Our History

In 1925, Maria Royce was in the hospital, pregnant with her second son Charles. And she could not sleep.

Each night the housekeeping staff would arrive to clean the hospital and drag their mop buckets across the floor, creating an incessant scraping sound throughout the building. When her husband Frederick came to visit her, Maria was quick to bring this irritation to his attention.

So, Great-grandpa Royce brought one of those buckets home and added wheels to the base. The simple invention cut down on the “noisiness of cleaning” and simultaneously made the arduous task of floor maintenance easier for housekeepers everywhere. He chose stainless steel for its durability and cleanliness standards, and began traveling from hospital to hospital to sell his invention.

The story goes that Frederick visited hospitals across the country to hand deliver his creation directly to their environmental service departments with a month long ultimatum: love the wringer and buy it, or give it back. The wringers stayed where they landed and requests for more came in from all over the country.

Eventually, a warehouse in Grand Rapids, Michigan was purchased to accommodate the growing demand. It was transformed into a small factory (and for a few years also doubled as the Royce family home) where the Royce Rolls Ringer product lines truly began to take shape, branching into stainless steel toilet paper dispensers, which you can find at any of your national parks, and housekeeping carts, which you can find in hundreds of hospitals nation-wide.

Now in our fourth generation, we continue to step into new areas within the environmental service field, embracing new cleaning standards by creating a line of microfiber carts, tubs, and squeeze bins, as well as carts and buckets with heat resistant wheels for “cleanrooms”.

While we are always embracing new developments in healthcare and beyond, we also recognize how stainless steel truly has stood the test of time. What we find in stainless steel are the values we stand on as a business:

It is durable. We take great pride in our products and we use the same high quality type 304 stainless steel and thicknesses as we always have. Stainless steel lasts in the places to which we sell. Some of our customers have had their carts for over 25 years. We, too, value that consistency and strive for long lasting solutions for our employees and our customers.

It is clean. Stainless steel is cleaner than other materials used in housekeeping because its surface remains smooth, which means it is easier to clean. Because stainless steel doesn’t scratch or nick, bacteria has no place to hide. This speaks to our own priority for cleanliness, as it is the main priority for our customers. Clean = Healthy.
Click here for a recent study on 11/28/17 that talks about the cleanliness of stainless steel in hospital environments.

It is recyclable. Almost 100% of stainless steel is recyclable, which means this long lasting and clean material is also keeping our world a little cleaner. We too believe in being future oriented, respecting individuals and environments in hopes they’ll be better than how we left them.

At Royce Rolls, we are committed to providing excellent customer service, which means meeting our customers’ needs with flexibility and an extensive knowledge of our product line with the added passion that only comes from working within the family business. Our website presents our most current line of products, but do not hesitate to request a more customized option: How can we help?

We welcome any questions, comments, or requests via phone or email!

Our Members

Charlie Royce
President

The Grand Rapids area has been my home with the exception of 4 years at Interlochen Arts Academy for High School. Growing up in a musical family, I pursued the Saxophone, majored at Interlochen in performance and have over the years performed in all types of groups including the Grand Rapids Symphony, countless Big Bands and popular groups, as well as many Church Worship bands including all the Harkup Ministries Christmas shows where I sit on the board. I still perform regularly as a side man as well as leading a jazz combo and a pop occasions band.

What made all that possible was the success of our family business, The Royce Rolls Ringer Company. I started working at Royce Rolls during the summers at age 15, then majored in business at both Community and Aquinas College graduating with a BBA. In 1987 my brother Matt and I took over the company from my parents. Royce Rolls is a third generation small manufacturer that designs builds and sells stainless steel cleaning equipment primarily to Hospitals all over the USA and Canada. Matt passed away in 2008 and I have had full ownership since that time. My son Taylor now works at Royce Rolls so there may yet be another transition.

The continuing prosperity of the Company has allowed myself, my wife Angie and our now grown children Hannah and Taylor many opportunities to travel, often doing service related projects, making music, or hiking, skiing and diving some of the most beautiful places on earth. It has also given us opportunity to give back in support of St Cecilia Music Center, The Grand Rapids Symphony, Degage Ministries, Habitat of West Michigan as well as many other excellent non-profits in West Michigan and around the world. As a family, we often provide music for non-profit events as another form or support. In addition, I look forward each year to a very long hike somewhere in the mountains. In 2017 I hiked the 244-mile John Muir Trail in California that ended at the highest point in the lower 48 states, and last year completed a traverse of 142-mile North Cascades National Park in Washington state. This year I am planning 200 miles in the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone.

Finally, I’d like to speak about the legacy Chuck Royce Sr left me concerning Rotary. He loved Grand Rapids and how people here could make a real difference. He was a Rotarian for many years and I would often be his guest at meetings. He loved what Rotary stood for and longed for me to join when it was doable. I knew keeping my commitment to attendance would be a problem while running our company which demands a lot of travel so I am thrilled to think I am now in a place to fully participate.