A part-time job as an attendant served as a launching pad to a rapid rise in the car wash industry.

By Tom Gresham

Nash Goudie got his start in the car wash industry out of necessity. He was 16 years old, his mother was not working at the time, and he wanted to bring in some income for the family.

A few friends worked at Fabulous Freddy’s, a full-service car wash in his hometown of Sandy, Utah, so he started up there, too. It was just a job to him — there was no way for him to know that he was launching a promising career.

“I really enjoyed it,” Goudie said. “I didn’t really think anything of it, though. I had other goals and ambitions in my life.”

After about 10 months, Goudie became a full-time worker at the wash. Then, at age 17, he moved with his mother to Casper, Wyo. There, a nearby location of Rocky Mountain Car Wash happened to be hiring part-time workers. Goudie had started creating graphics and marketing plans for music producers, and he viewed the wash as a natural way to supplement his income.

Goudie started at the bottom again. 

“I was doing everything there from scrubbing the toilets to cleaning bays to helping customers,” Goudie said. 

He stood out from the beginning. Taylor Webb, now the chief operating officer for Rocky Mountain and a member of the family that owns the company, said Goudie has a friendly, unassuming nature, and he outsold the company’s other customer service attendants by 10 to 1 — using straightforward, genuine interactions with customers. 

Goudie also provided vital feedback and insights for the Rocky Mountain management team, sharing what he was seeing, experiencing and hearing.

“He wasn’t doing it to show off,” Webb said. “He’s just hungry, and he’s a naturally good-spirited individual who wants to be a team player. That’s why he elevates any team that he’s a part of.”

Soon, Goudie advanced into a full-time position for Rocky Mountain that kept him moving between each of the wash’s locations around the state. He trained new workers, covered shifts and supported operations in a variety of ways. He’d decided that marketing was his true love, so he also asked if he could run the chain’s social media.

He proceeded to grow the wash’s social media following by more than 2,000%. He planned social media strategy, developed content calendars, created giveaways and posted every day.

A critical moment in his career came when Rocky Mountain adopted the EverWash membership platform.

“I started selling tons of memberships,” Goudie said. “I started marketing the memberships. I was training all of our employees how to sell it. I was creating sales competitions at all the locations. It was a lot of fun.”

Goudie soon realized that he’d reached a “pivot” in his career. He knew that marketing was where he wanted to focus his career pursuits, but he felt as though he had learned everything there was to learn at Rocky Mountain. Webb and her family understood it, too, and they wanted to help him grow rather than simply hold onto him. 

Webb said Goudie has the admirable quality of speaking up for himself and looking to do more. “He’s not afraid to say, ‘Thank you for the opportunity, but what else can I do?’” she said.

Webb spoke to a contact at EverWash about Goudie, and he’d been so successful working with EverWash’s product that he was well known to the company already. Goudie was not only one of the network’s top sales attendants but his feedback about the app’s sales features helped shape improvements that benefited the entire network. 

EverWash started Goudie on a paid six-month part-time internship. During his internship, he contributed to graphic design and social media and created training manuals for attendants and managers. He thrived, and the internship lasted only two months before EverWash hired him full time. He began to train washes on the EverWash platform while also contributing to a range of marketing efforts. That eventually led to a promotion to his current position, digital marketing manager. He’s been in his current position for about two years.

Goudie is an avid video game player, and in the parlance of video games, Max Pulcini, director of marketing and communications for EverWash, said Goudie is always trying to “level up.”

“He’s always looking to learn more and improve himself,” Pulcini said. “He steps up and inserts himself into projects just for the sake of learning how to overcome another challenge.”

In a few short years, Goudie has gone from someone who took care of small projects to someone who is a true subject matter expert running a multimillion-dollar software stack used to communicate with millions each year, Pulcini said.

Pulcini said that Goudie’s facility with marketing tools has been recognized not only within the car wash industry but outside of it, including “by some of the biggest tech software companies out there.” 

“What he’s brought to our company is impossible to put into words,” Pulcini said. “He’s made such a tremendous impact, and we wouldn’t be the company that we are and have some of the capabilities that we do today without him.”

Goudie said marketing is continuously fascinating to him.

“When I send out a different email or a different message, I like seeing customers’ behavior and how that affects them,” Goudie said. “I’m also a user, and now I like to analyze every marketing message that I get and ask, ‘What are they trying to make me think? What are they trying to make me do? What are their goals for this?’ Marketing runs everything — from a car wash to presidential races. The idea of being able to change behaviors, or being able to get people to think different ways, is really interesting to me, but also it’s about making sure that customers feel seen and heard and understood.”

Both Pulcini and Webb said that Goudie’s background is invaluable in his role as a marketer. 

“He knows what the customer experience is like,” Webb said. “He knows what it’s like being a customer service attendant, selling a membership, how uncomfortable it can be. He knows the training that goes into all the roles. For him, marketing comes naturally because he built that foundation first.”

Goudie is grateful for the opportunities he has unexpectedly found in the industry.

“When I was first working at the car wash, I had all these goals and ambitions, and I was like, ‘I’m never going to work in the car wash industry ever again,’” Goudie said. “I just thought of it as something that I could move on from after a few months. I slowly learned that jobs in the car wash industry can become careers, and they can be successful and you can have a lot of fun. They’re not just part-time gigs that you leave. I think I’m living proof that starting at the bottom of a car wash you can excel so much in this industry. There’s so much to do and so many different ways to go.”

Goudie understands that his career is only beginning.

“I grew up in a lower middle-class family, and I knew that I always wanted to do something bigger. I always wanted to be part of something,” Goudie said. “I think that’s what kept me motivated. I won’t stop until I am doing the things that I want to do. A lot of people chase money or chase titles, but I just chase the things that I enjoy. For me, that’s marketing and strategy. And seeing all the growth that I’ve seen has been so rewarding to me. It’s been so motivating to see where I was and to see where I’ve come and to think about where I might go next.”