South Bend Tribune, April 13, 2004
Seven years ago, Haji Tehrani, president and chief executive officer of Drive and Shine, left the comforts of corporate America and decided to start his own place. He wanted to design a company that held quality at the top of the list of musts, no matter what the costs. Tehrani wanted a place that looked at the big picture of the business instead of looking at the progress of only one year.
“Our philosophy in this business from day one was to differentiate ourselves in a significant way from the rest of the pack. Most full-service car washes across the country are mom-and-pop operations, using basic technologies and managing their businesses as a traditional, single profit-center organization,” said Tehrani. “They are labor-intensive with very little automation. They close on rainy or cloudy days, and almost everyone on their staff is paid hourly, making for a very unpredictable living. Their turnover is extremely high, and morale and attitude are understandably poor. Training and process are rare, if in existence at all.”
Tehrani worked at both Whirlpool and GE in the corporate world and became very frustrated with the politics and lack of dedication to perfection within those industries.
Quality was always the number one thing talked about, but just three months into the year, budget cuts were started to make things more cost-efficient.
“We spoke from two sides of our mouth,” said Tehrani. “Management was measured on year-end results, not on 20 years from now.”
He always had a love of cars and decided to start doing some research and surveying people on the world of car washes. While talking to people at University Park Mall as they shopped, he learned that many people were very unhappy with the practices of the car washes and despised the whole process yet knew it was something they needed to do for their car.
