His father was a janitor, now he owns one of the largest janitorial services in Utah: Evirokleen CEO Jorge Dennis weighs in on his company's growth.

• Author: Rueda, Jacob

ENVIROKLEEN, LLC IS A family-owned and operated janitorial services company in Salt Lake City specializing in an array of cleaning services. The business was started in 1989 by company president Jorge Dennis' father.

In its early days, Envirokleen was nothing more than a family project to put food on the table while Dennis' father was out of work. Since then, the company has grown to serve local businesses, hospitals, and state agencies alike.

Dennis' family emigrated from Sonora, Mexico when he was two years old. As he grew older and his father started the cleaning side job, he and his sister would help out. "I used to go every night with my dad and my job was to empty trash," Dennis says, recalling the early days working alongside his family.

It was not Dennis' plan to stay in the family business. After high school, he attended Brigham Young University as a PreMed student before leaving in 2000 to serve a mission in Spain for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. While in Europe, he discovered medicine was no longer his passion and switched to business once he returned home.

He attended the University of Utah where he studied for his MBA with an emphasis in international finance. While in school, the need arose for him to return to the family business and Dennis became president of Envirokleen in 2007. He finally earned his Master's in 2011.

Despite his position and title, Dennis hesitates to address himself as an executive. "Never once have I told people, 'I'm the president of Envirokleen,'" he says. Instead, he refers to himself as a janitor--a word he admits he did not appreciate earlier in his career due to the social stigma behind the work. Nowadays, he fully embraces it.

"Our people have realized how essential they really are," he says. Envirokleen is able to invest back into their workforce thanks to low debt and overhead, keeping their turnover equally low. Dennis attributes the company's success to its employees, particularly during the time of COVID-19.

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