About Toledo Building Services

A Brief History

Founded around 1909 as Toledo Window Cleaning Co., Toledo Building Services Co. (“Toledo Building Services”) began, as its original name implies, as a window cleaning company. The company became an Ohio corporation in the 1930’s, and the Friedman family purchased it in 1935, when it was failing during the Great Depression.

Toledo Building Services grew with the City of Toledo through the war years and the prosperous post-war years, changing from a window cleaning company to a full service building cleaning company, but always maintaining a local focus and local ownership and management. We have become the largest contract cleaning operation in Northwest Ohio, and we have done it by meeting our customers‘ need for good personal service and by maintaining good relations with the people we employ. We were one of the first companies in our industry to recognize a union, Local 3 of the Service Employees International Union.