Archives for

Roseville, Calif. — PRIDE Industries has announced the addition of Charles Sharp, MBA, as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. In this role, Sharp will lead the finance, accounting, risk management, internal audit, compliance and legal, and data analytics departments, serve as a key contributor to the company’s executive team, maintain relationships with market-leading financial institutions, and formulate and execute overall financial strategies to meet the company’s capital requirements.

“Charles is an accomplished executive with a passion for our mission to create employment for people with disabilities,” said Jeff Dern, President and CEO at PRIDE Industries. “His decades of experience in senior finance leadership positions, knowledge and strategic understanding of current trends in finance, and his ability to relate to others make him an ideal fit for our entrepreneurial culture.”

In 2021, The National Diversity Council honored Sharp with a Top 50 Financial Diverse Leaders Award. This year, Sharp’s more than 15 years of progressive financial leadership led to his recognition as a Top Diverse Leader in Healthcare by the Health, Equity and Inclusion Conference.

PRIDE Industries’ mission hits close to home for Sharp

“I have several family members, including a son, with disabilities,” he said. “Joining PRIDE Industries allows me to make a difference for them and others by helping to build a more inclusive world where people of all abilities can thrive.”

Prior to joining PRIDE Industries, Sharp was the Chief Financial Officer at Dignity Health Management Services Organization. Before that, he held positions as Director of Budget Planning and Analysis at UC Davis Health, and Senior Director of Finance at Blue Shield California. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from the University of Bridgeport and a Master of Business Administration degree from Lindenwood University.

Sharp is committed to giving back through volunteer work and has served on the boards of several community organizations, including the El Dorado Hills Chamber of Commerce, Hands 4 Hope, and the YMCA.

About PRIDE Industries

PRIDE Industries delivers business excellence with a positive social impact. A social enterprise, we provide facilities operations and maintenance services, custodial services, contract manufacturing, supply chain management, packaging and fulfillment services, and staffing services to private and public organizations nationwide. Founded in 1966, PRIDE Industries’ mission is to create employment for people with disabilities. Through personalized employment services, we help individuals realize their true potential and lead more independent lives. PRIDE Industries proves the value of its inclusive workforce model through operational success across multiple industries every day.  

Media Contact
Kat Maudru

PRIDE Industries is a social enterprise delivering business excellence to public and private organizations nationwide.

In Placer County, California, the local government relies on PRIDE Industries to keep its buildings clean and safe.

Stretching from the town of Roseville (just outside of Sacramento), to Lake Tahoe on the California border, Placer County is home to some 350,000 people. Since 2008, PRIDE Industries has provided Cleaning Industry Management Standard for Green Buildings (CIMS-GB)-certified custodial services throughout the county. Buildings cleaned include libraries, healthcare facilities, and offices. PRIDE Industries also provides LEED Silver-compliant cleaning for the South Placer Adult Correctional Facility.

Situation

When COVID-19 struck, Placer County’s facilities managers implemented new cleaning requirements to keep building occupants healthy. These new requirements included frequent sanitization of high-touch points, using deep cleaning technologies such as electrostatic disinfection.

PRIDE Industries was already providing county-wide janitorial services for a variety of Placer County facilities. Since 2008, the company’s highly trained cleaning teams had provided CIMS-GB certified janitorial services for over 728,500 square feet across 53 county buildings, including Placer County libraries and the adult correctional facility. Janitorial services included general and detail cleaning, kitchen cleaning, carpet care, floor maintenance, restroom cleaning, recycling, trash removal, and window washing.

Now that cleaning needed to be taken to a new level.

Solution

The PRIDE Industries cleaning teams were ready for the challenge. Since 2008, these teams had been cleaning county buildings using a mix of proprietary and commercial green cleaning products, and applying the latest disinfection techniques.

To keep these buildings free of coronavirus and other infectious agents, PRIDE Industries implemented new cleaning protocols that increased the cleaning frequency, and used only cleaning products that were shown to kill coronavirus and other dangerous germs. Electrostatic cleaning, in which an electric charge is used to ionize the disinfectant so that it will cling to surfaces, was more widely used than ever. These deep cleaning techniques were used three times a day at 12 county facilities located across an 85-mile stretch of land from Lake Tahoe to Auburn.

Services Provided

  • Trash removal
  • Recycling
  • Kitchen cleaning
  • Floor maintenance
  • Carpet cleaning
  • Restroom services
  • Policing escalators
  • High dusting with lifts
  • Window washing
  • Metal polishing
  • Hospital-grade, aseptic cleaning

Results

During the pandemic, PRIDE Industries workers not only stepped up their cleaning to combat coronavirus, they also successfully tackled several unexpected cleaning assignments.

  • When COVID-19 protocols arrived, it looked like the county would need 12 additional employees to perform the specified disinfecting services, one for each location, which would have raised costs by 35 percent. PRIDE Industries brought in its supervisory team to review all options and was able to adjust work schedules to implement the protocols without hiring additional personnel, keeping costs within budgeted levels.
  • When the county began to remodel its Finance and Administration building, an enormous amount of debris was left behind. The PRIDE Industries team took it in stride. “They arrived to find a filthy, dusty mess in our downstairs office due to all of the furniture being demoed and removed that afternoon,” Placer County Custodial Services Supervisor Danny Reynolds said. “They stepped right up and cleaned, dusted, and vacuumed the area, which I’m sure took them longer than a regular night’s cleaning. I want to thank them for being so positive and helpful in the situation.”
  • A Health and Human Services Administration building faced a similar scene. “We had filled all three of the large recycle trash cans with paper, filled three large trash cans in the break room, and had broken down several boxes of recycled cardboard, filling every trash can in the building,” Reynolds said. “I came in the next morning, and everything was perfect. And they did it all in the pouring rain.”
  • The county’s buildings include 11,975 square feet of public health facilities that require environmental cleaning of treatment rooms, nursing stations, exam rooms, laboratories, restrooms, and administrative areas. PRIDE Industries provides aseptic cleaning of all surfaces, including walls, ceilings, fixtures, floors, beds, trash containers, doors, light fixtures, curtains, dividers, counters, and cabinets.

Highlights

  • A bonus for Placer County is that PRIDE Industries, which is based in the Placer County town of Roseville, specializes in creating jobs for people with disabilities. Hiring local residents with disabilties allows the county to improve the area’s economic and social health while receiving critically important services at a reasonable cost.
  • PRIDE Industries’ innovations include developing proprietary, eco-friendly PRIDEClean® products designed according to the EPA’s Safer Choice program standards. The company’s custodial services and cleaning protocols are all certified to the Cleaning Industry Management Standards for Green Buildings (CIMS-GB), which supports LEED-compliant buildings.
  • Nationwide, PRIDE Industries provides janitorial services for 26 million square feet of facilities, including 3.6 million square feet of LEED-compliant buildings. The company is a recipient of the DEAL Award for Leadership in Sustainability, is ISO 9001 Quality Management System-certified, CIMS-GB- certified by the International Sanitary Supply Association, and is certified by the International Facility Management Association for its Sustainable Facilities Professionals.
Placer County logo

“I came in the next morning, and everything was perfect. And they did it all in the pouring rain.”

Services Provided

  • Trash removal
  • Recycling
  • Kitchen cleaning
  • Floor maintenance
  • Carpet cleaning
  • Restroom services
  • Policing escalators
  • High dusting with lifts
  • Window washing
  • Metal polishing
  • Hospital-grade, aseptic cleaning

Highlights

728,500

square feet

53

buildings

21

sites