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PRESS RELEASE
December 4, 2007
For Immediate Release
Contact: Don Aslett
208-232-3535
Industry Leader Builds World’s First Museum of Clean
Don Aslett, founder and chairman of Varsity Contractors, Inc. (a nationwide facility services provider), announced today that construction is underway for a 75,000 sq. ft. museum devoted entirely to our efforts over the centuries to clean up after ourselves!
This unique structure is being built in Pocatello, Idaho, near Idaho State University, which Aslett attended when he started cleaning houses in 1953 to earn his way through college. That little company, called the College Cleanup Team, became Varsity Contractors, which today has 5,000 employees coast to coast plus 3,000 subcontractors, and annual sales of $250 million.
“The theme, purpose, and value of the museum will be to sell the public on the value of ‘clean,’” said Aslett. Cleaning efforts over the centuries will be chronicled through displays, demonstrations, and even dramatized in a cleaning melodrama. Items dating back more than 2000 years along with an amazing collection of pre-electric vacuums, are part of the Aslett/Varsity collection.
The idea for the museum came about in 1984, when Aslett visited the Edison Museum near Detroit in the course of taking a group of Boy Scouts to the Jamboree. He has since visited museums of every kind and size from the Hammer Museum in Alaska to the Buffalo Bill Museum in Cody, Wyoming. “I thought, why not a museum of cleaning? What has more impact on mankind than ‘clean?’”
Aslett’s own collection began with the acquisition of a 1907 hand-pump vacuum. Over the next fifteen years thousands of historic items related to cleaning have been added through donations from friends, employees, family, and vendors. Recently the Peter Frei collection from the Boston area was purchased for $300,000.
Housed in Varsity’s corporate headquarters, the collection has grown to 6,000 pieces, all of which will find a home in the new Museum of Clean. The museum will be a combination of new construction and renovation of a stately, six-story, 1920s, goliath in Pocatello’s up-and-coming historic warehouse district.
“My goal is for this to be a LEED Platinum building (Clean Green World™) that will showcase clean to the world,” said Aslett from his office. The LEED building rating system evaluates environmental performance over a building’s life cycle, providing a definitive standard for what constitutes a “green building.”
“The many sustainable features of the Clean Green World building will be as much of an attraction as the museum itself,” says construction manager, Rell Aslett. “A beautiful rooftop garden with a native Idaho plantscape will irrigate itself, help to insulate the building, and capture water in tanks that can store 101,000-gallons, underground to be recycled.” [Download other green features brochure here.]
The museum will be designed for the entire family. At the entrance visitors will look up to a massive, three-story Kids’ Cleaning World where youngsters will be motivated and learn to take responsibility for the things around them—make their bed, vacuum, wash dishes, and other everyday chore challenges. There will be a replica of Noah’s Ark that takes you on a journey highlighting the importance of water through the ages. A “Clean Art” exhibit will stretch the imagination. Other sections will focus on our impact on the environment; and how easy junk, litter, and clutter are to eliminate from our lives.
Projected cost of the facility is 6 million dollars. Completion and the grand opening, are scheduled for Fall 2008.
There are thousands of old cleaning relics, ingenious ideas, pieces of early equipment, and historic art and photos, floating around or stored in attics out there somewhere. We encourage you to dig them out and donate them to the museum!
Contact:
Don Aslett,
PO Box 700,
Pocatello ID 83204;
call 208-232-3535 or
email don@aslett.com
www.museumofclean.com
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The USA Today Article on Don Aslett's Museum of Clean 12/17/07
Grime-fighter to open cleaning museum
POCATELLO, Idaho (AP) — If cleanliness is next to godliness, Don Aslett's new museum might be the next best thing to a cathedral.
Aslett, who parlayed his penchant for cleanliness into an international janitorial business, plans to open Don Aslett's Cleaning Museum in the fall of 2008 in this southeastern Idaho city.
"I've sold clean as a culture," Aslett told the Idaho State Journal. "When you hear Pocatello, you're going to think clean."
The history of clean at the museum begins with a giant model of Noah's Ark, a reference to the worldwide cleaning of Biblical proportions.
"This will be Pocatello's biggest draw," said Pocatello Mayor Roger Chase. "People will come just to see the building."
As a student at Idaho State University 50 years ago, Aslett launched Varsity Contractors, a construction, facility services and janitorial company. The company now has annual sales exceeding $250 million and branches in all 50 states and Canada, while Aslett has a growing sideline as a speaker and author of cleaning handbooks.
The $6 million museum now under construction in a renovated downtown building will contain more than 6,000 items, including a two-ton horse-drawn street sweeper and what museum officials say will be the largest antique vacuum cleaner collection in the world, with 300 devices on display.
Other exhibits include 2,000-year-old water vessel used by Romans to wash up, and a 30-foot high, three-story globe called Kid's Clean World where children can take part in interactive exhibits teaching them how to wash their hands, make their bed and clean their room.
The 50,000-square-foot, five-story building, completed in 1916, was previously a dairy. Aslett said he wants the remodel to set the standard for green construction.
A rooftop garden will filter rain water and offer insulation. An asphalt alley is being converted into a greenbelt.
"A lot of people are talking green, but few are actually doing it," Aslett said.
A solar wall will help heat the building in the winter and cool it in summer. Light pollution will be reduced by having outside lights shine down. Water conservation features will be used as part of the attractions for museum visitors.
The third floor of the building will be used as a training center.
"We're going to bring tons and tons of people here," Aslett said.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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[Image 1] Architect’s rendering of the entrance facing Second Avenue for Don Aslett’s Museum of Clean.
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[Image 2] This drawing shows Don Aslett’s vision for an entire “cleaning campus” in Pocatello, that may eventually house Varsity University’s training center.
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[Image 3] This 1902 horse-drawn central vacuum from Great Britain, in perfect running condition, is one of the premiere pieces from the Peter Frei collection.
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[Image 4] Bill Jenkins, W. J. Welding Inc., McCammon, Idaho, works on the Kids’ Clean World. This exhibit will be a serious, yet fun, chance for youngsters to explore, use, and learn clean habits that will benefit them for a lifetime.
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