On a Google Maps street view of Belding Cleaners in lower Kercheval, the man with a broom sweeping the pavement is Joe Hebeka. He owns the company.
More on that soon.
On a predominantly gray marble plinth near the corner of Hebeka’s desk in his second floor office overlooking Kercheval are two books between white marble bookends of the Indian chiefs: West’s Business Law and Sun Tzu’s The Art of War.
Both volumes are accessible reminders of a businessman’s need to balance protocol and ambition.
“One of the most important things I took away from reading The Art of War was how to use your knowledge and your team to improve your business,” said Hebeka. “A lot of that comes when your team sees their leader as one of them, someone who does things that most leaders wouldn’t do. That is a leader that others will follow.”
Which brings us back to the Google image of the top man working the bottom tier.
“It’s difficult to find staff at the moment, but the people I have are fantastic,” said Hebeka. “It’s almost a give and take with them. I take care of you; They take care of me. That’s how things grow. I can’t do it without my employees.”
Hebeka, 41, bought the company in 2007 from his father, who had owned it since the 1970s.
“I had a vision for Belding Cleaners when I was working for my father,” said Hebeka. “I knew there could be more. I saw the final product in the distance. Over the years I have tried to get closer and closer to this vision step by step.”
Photo by Brad Lindberg
Joe Hebeka does the paperwork in his office at Belding Cleaners.
He has almost reached his goal.
“I see that we’re getting very close to the vision I saw years ago,” he said. “We do first class work. We have completely new devices and machines.”
He cleans the uniforms of public safety officers in Grosse Pointe for free. All Pointes, not just the park.
“They do a lot for us,” said Hebeka. “I love Grosse Pointe. I love my family. I want this whole area to be successful.”
In the 1996 film The Big Night, a fraudulent restaurateur justifies the fake good relationship with everyone. It’s a cynical sales strategy: “I’m a businessman. I am everything I need to be at all times.”
For Hebeka, compatibility is a matter of course.
“I try to be nice to everyone,” he said. “I try to see both sides of everything. That’s why I guess I get invited to be a part of things because people know I’m balanced.”
When he founded the Grosse Pointe Park Business Association, he invited himself.
“It had to be done for the association,” said Hebeka, president of the group. “It’s a fair amount of work, but it benefits the well-being of business owners and local residents. I say this because we serve all residents. Of course, they want to be in a community that has successful businesses to buy from.”
Membership entitles you to business-to-business discounts, inclusion in an online listing on visittheparkgp.com, promotional opportunities and more.
It is part of Hebeka’s two-way philosophy, which also extends to communal relations.
“The city is open to the needs and problems of the club,” he said. “We’re doing the same for the city. If there’s an event they need help with, we step in.”
The cleaning trade is over 100 years old.
“Belding Cleaners was founded in 1918 by the Belding family in Kercheval, Detroit,” Hebeka said. “This site (on Kercheval) was built in 1929 as the first dry cleaning facility in Grosse Pointe.”
Belding Brothers & Company is the namesake of Belding, Michigan, northeast of Grand Rapids.
“They were silk makers,” said Hebeka.
According to advertisements in Hebeka’s files, more than 100 years old, Belding had mills in four states and one in Canada. The offices and sales rooms ranged from Manhattan to San Francisco.
In the corporate town of Belding, the Belding Library is a half-block from the Belding Museum, a former boarding house for women who worked at one of the town’s three silk mills, the only surviving one of which is now a residence.
“I think they funded one of their cousins to build this building,” Hebeka said of the Kercheval site.
Aside from his history and employee connections, it’s the fact that Hebeka was the victim of a surprisingly brazen theft in Detroit Metropolitan Airport North Terminal’s Big Blue parking deck in late November that brought him interest to television news viewers throughout the Detroit metro area.
He and his oldest of three children, 14-year-old daughter Juliana, were returning home from visiting relatives in Florida during Thanksgiving. His wife Angela stayed behind for a few days with sons Jonah, 10, and Jordan, 7.
Hebeka and Julianna turned a corner on the second floor of the parking deck and found his new Jeep Wagoneer and a big surprise.
“It was on blocks with nuts and bolts on the ground and cars were parked around it,” Hebeka said.
The four stolen wheels and tires caused a total damage of nearly $8,000, which was secondary at the time.
“My daughter had to go to school,” said Hebeka, “she didn’t want to miss dance training.”
He arranged private transportation for more than $100, drove her to school, went home, got another car, and returned to the airport to file a police report.
“They almost scolded me, ‘Why did you leave and then come back to report it to the police?'” Hebeka said. “I said, ‘I have to take my daughter to school. I will do whatever it takes to get my daughter to school and then come back and deal with this mess. She doesn’t have to deal with it.’”
Julianna feared the thieves knew where the family lived.
“No, I told her those guys are gone,” Hebeka said. “You’re facing your next theft. They’re probably doing it right now while we’re talking.”
A wagoneer on blocks tells a story. A Wagoneer stands on blocks in a busy airport parking deck and asks questions.
Hebeka cannot imagine how in a post-9/11 airport, where everything is said to be under surveillance, everyone is suspected of something, and every bag, purse, luggage and pair of shoes is scrutinized, a group of thieves could run off with someone’s wheels and tires.
“No one called us,” said Hebeka. “So nobody patrolled the parking lot and saw it. No security guard in a car with a little orange light. Nothing. (Reporters) said that 30 cars were stolen this year. That’s one car every 12 days. I don’t know what else it takes until they put up cameras.”
Its wheels will be replaced.
“I’m lucky, but God knows what’s going on in that parking lot,” Hebeka said. “I don’t want little kids to get hurt.”
