Randy Bartsch, Mentor Emeritus
With more than twenty years of entrepreneurial experience, Randy brings to ViRTUS the perspective of a business builder, operator, and an industry futurist. In 1982 at age twenty-four, Randy acquired a small family-run uniform rental business and over the next decade built the enterprise into a business with more than 350 employees working at five processing facilities throughout Western Canada, Washington State, and California. From these beginnings he led his company into every aspect of B2B textile maintenance including everything from industrial workwear to hospital linen supply to denim stone washing to custom dying.
While still in his twenties Randy was elected President of the Abbotsford Rotary Club and in 1991 he joined the Young Presidents' Organization, where he currently sits on YPO's Canadian Leadership Council. At age thirty he was invited to join the board of the Hallandale, Florida based Textile Rental Service Association (TRSA) where he served as one of three international directors. From 1995 to 1997 Randy chaired the TRSA Strategic Management Committee. With his Canadian perspective and an outspoken bias on many industry issues, he contributed to governance at a time when the industry was experiencing unprecedented consolidation and change.
Then a 'sea-change' - in 1997 half of his empire, Act One Uniform Rentals, was sold to Cintas, the uniform people and the world's largest workwear supplier. Since then Randy has continued to build his company but focusing now on the narrower niche of a private-sector supplier of health-care laundry and linen services. For five years beginning in1990 he served as volunteer Vice President of the Western Canada Games Society and until recently was a director of the BC Sports Hall of Fame. He is on the board of CRGI International Inc., an internationally recognized human-resource, personal development, and change-management publisher. He was also a business advisor to MindfulEye.com Systems Inc., the creator of Lexant, a new class of artificial intelligence technology that reads and understands written material as it appears on the Internet.
These experiences have provided Randy with much wisdom regarding business management and strategy as well as corporate team building. He is also very much recognized for his skills as a cheerleader, he is a business visionary and an experienced corporate leader.