How she shines: Leadership: Anita Hardy has built and led Vanguard Cleaning Systems of Washington for 22 years, growing it from a startup in 2004 into an organization serving hundreds of customers across the Pacific Northwest. In 2023, she took on a significant new challenge, purchasing an additional Vanguard Cleaning Systems region in Oregon. That meant building the same culture and standards she had spent nearly two decades developing in Washington, in a new market, from a distance, starting with one carried-over staff member and two new hires. Leading that expansion required her to translate everything that made the Washington office work into a brand-new team almost overnight. Standing up a second region without diluting the first is one of the harder things an operator in this industry can attempt, and Anita took it on two decades into a business she could have simply maintained.
Teamwork: Over more than 20 years, Anita has partnered with dozens of franchise owners, several of whom have been with her since the earliest days of the business. Those are not short relationships. Multiple owners have stayed 15 to 20 years or more, which in an industry known for turnover reflects the kind of long-term partnership Anita has made central to how she operates. One franchisee who joined in 2005 has grown their business exponentially over two decades and is now passing it down to a second generation, a milestone Anita is proud to have played a part in building.
Development: Anita and her husband started with zero customers and wore every hat themselves, handling sales, operations, administration, and accounting. Everything the organization does today was learned by doing it first. That experience shapes how she develops other people. In 2014, she hired her son-in-law and has spent more than a decade mentoring him into someone now capable across nearly every part of the business. Twelve years of deliberate, patient coaching is an unusual investment in one person, and it reflects the same approach she brings to her franchise owners: build people who can eventually run things without you.
Overall, Anita has spent 22 years proving that a locally-owned operation can serve hundreds of customers across two states while keeping relationships intact for decades. She has taken franchise owners from their first account to businesses substantial enough to hand over to their children. She has mentored a family member from new hire to leader over 12 years. And when most operators with a stable business would coast, she bought a second region and rebuilt her culture from scratch to prove it would hold. The measure of her success is not the size of the territory she covers but the number of independent business owners who have built something lasting alongside her.
Years in the industry: 22 years
Job responsibilities: As President and Regional Owner, Anita leads operations across Vanguard Cleaning Systems of Washington as well as Vanguard Cleaning Systems of Portland. She owns the P&L for both territories and is responsible for recruiting and awarding new franchise businesses, securing and managing the commercial cleaning contracts that independent janitorial franchise owners service, and supporting those owners with customer relations, billing, and back-office administration. She oversees the staff in both offices and sets the standards and culture that carry across markets. Day-to-day, her focus is on long-term relationships: keeping customers for decades and developing franchise owners capable of running independent, sustainable businesses of their own.
Career path: Business was always something Anita loved. She started at an international bank straight out of high school as a Credit Secretary, then moved into Operations and Letters of Credit. From there, Anita worked several part-time jobs while raising a family, starting her own business selling blinds, and doing accounting work for other companies from home. That period gave her hands-on experience across nearly every function she would later need. In 2004, she was ready to be an entrepreneur again, and she founded Vanguard Cleaning Systems of Washington. Twenty-two years later, she leads two regions across Washington and Oregon, serving hundreds of customers and supporting dozens of franchise owners.
Best advice received: Her father's advice, and she still repeats it, is: be honest and don't cut corners. You'll earn the trust of others, and that trust is what makes you successful. It is advice that has shaped how she runs both of her regions, where the longest customer and franchise relationships are measured in decades rather than years.
Fun fact: Anita is the proud Bestemor of five grandchildren, the Norwegian word for grandmother, a nod to the family roots that shaped her.