Introduction To The Cleaning Industry

This is the third part of an eight-part article about Maintenance Mart distributing jan/san supplies for the Super Bowl.

Riley says she never does anything the conventional way. That’s partly what drew her to a male-dominated industry — the challenge.

Originally from Sante Fe, Riley was the first in her family to leave home, in 1985, and attend college. She planned to earn a degree in criminology and become a private investigator.

Through a friend, she learned of some part-time work for a building service contractor called Pedus Services in Scottsdale, Arizona. She ended up enjoying the job so much that by 1988 she had left school to work full time in the jan/san industry.

“I find it very, very challenging,” she says, “particularly for a woman.”

Riley worked with Pedus Services for about five years before joining another BSC, Service Resource Corporation in Phoenix, where she became vice president for customer service and marketing. That’s where she met her future husband.

Kraus had moved to Phoenix from Hartford, Connecticut, in 1992.

“I came out here to hike the Grand Canyon and fell in love with the state, and Phoenix, the desert, the whole thing,” he says. “I just decided to get away from the hustle and bustle of the Northeast.”

Originally from Syosset, New York, on Long Island, Kraus previously worked in several senior financial positions for a number of different companies on the East Coast, none of which were in the commercial cleaning industry.

Once in Phoenix, Kraus put his accounting and business management background to use working as the vice president and CFO for Service Resource Corporation.