Green Forest Car Wash Brings the Rainforest to L.A.

From left: Green Forest Car Wash owner Patricia Knott with team members Luis Chavez, Asabia Gonzales and Kelsey Debevec.

If Southern California is representative of a land filled with hopes and dreams, then Green Forest Car Wash sits at the intersection of fun and determination. Stories about small business start-ups during times of economic recession often are cautionary tales, clouded by uncertainty and nervous optimism. But this five-month-old express carwash that evokes a tropical rainforest in the middle of an urban jungle projects a confident mix of L.A. funky fun and pragmatism.

That is due largely to the collaboration between owner Patricia Knott and G. Thomas Ennis, CEO of NS Wash Systems. The two have poured their imagination into the facility, giving Green Forest Car Wash a nice head start.

Not long ago, Knott wasn’t likely on many people’s radar to become a carwash operator. Her career path began as an accountant at Arthur Andersen, working primarily in the tax division and specializing in real estate. She then became chief financial officer for a real estate developer with interests in hotels, office buildings and professional sports.

Those experiences, she says, provided an excellent foundation for her business knowledge.

“The exposure to different businesses and how they operated was amazing,” Knott says about her days at Arthur Andersen. “I worked with small businesses, so I was able to understand how the entire company operated versus a larger company where you might only look at the manufacturing process.”

As a CFO, Knott was exposed to several aspects of the developer business, since the company managed its investment properties rather than bringing in a company like Hilton or Marriott to operate them.

“I had the opportunity to structure deals, both acquisitions and dispositions, negotiate with lenders, potential investors, as well as handle human resources, insurance and who parks where,” recalls Knott. “There was constant analysis with room rates, leasing rates, and ticket prices. We always monitored where we stood in the marketplace.”

Two of the biggest lessons she says she learned from her boss were that there is a cost to indecision — a principle she now calls “analysis to paralysis — and the need to analyze your hiring successes. For example, knowing what you know about a current employee, would you hire him again if he walked into your business today?

“It is an easy question to answer, but harder to execute,” she notes. “I believe the business will run better if you value all your employees and they meet your needs.”

Those experiences helped fuel her entrepreneurial spirit, which she says began when she was in the fourth grade. She admired her father’s resolve to purchase a quick-printing business after he was told he would have to wait a week to receive copies of his resume.

“He saw a niche to provide people with printing while they waited,” says Knott. “Within a matter of days, he bought an instant-printing business. He was efficient and constantly looking for ways to improve the operation. In the back of my mind, I wanted my own business.”

The Bug

Although she had known Ennis for a few years and listened to him talk about the NS Wash-owned El Segundo 5-Minute Express Carwash, she says she did not seriously consider carwashing until she finally visited the facility.

“I need to see something before I can visualize the potential,” notes Knott. “El Segundo was definitely love at first sight. I saw a business with low labor, no inventory, no receivables or returns and set hours. Fortunately, that was all I saw. From that moment on I wanted my own express wash.”

With the carwash bug firmly in place, Knott set out to learn as much as she could. She began reading industry trade magazines, attended the Western Carwash Association’s annual expo from 2006 to 2008, and enrolled in the International Carwash Association’s new investor seminar. She also participated in the equipment maintenance program presented by CarWash College.

These experiences put her in touch with many operators across all carwash segments and brought her closer to the equipment and maintenance realities of the business, from taking links out of a conveyor chain to titrating chemicals.

“None of this was in my comfort zone,” she says, “and my mantra became ‘low labor, no inventory, no returns and nothing else matters.’”

The Vision

Convinced that an express carwash was the best model for her, Knott and Ennis began developing ideas. Knott’s market research suggested customers viewed carwashes as a necessary evil, turned off by time, cost and quality. Ennis saw an opening for a carwash focused on the customer experience. He envisioned a themed wash that could be like an amusement park ride built around four primary guiding principles: fun, fast, easy to use, and inexpensive.

The result is Green Forest Car Wash in Hawthorne, Calif., which opened in April. The 2,800-square-foot building features a modern architectural design, but the fun is in the details — particularly inside the 90-foot tunnel.

All the equipment is disguised to match a jungle theme. As customers first enter the tunnel, their vehicle is sprayed with reclaim water by an elephant, as a bubblizer and waterfall cascade over the car. All of the material