Mac-Gray is cleaning up in world of wash and dry

A $260 million Cambridge company has expanded by leaps and bounds. It occupies the top tier of its market and sells a product that is in heavy demand.

What's behind its success? Water and soap.

Mac-Gray Corp., which operates 63,000 laundry rooms in apartment complexes and university dormitories in 40 states, vaulted to the eighth spot on The Globe 100 list, up from 70th in last year's ranking.

Also rounding out the rest of The Globe 100 Top 10 are two fast-growing medical device companies; the biggest Massachusetts-based retail chain, Staples Inc.; and a company that thwarts car thieves, Lo-Jack Corp.

Mac-Gray's revenue grew 42.7 percent last year, to $260.6 million from $182.7 million in 2004. The January 2005 acquisition of Web Service Co., based in Redondo Beach, Calif., gave Mac-Gray a major presence in western states and accounted for most of its growth last year.

Mac-Gray has perfected the coin-operated laundromat business since its founding in Cambridge 79 years ago. And while most people do not expect to see the words ''laundromat" and ''high tech" in the same sentence, Mac-Gray has developed several innovative Internet and wireless technologies.

Its ''LaundryView" system, for example, lets apartment-house residents or students monitor, through a website, whether washing machines are available and whether their clothes are done in the dryer. They can even sign up to get a cellphone text message or e-mail alerting them when a machine is free, and look at two weeks' worth of laundry-room usage patterns to avoid busy hours. Mac-Gray also offers prepaid ''smart cards" as an alternative to coin-paid laundromat operation that can even be used to impose higher prices during peak washing times.

''Technology has really become a major part of what's happening in the laundry rooms of America," said Stewart Gray MacDonald Jr., chairman and chief executive of Mac-Gray.

The company was founded in 1927 by MacDonald's great-uncle, H. Stewart Gray, as a seller of hand-cranked wringer washers and iceboxes. During the Depression, when many families could no longer afford to buy their own machines, Gray decided to set up washing machines in the common areas of apartment buildings and charge people for a single use. The coin-op laundry concept was born.

MacDonald said Mac-Gray, which also operates subsidiaries selling copiers and refrigerators, sees plenty of opportunities to expand, including through more acquisitions.

''The generation of competitors that started these businesses is beginning to pass from the scene, and as in the case of many family-based industries, if there is not a logical succession plan within the family, if there is no one to take over, they are inclined to sell," MacDonald said.

Elsewhere in the top 10, PolyMedica Corp., a Wakefield company that supplies diabetes monitoring equipment and pharmaceuticals, moved to the sixth position in The Globe 100 rankings, from 76th last year, based on increased sales and acquisitions. The company also sold its women's health products division last year for $45 million.

The performance was a boost for a company that paid a $35 million settlement in December 2004 to resolve multiple allegations that it and two wholly owned subsidiaries submitted claims to Medicare without proper documentation.

The company and its Liberty Medical Supply and Liberty Home Pharmacy divisions agreed to pay the government to resolve allegations that they improperly submitted reimbursement claims for various diabetic and nebulizer products, the Justice Department said. The settlement resolved two whistleblower suits that were filed against the company in Boston and Miami.

Women's medical products maker Cytyc Corp. of Marlborough rose to seventh position from 37th as sales improved across all business lines. Perennial Globe 100 leader Staples Inc., the office supply chain, climbed to ninth from 11th last year.

And LoJack Corp. of Westwood rose to 10th on the list, from 31st last year. LoJack-equipped cars emit radio signals that police departments with special readers can use to locate stolen cars. LoJack credited efforts to improve revenues by cutting market prices, simplifying installations of its car-locating technology, and improving market share.

Last year also produced one of LoJack's best sales testimonials ever: A woman in New York whose ex-boyfriend stole her car three times. Each time, police recovered the car using LoJack. And each time they arrested the ex-boyfriend.

Christopher Rowland can be reached at crowland@globe.com.