admits. In 2001, Richards discovered that an employee had stolen almost 1,500 vacuum cleaners from her business over a two-year period.
"We were only insured for a portion of the theft because we insured the number of units that were sitting in our warehouse, not thinking someone would steal for two years," Richards says.
Then just last year, Vacuum Systems International lost a major client, which had accounted for 20 percent of the business's gross sales.
Even with all of the ups and downs, Richards has still found time to play an active role in small-business activism. Richards, who has been an NFIB member since 1998, says that she got into activism after attending her first NFIB National Small Business Summit. She has also been a Leadership Trust member since July 2003.
"Any time I have an opportunity to meet other small-business owners it is so rewarding for me," says Richards, whose biggest legislative concern in frivolous lawsuits. "I always walk away with something I would not have thought of."
Richards will also attend the 2004 NFIB National Small Business Summit. Through the "Early Bird" contest, Richards won free registration and lodging for the Summit, which is taking place June 16-18 in Washington, D.C.
"I absolutely love every day I walk into Vacuum Systems International -- the employees, our vendors and clients," Richards says. "Even with setbacks and problems, it's the adventure of a lifetime and I wouldn't exchange it to do anything else."
