A person can think of a lot of things while sitting in a hotel room enjoying a couple cocktails.

For Shawn Seipler, a 1994 Shoreland Lutheran High School graduate, that exercise birthed the idea of a lifetime.

Seipler was biding some downtime in a hotel one night when his curiosity peaked into a seemingly random question: What happens to all those little bars of soap and bottles of shampoo that hotels stock when he’s done using them?

So, he placed a call to the front desk and asked.

After first suggesting to Seipler that perhaps he’d had one too many cocktails, the person at the front desk said the hotel simply throws the soap and shampoo away when people are done using it.

And that really got Seipler thinking.

He related this story during a speech on Friday, Oct. 14, at Journey Church as one of the featured speakers at the annual Kenosha Area Business Alliance Inspire Gala. Seipler founded his company Clean the World in 2009, born out of the idea he came up with in that hotel room all those years ago.

Today, Clean the World — founded in a one-car garage in Orlando, Fla. — is a large, successful company that provides vital hygiene products to people in need in over 127 countries around the world.

Entrepreneurial spirit

Founding a company like Clean the World requires a lot of hard work and some good luck along the way, but given his entrepreneurial background, it’s no big surprise that Seipler was able to achieve it.

Originally from South Florida, Seipler grew up always having some type of business going, from a lemonade stand to mowing lawns to babysitting.

Meanwhile, he moved to the North Chicago area at age 15 with his family. And it was basketball that led him to attend Shoreland.

Read more at Kenosha.com.