Sep 1, 2026 · 40 min · 11 segments
On this episode of Full Cycle, host Matt DeWolf talks with Brian Wallace, president and CEO of CLA, The Laundry Association, about a side of the organization's work that rarely gets discussed…
Matt DeWolfHost
Well, I imagine you do because in your seat, this takes up a lot of time and a lot of energy, and you really have to work hard to stay on top of all the different things.
And of course, we're just really talking about the legislative and regulatory work that we're doing on behalf of the industry.
And so On a sort of a normal month or normal season, it's a lot of monitoring of legislation that's coming through.
Of course, we use a service that helps us sort of identify potentially damaging legislation and regulation that could have a negative impact on the laundromat business.
And then once in a while, we'll have an issue that gains ground and then requires more intervention on our part, which could be more research.
And we have sort of this ad hoc response that we make to issues that could cost money for our members, have a negative impact for the end customers at the laundromat.
And yes, it can go from kind of a mild thing that's going on in the background to something that's all hands on deck and it's the only thing that we're working on.
Well, and I think one of the interesting things when you start talking about advocacy is it's incredibly difficult to measure how much of an impact that's having, right? And you've been in this industry for a very long time and doing this work for a very long time.
But I believe only just recently took the extra step to say, we're going to create a report that highlights exactly what kind of impact we're having.
I'd like to give to Jamie Sewell from our board of directors who used to be on staff here, as a matter of fact, years ago when she first got into the laundry business.
And we were just talking about the many decades that I personally have been working on the efficacy work and And sort of the implication that she shared was sort of like, well, Brian, a lot of that is up in your head and you remember what we did in this state or that state, but it's really not written down anywhere.
Well, I imagine you do because in your seat, this takes up a lot of time and a lot of energy, and you really have to work hard to stay on top of all the different things.
And of course, we're just really talking about the legislative and regulatory work that we're doing on behalf of the industry.
And so On a sort of a normal month or normal season, it's a lot of monitoring of legislation that's coming through.
Of course, we use a service that helps us sort of identify potentially damaging legislation and regulation that could have a negative impact on the laundromat business.
And then once in a while, we'll have an issue that gains ground and then requires more intervention on our part, which could be more research.
And we have sort of this ad hoc response that we make to issues that could cost money for our members, have a negative impact for the end customers at the laundromat.
And yes, it can go from kind of a mild thing that's going on in the background to something that's all hands on deck and it's the only thing that we're working on.
Well, and I think one of the interesting things when you start talking about advocacy is it's incredibly difficult to measure how much of an impact that's having, right? And you've been in this industry for a very long time and doing this work for a very long time.
But I believe only just recently took the extra step to say, we're going to create a report that highlights exactly what kind of impact we're having.
I'd like to give to Jamie Sewell from our board of directors who used to be on staff here, as a matter of fact, years ago when she first got into the laundry business.
And we were just talking about the many decades that I personally have been working on the efficacy work and And sort of the implication that she shared was sort of like, well, Brian, a lot of that is up in your head and you remember what we did in this state or that state, but it's really not written down anywhere.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.
