Chelsea Beyer is dedicated to the car wash and convenience industry. So dedicated that she quit law school in order to devote more energy to her job as an assistant manager at her local convenience store that paid $5.10 per hour. “I couldn’t manage my school load and work load,” she said. “So of course I dropped out of law!”
Looks like it’s worked out for the best.
“Through the convenience industry, I developed a love for business and people development,” she said. Chelsea eventually went back to school, receiving Bachelors of Science degrees in both business management and organizational behavior, and a Masters of Arts in business. But she never left the industry.
“Throughout my education, I worked in convenience stores of various levels, eventually ending up at ConocoPhillips as a regional manager,” she said. During her time at ConocoPhillips, Chelsea worked with EcoLab through the car wash program with ConocoPhillips. “That’s when I made my move into vehicle care, at the time owned by EcoLab,” she said. “Since then, I’ve enjoyed balancing my love of employee development, business growth — both internally and with our customers — and the retail car wash business in general.”
Today, Chelsea is the senior vice president of sales and service for Zep Vehicle Care (ZVC). She started with the business in 2004, prior to the Zep acquisition in 2012. “I’ve been a salesperson in our corporate accounts team, a segment manager in marketing, country manager for Canada, and previously led the corporate accounts team before my current role,” she said. Chelsea works with a team of more than 100 salespeople, supporting Zep’s direct and distributor customers. One of her favorite aspects of the job is being in the field with her team, meeting and working with their customers.
“I love seeing the success that we have with our customers and employees,” she said. “As a company, we provide chemicals for use in the car wash. However, our philosophy goes beyond that to bringing solutions and ideas to our customers. When you’ve worked hand-in-hand with a customer and you can jointly get great results, it’s very gratifying to feel like you made a real difference, not just provided a product.”
Chelsea is also driven by the success of her people. “Everyone in ZVC believes in working together to grow skills to do their job better, more efficiently, and drive to help the customer succeed,” she said. “Seeing our group be successful and have such a strong culture of teamwork makes me proud to be part of our business.”
Because Chelsea has always worked in male-dominated industries, she said she doesn’t know it any other way.
And she wouldn’t have it any other way.
“I don’t want to be successful based on being female, but rather what I do and who I am,” she said.
The best career advice Chelsea has received has to do with being open to change. Doing something just because it has always been done a certain way doesn’t work for Chelsea. “When there’s an issue or opportunity, thinking about it from a new perspective can maximize the outcome,” she said. “I want to implement the best way, not just the usual way. Continuing to challenge my thinking and looking for new ideas has been a key concept for me throughout my career.”