North Dakota’s protective clothing and work-wear industry has a boost from the oil boom.
The amount of business has increased one local laundering service’s workload and enticed another to move to the area. Clothing and shoe stores in the area have expanded to carry the gear workers need.
AmeriPride’s Bismarck operation is one of the fastest growing company wide, mostly due to business from the oil and gas industry, Communications Director Ben Saukko said.
“Those branches (near an oil field) are growing exponentially more than the company as a whole,” he said.
AmeriPride started operating in Bismarck in the 1970s and opened its laundering plant in 1982, General Manager Rick Siebels said.
G&K Services, a Minneapolis-based uniform service company that offers much of what AmeriPride does, has had locations in North Dakota since 1996 but just moved to Bismarck about two years ago.
Washers that can handle between 500 and 1,000 pounds of greasy uniforms, door mats, towels and aprons tumble nearly 24 hours a day at AmeriPride’s plant in south Bismarck. Siebels said the company’s 140 employees clean and supply the fabrics used by businesses across western North Dakota and eastern Montana.
