Since she was a young girl, she has been particular with details. She was never her mother\u2019s headache when it came to fixing her things. She would make her own bed, clean her room, and fix her things. And this she loved doing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember my sister would pay me to do her house chore. I don\u2019t know but I always wanted to have a clean surrounding. I loved staying in the house and cleaning,\u201d recalled a cheerful Lisa P. Sablan in an interview on Labor Day at her office on Beach Road Garapan.<\/p>\n
While \u201ccleanliness\u201d has become her lifestyle, she never thought that it would actually give her a big business break. It was, however, only logical that such obsession with cleanliness would push her to put up her own cleaning team in 2000, which she proudly called \u201cSablan Topline Cleaning Agency.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the urging of her businessman nephew, Juan S. Tenorio, she dared to accept the household cleaning contract at Coral Ocean Point.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen they [Coral Ocean] privatized their housekeeping, I took the challenge and did the laundry for them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
It was a first test that she successfully passed with flying colors. Lisa then fully understood that she actually has a knack for the cleaning business. <\/p>\n
In the same year, 2000, she also received another client, the Hyatt Regency Hotel Saipan. <\/p>\n
She said her agency initially handled the cleaning of Hyatt\u2019s public area like the lobby and restaurant area. Impressed by her staff\u2019s quality work, Hyatt Regency asked her to extend the cleaning to the kitchen.<\/p>\n
The area assignment was further extended to include a wing of the hotel, then another wing, until Sablan took over the entire hotel, including hotel rooms and housekeeping.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just very grateful for the trust of the Hyatt management headed by its GM, Michael Von Siebenthal. It inspires us to do more,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Her entrepreneurship continued to expand with the entry of another big client, the Commonwealth Health Center. About three months ago, she said Sablan Topline started cleaning the CHCs patient\u2019s room. As part of her company\u2019s service, Sablan Topline also cleans CHC\u2019s peripheral clinics for free. These included the clinics in San Roque, Garapan, San Antonio, CDAC, and a clinic on Navy Hill.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s our way of doing service,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Sablan said it has been her philosophy to give \u201cbeyond the call of duty.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are here with a mission to deliver a quality service. We want our clients to be satisfied. We want their customers to feel safe and confident as they go to their places. We think about the people,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
To ensure consistency in the delivery of top service, she said that she personally inspects the hotels and the clinics to see if her people are doing their job.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very particular. I go out there. I\u2019m always out to check it myself. They know I\u2019m doing it so my staff are really careful and you know, I trust them to be the best employees,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She said her confidence is boosted when she gets positive feedback from hotel guests and hospital people for \u201ca job well done.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are happy about our service,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
Sablan Topline has about 100 staff stationed at Coral Ocean Point and Hyatt Regency Hotel as well as CHC. Sablan said she has 10 supervisors who oversee these functions.<\/p>\n
\u201cI need more employees. I need to hire more because of our many work,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
Lisa has been known to be \u201cvery generous\u201d to her employees even in terms of overtime and other favors. To keep a balance on her generosity, Sablan is checked by her immediate family members.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy daughter Cathy is here in my office. She would remind me, okay mom, that\u2019s it. I need that sometimes,\u201d she said smiling.<\/p>\n
Lisa is also assisted in the office by her two daughters-in-law: Cora, married to her second son Joe Ada; and Pearl, who is married to her youngest son, John.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are my angels. I get my children involved in the business,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Lisa was born and raised on Saipan to parents Emilia Pangelinan and Vicente Sablan. \u201cI think I got that habit of keeping things clean and in order from my mother\u2019s side,\u201d she quipped.<\/p>\n
Lisa has six children: Frankie, who is currently on training in Hawaii for deployment to Iraq; Joe, who is the enforcement director at the Department of Labor; Cathy; Raymond (deceased); John; and Antonia.<\/p>\n
\u201cI trained all my children in household work. All of them experienced my discipline while they were growing up. If I didn\u2019t like their work, I\u2019d ask them to redo it,\u201d she chuckled.<\/p>\n
Lisa said she still has much to offer in the coming months and years. Personally, she said she would want to branch out to the restaurant business because \u201cI love cooking!\u201d<\/p>\n
She said she has been planning to introduce a Vietnamese restaurant on Saipan.<\/p>\n
And for sure, she wants to offer \u201conly the best kind of service.\u201d<\/p>\n
A tip from the master for people who frequent restaurants and dining halls: \u201cWhen you go to a restaurant, check the restroom. If it\u2019s clean, their kitchen is clean. If it\u2019s not, I can guarantee you that their kitchen is not clean.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Since she was a young girl, she has been particular with details. She was never her mother\u2019s headache when it came to fixing her things. She would make her own bed, clean her room, and fix her things. And this she loved doing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83883\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}