Tom Rhodes: From Greedy Capitalist to Benevolent Capitalist

Introduction
Born in Vero Beach in 1965, Tom grew up watching his parents run various businesses. When his parents bought some laundromats from a friend in 1977, Tom's life would change forever. As a 12-year-old, he remembers painting his parents' laundromats in the summer and rolling quarters—lots of quarters. Those early days taught him lessons for life that he will share with us today. Tom went to school at St. Ed's. After graduating from college, he worked at a bank, then a roof tile company, and then managed the 900 Booth Flea Market in Melbourne. He has been in the laundromat business since 1996, and he now owns eight laundromats called Sunshine Laundries of the Treasure Coast. Tom and his wife Sophie have been married for 29 years and have two wonderful grown children. Outside of work, he loves to windsurf and play disc golf, and he serves as an elder at Pillar Community Church. Speaking on the topic "From Greedy Capitalist to Benevolent Capitalist," please help me welcome Tom RHS.

Tom's Speech
Thank you, Steve, for that wonderful introduction. I appreciate it. This is not going to be your typical business luncheon speech where I tell you three steps to have a happier, healthier, more prosperous you. No, I'm going to talk about something less controversial but much more difficult, and that idea is surrender. It's so much more a Christian idea than health, wealth, and prosperity that we can all have by following certain principles. Those principles have a place, but surrender is probably a much more Christian ethic or value or way of living than those others.

We don't do surrender well in America, do we? No way. No, we win. We win in America. I mean, Revolutionary War—we kicked their butts, right? We sent them back across the Atlantic. You're going to hit our Twin Towers on 9/11? We're going to show you. Right? Not saying there's not a place for that by any means, but those are American values; they are not Christian values. We, as business owners and proprietors or managers of ministries, do business a different way. We conduct ourselves differently. I like to hope that we are Christians first and Americans second, but we do swim in these waters. So I wanted to make it clear that these are headwinds that we face as we're Christians trying to run our businesses and our ministries.

I start my story today by asking you to picture yourself—can you hear me okay, everyone? Feels like they need to be okay, good. So I ask you to picture yourself as one of our laundromat attendants. It's about 8:00 p.m. at night; you're starting to wind down your shift. You're wiping off all the machines, making sure they're clean for the next day. You're sweeping the floor, helping your customers figure out which dryers to use, helping them move along so you can get out by 9:00. Into the store walks a young, frazzled mother with two kids in tow. The two kids look like they don't want to be there by any means, and the mom has that same look like she doesn't want to be there. She does what most people do when they walk into the laundromat with their clothes—they start looking around and say, "Which machines are for me? Which ones do I need to use?" She sizes them up, then people look, "Oh, that's okay, that machine's $6.50, that one's $5.40, $5.50. Alright, I'm going to need about this much money to start my washers and that much for the dryers." Then they go over to our payment center. This mother, after she had done that exercise, walked up to our payment center, which I'm going to say is right back here, and she stands there and literally looks at the screen, and her shoulders slump. She had that look on her whole body that said, "Oh, how am I going to pay for this?"

So you are the attendant on duty. What do you do in that moment?

Well, I was raised by a mom and dad who each owned their own business, so you could say being an entrepreneur and self-employed is in my blood. I was raised a capitalist first and a Christian second—in that order. I went to college, got a degree in Business, started in a management training program at SunBank, and had a few other jobs along the way before I started to work as general manager for the laundromats for my parents. When I was 25, I met Jesus, and lots changed, but some things didn't. Many old, entrenched patterns did not. While I was GM of the laundromats, I was young and didn't have a lot of street cred with my parents to make the wholesale changes that I wanted to make for my newfound faith. Besides, what they had was working—it put Susie and me through college debt-free, provided a decent living for us, we could go on vacations, and I had some latitude to change things. I changed what I could, but we grew the business with sweat equity—their equity and my sweat.

My first run-up against the priority between capitalism and Christianity was with my attitude towards our attendants. I must confess that I have been privileged in many ways. I have a good education that my parents paid for. I went to St. Ed's, went to the University of Richmond. I grew up with my grandmother as an English teacher, so I prize education. Many of the attendants at my store, frankly, struggled to get through high school—not all of them, but some did. So my attitude with our attendants was mostly transactional. Pure capitalist mode: I have a product that I want to sell to you; you have something I want, which is your money. Deal made. So that was my attitude with our attendants: I pay you a certain amount of money, and in return, you do these things for me as I see fit to run the store.

A business mentor asked me once over lunch what our company's core values were, and I confessed I didn't know. He said you should be able to parachute into a company and, as an observer, in a few days, be able to figure out what those core values are. I think, if I was honest, that parachutist would say our core values were to make as much money as possible and to enhance shareholder value—my family's shareholder value. But passages in the Bible would leap out at me with sayings like "caring for the least of these," "caring for your brothers and sisters in Christ." How do I square those two? Frankly, I had a hard time. I couldn't.

Now, we know that God has no problem with wealth, right? Some of the heroes of our faith were very wealthy—Abraham, Job, King David, and the granddaddy of them all, King Solomon, maybe the richest man ever. But wealth without conscience is where things go sideways. Over time, my attitude changed. There was no lightning bolt moment. As Americans, we want that lightning bolt moment. I should even say, as humans, we don't like change. Change is hard. I am stubborn when it comes to change. So I would say that these changes happened over a period of time. I became a Christian at the age of 25. I'm 58 now. So what you see today is a product of my 32-year journey walking with Christ.

These passages would leap out, and I'd realize that my attendants didn't have all the advantages that I have: good medical care, a good education, solid family structures. Oh my gosh, how valuable are solid family structures? I had Mom and Dad; we had family dinner at least five or six nights a week around the dinner table. While in the early days, I was trying to figure out where we could go on our vacation for two weeks, my attendants were cashing out their two weeks of vacation so they could put new tires on their car.

As I grew more confident in my faith, I gradually enhanced our employment package. First and foremost, a higher wage—higher hourly wage. I realized that a lot of our attendants didn't have any retirement plan other than the proverbial Social Security that would come one day down the pike, so we decided to start a simple IRA program where we donate, we have a matching 3% of people's salaries. So if they can put it into a simple IRA. We also started an annual Christmas party with a Christmas bonus. Last night, we did an end-of-season party at Tutto Fresco down at Port St. Lucie, where people also got cash bonuses there too. And about five years ago, we started that one. Another controversial thing which I did probably, you know, when did it start? I don't know. We ask ourselves these questions because we all want to know when that moment was. Things take time, and we started celebrating the Sabbath. We started resting on Sunday. I'm not going to have a discussion about what day is the Sabbath, but the point is that God gives us the Sabbath as a gift. It is truly a gift—a gift for us.

I never really worked a lot; you know, I would always make family breakfast, and then we'd go to church, come home, and maybe I'd do some yard work or go play disc golf with the kids. Sometimes I would do laundromat things, but I got to the point where I said, you know, this whole idea of Sabbath should be restorative. God wants us to rest, and it is, to me, the ultimate sign of surrender. I am saying by resting on this day that, Lord, you have it all under control. I don't have to work. And that was so liberating when we started doing that on a more regular basis. I would say I still go out; I do yard work now, but I do things on my terms. We may go to the beach—it's on our terms. I'd say on our terms, we're enjoying this gift that God has given us. I say this to a bunch of business owners because we are the worst, but if you run a ministry, you have the same temptations too, right? To just work, work, work. It is so seductive to think that if I work a little harder, my product is going to be a little better. I'm going to go a step ahead of my competition. The customer is going to like me better. They're not going to go to somebody else's store, and it's seductive. I need to say, "Nope, God, you got this. I don't need to work on this day."

So, back to our core values. We call them core virtues. Values are relative and extend only out to the tips of your fingers. That's why people can say in today's world, "Hey, that's cool, Dale, that you believe that, but this is what I believe," with no moral superiority of either. But virtues are transcendent; they cut across all races, creeds, and religions. Ours are very aspirational—they spell out RAISE: Respect, Attitude, Integrity, Service, Excellence. A little generic, but they get to the point, and it's been a great vehicle that we've implemented at Sunshine Laundries to help train the attendants, our mechanic, our bookkeeper, and me to know what is expected of being an employee at Sunshine Laundries. We hold ourselves to a higher standard, and it's been wonderful in that it helps us maintain our company culture, which we guard jealously. If you don't hold to those values, you're going to get fired. I've had to fire some of our top attendants before because while she was bringing in a lot of money, she was doing a few things on the side. What do I do in that case? Do I turn a blind eye because she still has taken care of Sunshine Laundries? Nope, sorry, you're gone. It also takes care of the fuss-pots, people with bad attitudes who just want to work for a paycheck. You're not going to last long at Sunshine Laundries if that's your attitude.

Along the way, we decided we should be more generous—not just with our attendants but also with the community. Moren has been part of this journey of mine since probably 10 years ago. I've just been documenting it. Have you now? Okay, good. In 2013, we started a community washer program. I should say, I started a community washer program. I don't say that boastfully by any means, but I've been in business with my mom and dad. My dad died in 2013, and my mom, who was not a professing believer, hated this program. She thought I was giving money away. She didn't see the bigger picture at play here.

We started the community washer program, where we donated 25% of the revenue from a designated washer and dryer to a local charity, but it was only from Thanksgiving to Christmas. It was called "Washer Blessing." Habitat for Humanity was our first recipient, and it was only at our two stores. But sitting at St. Mark's Church during a Day of Silence during the Lenten season, I was there for about an hour, just calm and quiet in there. It's a beautiful church. I sat there, palms open, "Lord, what do you have for me? Help me to surrender more to you." I'd look up at that beautiful stained glass window and saw Jesus with his hands out like that. What you don't know is I'd probably been arguing with myself, rationalizing for myself, should we expand this community washer program to year-round and at all the stores? In that moment, it was almost like the Holy Spirit said, "Tom, just give." I called Moren and said, "Moren, we're doing this community washer program year-round, and we're going to roll it out to all the stores." He added the dryer to it because it was just the washing machine from Thanksgiving to Christmas.

So we typically donate all told—we choose a different charity, sometimes it's one charity for all three counties because we do business in three counties. Voices for Children is the most recent one that we chose. We did Safe Families not that long ago. It's always easier just doing one photo shoot and one check, but a lot of times, like Carenet was one, but we didn't do Carenet down in St. Lucie County; we chose somebody else at that time. All told, it ends up being about over $6,000 a quarter that we donate. We just hit $100,000 maybe three checks ago, so we're up to $177,000 now. We give just to give. We don't give to give back. I know this is a play on words, but people say, "Oh, we give back to the community." No, that implies if I say that I give back that I took something from you. I didn't take anything from you. As a capitalist, we have a deal, right? I'm offering you this product here, but God works in a different economy, and God wants us to give just because he first gave us his son.

I return to my initial story. What would you do for that frazzled mom that walks into your store, shoulders hunched over, wondering how she's going to pay for this? I'll tell you what the 30-year-old Tom, the greedy capitalist, would have done. He would have said, "Tough stuff, cupcake. Suck it up. I have a good product. I priced it accordingly. I have my expenses I need to pay. I'm sorry you can't pay for this, but I feel comfortable with what I'm offering to the community." That's not what my attendant did. My attendant, Ann, who was a believer, came up behind her, put her hand on her back, and said, "Don't worry, honey, I got this." She proceeded to take $20 out of her own pocket and start the washers and dryers for that lady. I'll start crying right now just thinking about it. When I heard that story, the less selfish Tom said to himself, "That's God. I want a piece of that action."

I want to instill a sense of generosity with our attendants. I want it to come from me as the owner of Sunshine Laundries to let them know that generosity is one of our keystone habits, one of our virtues at Sunshine Laundries. But how could I do this? I couldn't trust that in that moment, the other attendant who maybe wasn't as aware and sensitive to the Spirit's moving as Ann was would do the same. I've also found that some of our attendants, if there was a problem with the machine and it was your fault, Mickey, they don't want to give the refund. But I tell them, "No, our refund policy is gracious. It's liberal. Don't question them. Besides, it's not your money." It still doesn't always work, which confounds me. "It's not your money. I'm telling you it's okay." But they wouldn't. So how could I instill this generosity?

I read a book called The Fred Factor. I heard this man speak at a laundromat convention—yes, we do have laundromat conventions. He was the keynote speaker. Every industry has a trade show, right? So I read this book and said, "This is going to be the vehicle that we use." It's written for someone that can read at probably a third, fourth, or fifth-grade level. I've heard this book is used at elementary schools in various schools around the country now too. So after people have worked with us for 60 to 90 days, we ask them to read The Fred Factor. We have lunch together. I sit down with them; we break bread; we talk about the book and discuss what it takes to be a Fred. If we believe they're a Fred, and we don't invite them to the lunch unless they really are going to be a Fred, they get a 25-cent per hour raise, which I tell them is not the point, and a pin, and most importantly, a love card. They have this card that we then put $50 a quarter on. Every three months, we put $50 on this card. With this card, people can simply walk up to a washer and dryer, swipe the card, and the machine starts automatically—new technology, right?

So, they no longer have to—they, I said, "You are my eyes and ears. I'm not at the store very often, so I want you to be on the lookout. Preferably, it's a hand up, not a handout, but I totally trust you to make that judgment call in the moment. I'm not going to ask you any questions about how you spend this $50. I want you to spend it, though. I want you to use it. I want you to keep the love going in the community." I also tell them something implicitly: that I trust them. I trust them. That's also something the younger Tom never would have done. I would have wanted a spreadsheet to show me what's the reason for this. Did they really deserve it? Did this customer deserve it? God's worked amazingly, looking back through the years.

So, have I given up some of the profits coming my way as a capitalist by having a more generous employment package, perks for our attendants, a revenue-sharing plan with the community? I don't see how. I don't see how I have. In an industry where there's usually about 100% turnover every year with your staff, we have 75% of our employees that have been with us over a year. We haven't had to hire anyone new out of the 35 people that work with us for over four months. We're pretty happy campers. I like to say that people are choosing to work at Sunshine Laundries as much as we're choosing to hire them.

At this point in the program, most speakers are going to give you their three points for their takeaways, which you will have forgotten by the time you hit that door right there. But hopefully, the story will stick with you in some way. We each have our own journey, unique to us, but with one common thread woven in all of us who call ourselves followers of Jesus: surrender. We surrender to the Lord Jesus not just at salvation but every day—whether at work, home, or play. We surrender our agenda to His, and what we do is proof of what we believe. Business is love made visible. Business is ministry. How is He inviting you to surrender today?

Thank you.