We occasionally provide excerpts from The Great American Car Wash Story. Former ICA Executive Director Gus Trantham and veteran commercial writer John Beck wrote this book in 1994. It represents the most complete history we have found of the industry in North America. Enjoy.
While the McManis report spoke highly of the Academy of Continuing Education, it pointed out several shortcomings.
It stressed especially that — as a subscription program — ACE was reaching only a small percentage of the car wash industry and only about 20 percent of the ICA membership, itself. As a result, after much debate, it was decided to discontinue ACE per se and revise it as a form of report that would reach all members. This change was announced through a letter by Gus Trantham, which is quoted here in part:
“Dear ACE Subscriber:
During the past 17 months, we were pleased through the Academy of Continuing Education Program to have provided you with some of the best management aids and tips that have ever been presented to the car wash industry. We know from your comments, surveys, etc., that they have indeed been helpful to you.
Now, as with any project, we are looking for improvement and looking forward to an expansion of the program.
Therefore, starting in 1982, three times yearly in March, June and October you, as a member of ICA, will receive a new technical journal which will be entitled the ‘ICA Management Report’. This journal will encompass not only an expansion of the Academy of Continuing Education materials that you have received in the past but also other items of immediate interest to you in the field of management of car wash operations. We are sure that you are going to be as excited as we are about the new program and the ‘ICA Management Report.’”
This letter was dated in the fall of 1981. So it was in the spring of 1982 that the first issue, Volume 1, Number 1, of the new publication called The Management Report had appeared.
This “report” was actually a fat 60-page journal loaded with advertising from 28 different companies and carrying 10 different management guidelines on maintenance, public relations, people management, tax laws, finances, and general management.
As Gus Trantham explained in an introductory article, this new journal was the outgrowth of almost two years of planning and in reality constituted a continuation of the Academy of Continuing Education to which many members had subscribed for $150 per year.
Not only was this journal to be published three times a year, but the June issue was being planned to coincide with the June convention program and directory, making it so full of information that it could be called the annual “bible” of the car wash industry.
This format of The Management Report continued for five issues, the final issue being a mammoth book of 120 pages.
Following this there came more changes, but none as important as the information contained in the first two paragraphs of Gus Trantham’s introductory article to the very first issue of the new journal. In this article, Gus formally announced the joining of ICA and NCC as a single, combined association representing the entire car wash industry.