Developing and growing a family firm 

Joey and Christopher Hew

Monday,  June  13, 2005

In 1973 the Intel 4-bit microprocessor had just been invented, man had only just walked on the moon a few scant years before, in 1969, mobile phones were still the subject of Sci-fi movies and Hew’s Supplies opened its doors as Commodity Marketing. 

Now more than three decades later Joey Hew, the managing director of Hew’s supplies is celebrating five years at the firm’s helm.

32 years ago Lenny Hew, Joey’s father, his brother Donald and his wife Valma started Commodity Marketing as a disposable paper products company, later, as a result of the opening of Hew’s Janitorial cleaning, chemicals were added to the commodities that they marketed. 

Following onto that was the servicing of kitchen and laundry equipment and then the sales of the equipment itself. Commodity Marketing changed its name to Hew’s Supplies in 1991.

“We were the first local company to introduce serviceable chemicals, in other words chemicals that are electronically measured and dispensed; we were actually doing serviceable chemicals before we took on the distributorships of EcoLab and Johnson-Diversey,” said Joey Hew.

“We’re the only company on the Island that offers to the hotel, restaurant or institution, the convenience of equipment sales, service, and installation all under one umbrella.”

Mr J Hew took over the managing directorship of Hew’s Supplies in 2001, on the retirement of his father Lenny; he had been with the company for 10 years as head of sales and marketing and he’d grown up with the company, with the Hew’s group, driving forklifts, unloading chemicals and washing windows since he was a young boy.

“I’m heading into my 15th year as an active part of this company, my 5th year as its manager,” added Mr Hew who has a lot on his plate; he’s President of the Chamber of Commerce and he’s about to become President Elect of Rotary, but he manages to make it all work.

“The business flourishes because of these things, and these positions were made possible because of my place in the business and that business’ place in the community,” he said. 

“It’s been hard work; I took over on September 11 2001, hard day to forget; so it has been a hard time for the island and for businesses that work in the tourism related industries; but we have some big plans for the future. We’re going to start off with expanding and improving our facility; this means making it better to service the needs of our customers; more space, means better buying power, more space means we have room for workbench facilities to better service and repair, more space means a broader spectrum of things that we can display and supply.

A facelift will mean that we have better surroundings for our drop in customers – right now we’re really a company that deals with customers on the road, what we’d like to do in the future is to be able to invite a few of them in to see us.” 

As times change, Chris Hew who looks after the janitorial arm of the company as Managing Director of Hew’s Cleaning Services, said you have to change with the times. If you learn lessons, if you evolve, if you improve as technology and knowledge allow, you will always be ahead of the game and Mr C Hew said that this is part of the philosophy that keeps the Hew’s group of companies competitive and profitable and he is changing the look of his area of the company. 

Hew’s (Janitorial) is getting a new look firstly with the change of logo.

“We haven’t really changed our logo as much as we have modernized it,” said Mr C Hew. “We hired a consultant, who chose to work with Melanie and Neil at the local agency MC2, to come up with our new look and feel. We’ve modernized the logo and had a slight name shift; we’re no longer Hew’s Janitorial but Hew’s Cleaning Services and we have a motto; ‘More than Clean’.”

The name change is as a result of the now broader spectrum of professional services that the company provides beyond those of ordinary janitorial services.

“We still do maid service and contract cleaning, of course;” added Mr C Hew, “but we do these things not as laymen, but with professional certifications, with in-depth training. We also do mould and microbial remediation, water and fire restoration along with the old-time standards of carpets, floors, marble, windows, general, special and post construction cleaning.” 

Hew’s is the largest post construction clean-up company on the Island, having cleaned up most of the major office buildings downtown.

“We have always based the quality of our work on the strength of the staff we hire and on the training we have given that staff and the technology with which we perform our tasks; but, over the years we’ve taken that one step further, with training for international level professional qualifications and accreditations and with forming affiliations and associations with foreign professionals upon whom we can call to supplement our work force and our knowledge. Our customers have to have the utmost trust in us as individuals, as a company, in our expertise and our integrity; Hew’s does well because we work on that trust and integrity every day.

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