The Cleaner Cleans Up

One of the biggest cleanup operations in the world is run by Daniel Fraad Jr., 52, a onetime Brown University foot ball standout and Columbia University anatomy instructor. He heads a company called Allied Maintenance, which, among other activities, sweeps and cleans offices, stores, auditoriums, air line terminals, ballparks. The 16,000 people who work for Fraad's publicly owned Allied do everything from tidying up Houston's Humble building to taking atomic waste away from the Yankee Electric plant at Rowe, Mass. "Minding other people's business" is the company's slogan, and in the fiscal year just past, its sales swept from $47 million to $60 million.

Fair Fight. Its most important contract, for an undisclosed sum in the millions, is to clean and maintain the grounds and many of the buildings at the New York World's Fair. Last week newspapers around the U.S. blossomed with stories about angry Fair exhibitors who charged that they were being taken to the cleaners by their cleaners. Some of them growled about exorbitant charges for such simple chores as unstopping a sink and emptying garbage. The most general complaint was against the high cost of temporary help, called in to perform specialized, emergency jobs. To get a carpenter on a short-term, hourly basis, exhibitors have to pay $11.51 an hour--and double time of $23.02 after 3:30 p.m.

Dan Fraad (rhymes with Claude) steadfastly denies the charges of overcharges. All his 3,885 workers at the Fair are paid the union-labor rates prevailing in New York, where costs might seem a bit steep to a foreigner or out-of-towner (sample: $93.40 a week for a porter). The only extraordinary charge is an 18% "idle-time fee" that Allied tacks on to the regular charges for its pool of 66 carpenters, mechanics and ironworkers who make hurry-up, emergency repairs. The extra is designed to compensate for the idle time between service calls. Fraad says that some of the displeased foreign exhibitors have their figures mixed; the Malaysian pavilion's director, for example, complained that he was paying $570 weekly for window washing--but the bill is actually $570 monthly. According to Fraad, Allied will make only fair profits on its Fair income: 2%.

Like Grandpa. All over the country, Allied is largely a middleman between companies that need maintenance help and the many unions that supply it; at the Fair alone, it deals with 35 unions. The company has been filling this unique need for three generations. It was started in 1888 by Danish Immigrant David Fraad, who contracted with the Pennsylvania Railroad to clean and fill lamps at its Jersey City terminal. Later, he and his four sons branched out, began cleaning offices, stores and the mansions of the Pricks, Rockefellers and Astors.

Grandson Dan Fraad started in the business at the end of a mop handle, is called "Junior" by his wife and friends. His chores are not all that different from Grandfather's, though on a much grander scale. The company that started out by refilling railroad kerosene lamps now pumps three million gallons of fuel per day into jet planes at major commercial airports.

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