We Do Lines featured in Newsday

Newsday has published an article called “Parking-line painters expand in LI,” which focuses on Long Island’s newest parking lot line stripers, Skip Barrett and Rob Schlosser of We Do Lines, Long Island. Skip describes how he became involved with We Do Lines from a corporate perspective and then turned franchisee all while still managing franchise development for the brand. Check out the article here.

Parking-line painters expand into LI
By JAMES BERNSTEIN

Three entrepreneurs have proved that just about anything can be made into a business, including painting those ubiquitous white lines in parking lots.
We Do Lines, a Ridgefield, Conn.-based franchiser that began only two years ago and boasts customers from Maine to Florida in its first year, is expanding to Long Island.

Skip Barrett and Rob Schlosser, both of Huntington, are the company's franchisees for Long Island and Westchester County. Barrett was We Do Lines' franchise development director before taking up some territory himself. The Island, Barrett said, is perfect for the business.

Sometimes, he said, Long Island seems like one long parking lot. The shopping malls, businesses, schools, and municipal buildings all have lots, and the spaces need to be maintained. There are also guidelines required by the Americans with Disabilities Act. Airports too need lines.

(Read More)

We Do Lines was recently featured in the Long Island Business News

Parking lot painters get in line

by Ambrose Clancy
Published: April 9, 2010

Thirty years ago, Rich Mailand was farming cabbage and string beans in Suffolk County when a cousin called and asked if he’d help out painting lines.

After a summer night running a painting machine, creating stalls in a parking lot at $3 a pop, Mailand figured the work beat farming. “Then it just snowballed,” Mailand said in the spacious Brookhaven Hamlet headquarters of Parkline Maintenance, which he owns and operates with his brother, Robert.

Since its humble launch, Parkline has grown into a full-service paving and property maintenance business specializing in anything and everything to do with parking lots. Today, the company has government contracts, handles large commercial projects and works as far afield as Florida on shopping centers and other paving business.

With the weather warming, the striping business will be hitting full stride soon, as Parkline and a handful of other big companies paint everything from the corner-deli lot with five stalls to the parking expanses of airports, shopping centers, universities and hospitals, which count thousands of spaces each.

Mailand and the big boys have their share of competition, notably those the trade calls “gypsies” or “pirates,” usually two guys with a hand-operated painting machine who work for far less than the standard $5 to $6 rate for a stall these days.

But you get what you pay for, professional stripers warn, so beware the pirate with a paint sprayer working out of a U-Haul trailer. Few carry insurance and fewer still will take the time to scrupulous clean a lot before striping. Others perform shoddy repair jobs with watered-down sealants.

“You shouldn’t hire some guy who’s moonlighting,” said Bob Lewis of Bay Shore’s DuMor Construction, which not only stripes but, like Parkline, maintains lots in every capacity.

Lewis’ firm maintains a $5 million umbrella insurance policy.

“It can be dangerous out there,” he said.

Although the National Parking Association reports that a majority of its members saw a loss in volume and revenue last year, lots still have to be striped.

The companies get a leg up from new environmental regulations that call for latex-based paints, which usually last but a single season. In years past, oil-based striping lasted three years, Mailand said.

Hoping to get some green from black Long Island lots this year is a new Connecticut-based franchisor, We Do Lines. The cleverly named company has sold six franchises around the country, but is still looking to hit pay dirt on Long Island. (Read More)