History

Our history has its growth and maturity based in southeastern Pennsylvania, but has its start almost 1,500 miles away in Dodge City, Kansas. In 1973, our founder Kent Whipple, partnered to start Lustrex, a janitorial company. Their first job was to maintain a facilty as well as clean the carpets. In 1974, with a family on the way Kent, moved back to southeastern Pennsylvania from Dodge City and founded J. Kent Whipple Janitorial Services as a way to provide for his growing family.

As the initial name presents, Kent started his business with the focus on commercial facilities. In time, he grew the company to the point of eight employees and servicing 250,000 square feet of facility for companies like Bell Atlantic, Ametek, and Pecora. As situations changed, so did Kent. Seeking better hours and less headaches from dealing with the commercial contracts, he shifted focus to expand the residential carpet cleaning segment of the services in 1987.

1987 saw a marked change for the direction of the company. Having previously been cleaning carpets with portable carpet cleaning equipment, the investment into a truckmounted system provided capital improvement in cleaning results and continue the growth of the company. Truckmounted cleaning equipment has continued to be the primary choice in equipment. In 1997 a Prochem Legend was purchased and has been the back bone of the company. The unit continues in service, approaching the 10,000 hour mark of service. 2015 saw a another milestone with the addition of a second truck and unit that has helped expand the capabilities of our services.

Through the years, we have been able to employ a number of people in different aspect of the company. In 1998, Kent's youngest son Jason, started out as summer help. Twenty-five years later, Jason has developed a well rounded view of the cleaning industry. During the 2008 real estate decline, Jason saw the consistency in workflow and decided to put his focus into the family business and succession plan began to take shape. In 2020, Kent and Jason created what is now J. Kent Whipple Services LLC, allowing Kent the means to transition into semi-retirment.

While our plans for the future are consistently moving forward, we can't forget where we started and how we got to where we are today. This includes our ethics and focus on our customers, who without them, we would not be where we are today. It's our goal to continue providing exceptional level services for home and office textile needs.