Window cleaning vs science
August 1st 2004

Stephanie and her husband, Lee-Stuart Evans, had a good story to tell. Both were highly trained biologists, Lee with a degree in molecular biology and Stephanie with a PhD in microbiology. Yet they could only command a joint salary of 18 000 a year not enough to live on and pay the rent.

Not surprisingly this, and the lack of prospects, forced them to make a career move. Some temporary work introduced Lee to the window cleaning industry. In July 2003 they formed Clean Team. With hard work and a little luck they are now on course to earn 50 000 a year servicing a thousand residential customers.

Quite an achievement you would think! It fell on deaf ears however, with local newspapers, when they tried to get some publicity in their home town of Godalming, Surrey. Lee became so frustrated he decided to telephone the Daily Mail. Within twenty minutes a decision had been made to run a story on the poor salaries paid to the scientific community. This made headlines in The Mail on Sunday, on August 1st.

Lee recently commented that the feature may not have directly benefited their business but it certainly made the local press keen to undertake a follow up story. Going to a top class newspaper paid off and it looks like their decision to purchase a top class, water fed pole, window cleaning system will also pay dividends in their plans to move into commercial cleaning.

They initially did not know what poles to buy. Their investigative minds led them to evaluate comments on internet forums. It became obvious that Tucker Pole was highly regarded by the window cleaning fraternity. They now have a VW Transporter mobile system and a static water making facility installed by Tucker Pole Systems UK. They are delighted with the results and Stephanie and Lee hope to have a second mobile system on the road within six months.

People thought Stephanie and Lee were mad to start a window cleaning business. They have proved many people wrong and have achieved much in a year. They are confident that the relationship with Tucker Pole will enable them to take their business right to the top. Its hard to say if this is a good news story for window cleaning or a bad news story for science but it certainly seems to be good news for Stephanie and Lee.

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