Lance Winslow
Founder of The Bus Wash Guys
The History of the Bus Wash Guys
Back in the late 80s Lance Winslow's predecessor company Aero
Auto Wash had contracts to clean several bus fleets. Later the name
was changed to The Car Wash Guys, and
another division was created called the Truck Wash Guys.
One of the first large Bus Fleet Contracts was the Oxnard School
District (Oxnard, CA), with 15 Transit Crown Buses (90 passenger)
and 30 Conventional Buses and a couple of rows of "Bread Box" 10
passenger buses. It was a great account and our company washed them
for years, until one day another company out bid Lance Winslow and
his company on price.
Meanwhile, Mr. Winslow had gotten busy and signed up Laidlaw and
Durham Transportation in several California Counties. These contract
school bus carriers had literally 100s and 100s of buses to wash.
Eventually, Lance and his Bus Wash Guys Division signed up offices
for these companies in several states.
Washing buses was hard work, but Lance Winslow was a stickler for
training and put the new crews thru grueling training, washing 500
buses in 5-days, before qualifying them to work on a permanent crew.
Another intense training exercise was taking the new guys to San
Diego to help was 3,000 USPS jeeps on one of 3-crews over a
non-stop, Friday to Monday Morning washing Blitz. Today, this is not
legal to work someone without sleep for 66 hours.
When the Metro Rail was completed in the San Fernando Valley,
(home of the Northridge Earthquake), Mr. Winslow signed up several
shuttle buses and contract companies that finished the final leg for
rail commuters. Lance set up accounts with such well-known area
companies as Smart Shuttle with more buses than you could count.
When the bus wash broke for the RTD (Rapid Transit District) they
called Lance's company too. Imagine having to wash 80 buses with
2-crews in 8-hours, 3-times a week and clean the interiors every
day? The Night Work was tough, but there was a lot of it, and not
just with the World Wide Known RTD either.
One of the first Bay Area Franchises the Lance Winslow sold in
South San Francisco picked up the SFO Airporter, some 68 units of
all sizes, including several high-end Tour Buses that took folks
skiing or over the Mountains into Nevada for the Reno, Carson City
and Lake Tahoe Casinos. The Company also had contracts with all the
major Tech and Bio Tech Companies shuttling employees around. Names
like Genetech, American Airlines, Oracle, Sun Micro, etc.
Having such success in the San Francisco Market our teams started
washing shuttle buses for the Airport Parking Companies and Car
Rental Companies at San Francisco International Airport. We also won
the bid to wash for American Airlines, at their HQ and for the
employees. Bus Washing may not be glamorous, but it is one of Lance
Winslow's favorite cleaning segments of all the WashGuy Companies.
As fuel prices remain high more and more people are seeking
public transportation and Mr. Winslow (44), although now retired sees
this as a continued area of growth and incremental increases in
quarterly revenue. Lance urges all Americans to ride the bus
and demand that whatever bus they ride on is clean. Clean buses mean
a pleasurable riding experience, and that means more people will
take the bus alleviating traffic and helping our nation reduce or
dependency on Middle Eastern foreign oil.
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