Company cleans up industry model

The name “Clean Slate” carries multiple meanings for Tim Smead and Elizabeth and Dominick Bergeron. It refers to the refreshing way their cleaning company takes care of its clients, and it also represents the unorthodox birth of the business.

Smead started Clean Slate as a construction cleaning enterprise in 2018, but it wasn’t until he teamed up with the Bergerons that the business took on its final form. Before that could happen, Elizabeth had to sell her video production company in Florida, along with most of her family’s possessions, to uproot her life. Starting over in Northwest Montana gave her a clean slate to begin again.

“It was a very emotional time,” Bergeron recalled.

She met Smead working as a cleaner for Clean Slate, but the pair quickly realized Bergeron’s capacity to lead the business in a new direction. Bergeron’s specialty lies in standardizing business practices within industries that resist easy systematization.

“I like building teams and creating systems for teams,” Bergeron explained.

Clean Slate was ripe for Bergeron’s intervention. She sought a way to turn seasonal cleaning gigs into a year-round, reliable career for Clean Slate’s employees.

“I like creating something where folks can count on and feed their families,” Bergeron said. “…The money is not the priority. Dependability and sustainability are the priority.”

To make that possible, Bergeron, her son Dominick, and Smead had to “completely deconstruct the business model.”

They built it back up with a regimented new program that includes regular cleans at recurring properties. This approach allows Clean Slate employees to develop relationships with clients, as well as gain access to benefits like paid time off and holidays.

It’s a model that’s hard to find in the cleaning industry, Bergeron observed.

“There’s just a lot of room for improvement in the cleaning industry,” Bergeron said. “This is a huge step in that direction.”

Creativity was the key in taking that big step. Outside of the busy summer season, Smead and the Bergerons sought alternative opportunities to keep their workers actively employed. That led them to participate with Camp Ponderosa, The North West Montana Veterans Stand Down & Food Pantry, and Glacier Bible Camp.

Smead and the Bergerons paid their existing employees to help with organization at the Food Pantry warehouse, construction projects at Camp Ponderosa, and cleaning at Glacier Bible Camp.

Bergeron said participating with the various community-oriented organizations was an easy and rewarding transition for the cleaners.

Bergeron believes this work was especially well suited to the Clean Slate team because the company mostly hires women who stayed home to raise children before returning to the workforce. She said these workers have the versatility to excel in a variety of job capacities, even though many of them don’t have the resume-building experience that they might need for other occupations.

Bergeron, herself a mother who took time off of work to raise her family, said the Clean Slate workforce is full of “powerhouse women.”

Now, the organization is looking for even more of those workers as it expands into a second location in Tampa Bay this upcoming April.

To contact Clean Slate, call (406) 300-3920.

Reporter Bret Anne Serbin may be reached at 406-758-4459 or bserbin@dailyinterlake.com.