Cuban Exile Lives American Dream as Janitorial Franchise Owner

Five years ago, Carlos Herrera was working as a store manager for an auto repair shop in Escondido by day and moonlighting for a small cleaning service three nights a week when he saw a TV ad that stopped him in his tracks. It showed a man doing the same kind of commercial cleaning work that Herrera was doing, but the man was working for himself as the owner of a Coverall Cleaning Concepts franchise. Herrera said to himself, “That could be me.”

Three years later, Herrera discovered that Coverall Cleaning Concepts was selling franchises in the San Diego area, and he decided to put his money where his mouth was. The irony: his family had fled Cuba when Herrera was 13, forcing his parents to abandon a thriving restaurant business and instead mop floors until 2 or 3 am to pay the bills in their new homeland. Herrera had promised his parents that he would never have a janitorial career, but he defended his choice with a simple explanation. “*

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