Super Women of Self Serve Carwashing is you are -- as I understand it -- the only female to ever hold the position of president of the Internatioanl Carwash Association. Is that true? LL: Yes, that’s true. Yeah! PP: Wow. What was that like -- I mean, you had to go through the whole board thing and everything to become president, right? LL: I did. I started with the Western Carwash Association and I was on their board for six years and then they asked me to be on the board for the ICA. So, I was on both boards for the first year. So, after six years, then I became president and then one more year after that -- you’re the past president for one year. So, seven years on the ICA board. PP: So, let’s back up. We jumped way out in front there. Let’s back up -- how did you get into the carwash business? LL: Well, in 1964 my dad went back to Oklahoma to visit his family and he saw one of these new self serve carwashes. He came back [to California] and he and a friend of his had wanted to get into some kind of business -- they were looking at laundromats. And my dad had seen this self serve carwash and they thought that was a great idea. The friend was a pilot for Pan Am. So, they became partners and they built a carwash. They ran it together for a while and then the airline transferred his friend, so it was just my dad. He was working at General Dynamics at the time and also doing the carwash. We used to go over there when we were little and help him -- this was when it was 15 cents to start. We would roll dimes and nickels and help him do that and count the money. And of course go in and look for all those fortunes of pennies in the vacuum cleaners and things like that. So that was where I started -- technically -and then my dad went on to build a number of other car washes and he got to the point where he needed some help. And that was where I came in -- I moved back from Minnesota and started helping him full time in the business in 1989. PP: Wow. So you’ve been at it a while. LL: I have, I have. And I think -- you know, I’m on LinkedIn [the online networking website] and I started getting all these messages and they were congratulating me for being in the carwash business for 25 years and I thought, “Man, it’s been that long already!” I mean -- goodness gracious! PP: So do you just have one facility today? LL: No, right now I have five, but I’m selling one. I’m selling it soon; January 15. I’m kind of excited about that. PPP: All right, let’s go back to your presidency. What was it like -- and I don’t mean to be patronizing here -- but what was it like as a female getting into the political side of the associations and its processes with all these guys. LL: I can tell you that they were probably the best support system -- I mean, they were just so supportive. THey really were. They never talked back to me. They treated me as one of the guys, I guess, and I had been in the business for a long time before I got on the ICA board, so I was used to dealing in this man’s world. And I was used to it. THey were all very supportive. And I didn’t really have any problems. It was one of the best experiences
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of my life, it really was. I learned so much from them. One of the good things about being on a board is the expertise of the people there and I learned so much about business and taking risks and doing things different and I just had a great time. It was really, really fun. PP: What year were you president? LL: 2009. Right after the market crashed. Probably one of the worst years ever. PP: Well, it was definitely a tough time in the industry. LL: It really was. PP: I think one of the things that happened was that funds to build were really just not available. LL: Yeah. Yeah. No one was buying equipment. Everyone was just trying to stay afloat. PP: I remember shortly after that, it must have been 2010, that we were in Florida for the ICA show and suddenly the show was exponentially smaller than it had been in previous years. And there had been a lot of internal consolidation -- a lot of people weren’t in the business anymore. LL: A lot ofthem. And the bigger guys were buying up a whole bunch of other car washes, so instead of five operators, you had just one operator with five car washes -- or more than that in some cases. It really did change the industry. PP: Well, not only from an operator side, but also the vendor side. There was a lot of consolidation there, too. LL: Yes, and a lot of businesses that just went away. On the self serve side, you used to see five, six, seven suppliers there and you don’t see that anymore. PP: That’s true. So what were the hot button topics in your presidency? LL: I think just the financial part of it. How everyone, across the board, was having problems. And we, as the board, were trying to figure out ways where we could keep the convention viable and helpful to them. You know, we were reaching out to the vendor community a lot. Talking to them, seeing what we could do. And doing whatever we could to keep moving forward and giving hope to people that days would get better. And trying to come up with ideas to help people keep their businesses going and thinking of the future and things like that. That was really a big topic when I was president. PP: During your times on the board and as president is there one issue not related to that that sticks out as probably the toughest that the board had to work through? LL: Umm.. That was probably
the toughest. I mean, it was looking at how we were going to move forward from that. I mean, that was a big shock to just about everybody. People who had been in the industry forever were hurting. PP: And attendance was off. LL: Yeah. A couple things happened...well, there’s two thoughts. When business is bad you either invest in your business for the future -- that’s kind of the path that I took. I decided, “Okay, I’m going to put in new equipment. I’m going to redo my car washes. I know it’s bad right now, but in five years it’s going to be good again and I’m going to be in good shape.” Or, you pull back and you quit spending money. And you cut costs. And a lot of people did that. They quit coming to the show, or instead of taking four or five employees with them -- they went alone. So, that was a big difference. PP: But what do you think we could do to incent those to come to the show even on the years that they aren’t making those expenditures. How can we make these shows more attractive to them so that they’re coming here in those periods of time? LL: You know, when you’re talking about the investor class -- I know these guys. Several of them came out to San Diego and did that. And they don’t go to the shows. They’re just not interested. And it’s really hard to reach them to get it back to the old days when everyone came to see their friends. And that’s really why I used to go. And to talk to other operators and get good ideas from other operators and things like that. But the Internet -- that has made it more comfortable to stay at home and do that. So I think that’s been a big part of it. But the older generation -- my generation -- we’re like the second generation -- and now there’s the third generation and a fourth generation coming around. We know the second generation is gonna quit coming -they’re retiring or they’re slowing down or they’ve been to so many they don’t feel like they need to be coming anymore. But the third and fourth generation is the question: How do you get them interested in coming to the convention? Maybe something new. I don’t know. I think that’s really the solution. I don’t know if you can get the first and second generation to start coming again. I really don’t. But reaching out to the new generation and see what they need. It’s a challenge. THat’s for sure. I don’t know what the answer is. I know they keep trying and the third and fourth generations are just different -- they think differently, their social [behaviors] are different we just have to figure out what their needs are and go from there to pull them into the conventions. Because I still think there is a need there -- I know for me, when I want to make purchases, I go and touch and feel and talk to the people and talk to the other operators about it and it’s valuable. It really is. PP: Well, I know for me, that solving problems in person is far superior. You go to {continued }