Page 38 - INSIGHT MAGAZINE_October 2024

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Business leader’s success

awash in hard work

MIKE BLACK, VALET CAR WASH

There are likely very few business “He (Johnny Carson) had a segment about “My dad was an executive at Chrysler,
leaders who can credit late- strange trade magazines and held up one and I was never in a dirty car,” says Mike,
night television talk show legend called Auto Laundry News, which was all noting how he was often tasked with
Johnny Carson for inspiration but about the car wash industry. Who knew washing the family vehicle. “I just loved
car washers had their own magazine? And taking something dirty and making it look
Mike Black, owner of Valet Car I perked right up.” really nice, so I’ve always had a passion
Wash in Cambridge, happens to for clean and shiny cars.”
be one of them. With the help of a resource worker at
the Preston library, Mike was able to However, transforming this passion into
While in his mid-twenties and working as locate a copy of the magazine and began a viable business venture seemed like an
a transport driver, the future entrepreneur a new journey into a business that he almost insurmountable task when after
happened to catch an episode of Carson’s always had held an affinity for since five years of planning he opened Valet
The Tonight Show that would change his his youth and his father was general Car Wash in April of 1991 during a serious
life. manager of Chrysler Canada. His career recession accompanied by sky-high
“I knew I wanted to go into the car wash resulted in Mike’s family living in various interest rates.
business. But how do you that? There was communities across Canada before “Everybody thought the odds would
no Google back then,” he laughs, seated settling permanently in Cambridge in the have been highly against me,” says Mike.
in the office at his company’s Eagle early 1970s when Chrysler Canada set up “Unemployment had gone up and house
Street North location describing that life- its new headquarters in Mississauga. prices had dropped like crazy, and real
changing moment. estate plummeted. But here I was, opening
the largest car wash in Canada.”

38 Fall 2024 www.cambridgechamber.com