Mr. Clean: Alumnus Stephen "Bucky" Buchalter

"I hate to clean," says Stephen "Bucky" Buchalter ‘90, "but cleaning up other people's mess is a great business," and successful at it, he is!

In 2003, Buchalter founded Enterprise Cleaning Corporation and just three years later, in 2006, the Worcester Business Journal named his commercial cleaning company "#1 Top Private Growth Company in Central Massachusetts." Currently Enterprise has 170 accounts and a staff of 115.

Cleaning seems to have been in Buchalter's entrepreneurial blood when at the early age of 15, he started Executive Car Cleaning Services. "I always knew that I wanted to go into business," he says, and when ready for college, he only applied to schools with business programs, including Bentley, Babson and Northeastern.

After choosing Nichols, Buchalter majored in marketing and minored in management. He really enjoyed the business curriculum's use of case studies and believes that this made his education interesting, challenging and relevant. "In my senior year, I had on-campus interviews with almost 50 companies," says Buchalter, "and I felt totally prepared to jump into the job market."

After going through an extensive interview process with Tile International of Auburn, Mass., the recruiter told him it was narrowed down to just two people. On the morning of the interview, as Buchalter was putting on his suit, he noticed that room mate, Fran Carlo, was also putting on a suit. "So, I asked him if he had an interview and he said he did...with Tile International. We both laughed when I told him that I was his competition!"

Buchalter was thrilled when he got the job offer. "I bought a brand new car and moved into my own apartment." But joy was short-lived when on the day before he was to start, he was told that there had been layoffs and his position had been eliminated.

In shock, Buchalter re-contacted the companies he had turned down, eventually accepting a position with the pharmacy giant CVS. "I knew that CVS wasn't for me because I have a passion for sales," he says, "but I needed to make my car payments." He ended up as an assistant manager trainee and was eventually fired.

Buchalter's third job was the charm. Taking a pay cut and pursuing his passion for sales, he took a job as a sales rep with National Cleaning Company out of Northborough and after learning the business, moved on to Textrol, a firm specializing in carpet and upholstery cleaning to high-end law firms, where he ran its Boston office. After returning to National for a short stint, in January of 2003, Buchalter decided that it was time to start his own business -- Enterprise.

After beating the pavement for customers, Buchalter got his first break with Commerce Associates cleaning four, ten-story office buildings in downtown Worcester in June 2003, and it's now his biggest account. Within four days, Buchalter had to scramble to hire a crew of 35 and invest in equipment and cleaning products. He even had to borrow cash off his credit cards to make his first payroll, but "I wasn't afraid," he says, "I knew that I had a vision and a process to make the business a success." He notes that unlike many of his competitors who respond only when there are problems, he has managers who go in during the day and evening shifts to make sure the job's done right.

At present, he's working to implement his long-term strategy to brand the company and is spending approximately $150,000 in advertising to do it, including partnering with the Worcester Sharks and the New England Surge teams playing at the DCU Center.

Buchalter, who generously returns to Nichols to share his insights with business students, doesn't sugar-coat how incredibly hard it was to start his business. Coincidentally, he's close friends with another 1990 Nichols grad, Jeffrey R. Johnson, who founded another successful commercial cleaning business -- Eagle Cleaning. As business savvy competitors, Nichols alums seem to be making a clean sweep of Central Massachusetts.