‘Hoodie’ Award Winner Offers Spa Treatment for Cars

by Linn Washington, Jr.
Rufus Harley earned distinction as the first jazz performer to adapt the Scottish bag pipe to that style of music.

Harley’s son, Tyler, while sharing his late father’s passion for music, is earning his distinction in a totally different arena: the car wash business.

Tyler Harley and his wife, Jacqueline, own the Waterline Auto Spa Express in Glassboro, N.J., a town about 25-miles southeast from Philadelphia.

Unlike the bare-bones operation of most car washes, customers at Waterline can enjoy a comfortable, flat-screen-television-equipped waiting area, where customers receive complimentary Starbucks coffee, Tazo tea and pastry from a famous South Jersey bakery.

“It’s nice to be able to sit down at a car wash,” customer Tyria Brunner said Sunday while sitting in Waterline’s cozy waiting room. “Most places, I don’t want to touch anything.”

Pampering customers by providing a destination experience is among the distinctive differences that helped make Waterline a winner in the 2012 Steve Harvey “Hoodie” Awards.

Waterline was the only entity in the northeastern U.S. to receive a Hoodie during the 10th annual ceremony this past August in Las Vegas. Waterline was a finalist four previous times before winning this year’s Best Car Wash/Detail Shop category, one of the twelve Hoodie categories.

“We feel our business is special. We wanted the world to know about us and our passion for making people happy,” said Jacqueline Harley said.

While winning a Hoodie Award didn’t include a cash prize, this husband and wife team received an all-expense paid trip to Las Vegas where they rubbed shoulders with celebrities like the legendary Stevie Wonder.
 
The Hoodie Awards are promoted on Steve Harvey’s nationally syndicated radio program that is broadcast principally on radio stations with black/urban audiences,but  the Harleys  customer base that is not predominantly African-American.Most customers knew nothing about Steve Harvey and his award program but eagerly responded to the Harleys requests to go through the Hoodie voting process to support Waterline.

Waterline Auto Spa celebrates its 5th Anniversary at the end of October 2012.

That is a feat, particularly for a business that started one year before the bottom fell out of America’s economy in 2008. That sent businesses big and small into tailspins not seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

“It was challenging for us,” Tyler Harley said. “When the recession hit in fall 2008 all people were thinking about was survival. They weren’t thinking about keeping their car clean.”

He recounted that rocky period that also included a “learning curve” in operating an automated car wash business.

Harley said two women from a community adjacent to Glassboro opened a new car wash at the same time as Waterline but that facility is no longer in business.

“We are people orientated and I think that has helped us. Plus, we are on-site operators,’ not passive investors. We work seven days a week,” Tyler said.

During weekdays Jacqueline and Tyler Harley work their respective jobs in sales and business management/consulting, spending weekend’s full time at Waterline.

Waterline employs 20 people, half of whom are full time. The Harley’s are proud that a number of their employees are high school students, whom they help develop a good work ethic.

“We have a scholarship program where we pay for the first-semester books in college. Two of our employees are ready to go to law school,.” Tyler Harley said. “Our law-firm owning customers give these employees apprenticeships at their law firms,”

“We focus on kids who are going places. But we also help kids who’ve had brushes with the law,” he said. “We want to help as much as we can.”

Not many African-Americans own and operate full-service mechanized car washes. Harley said he hardly sees any other blacks when he attends state and national car- wash trade shows.

Tyler Harley said a state-of-the-art conveyor system like Waterline operates alone costs $500,000.

Tyler Harley has been an entrepreneur all of his life, owning his first store at 17-years-old. He spent years studying the car wash business and gained insights from actually operating his own hand-car-washing business.

“We observed this kind of business from afar for a while. We thought we could succeed in this business,” Tyler Harley said.

Waterline customer and successful businessman Jerry Wright credits Tyler Harley with “introducing something new” to the car-wash market with the spa concept. Wright is CEO of UTRS, a hi-tech engineering consulting company in Cherry Hill, NJ.

“He methodically studied the car-wash business. At his place, you can get a quick wash and wipe down in two minutes without leaving your car and sit down for the more-thorough cleaning options,” Wright said.

The Harleys are working on opening a second location in South Jersey with a goal of opening a facility in Pennsylvania.