Power Pages

QUIRKY PARKING RULES KEEP NEW YORKERS IN GEAR

HEARTS STILL RACE FOR THESE CAR CLUB RARITIES

GETTING OUT OF TOWN CAN BE TOUGH, EVEN FOR A TV STAR

Power Pages presented by interstate batteries

MEET

JOE From field to track and back, Joe Gibbs is a coaching legend

WE RECYCLE MORE CAR BATTERIES THAN WE SELL

©Interstate Batteries

table of contents

20 NOT YOUR AVERAGE JOE Former NFL coach Joe Gibbs has three Super Bowl rings and is consistently gathering NASCAR accolades. With so much winning comes sage advice.

28 CLASSIC BEAUTIES These unique car clubs – with involved operational upkeep and detailed historic preservation – make every weekend rally and neighborhood display a showstopper.

36 A WOMAN ON A MISSION Former Bridgestone executive Amy Bonder illustrates that the historically male-dominated auto industry is not only ready for a change, but anxiously awaiting one.

42 ON THE ROAD WITH AMERICA’S NEXT ACTION STAR AJ Buckley is one of Hollywood’s hottest emerging stars. When he’s not filming, he’s taking his family on a, well, interesting adventure along the Pacific Coast Highway.

50 GET THE LEAD OUT Interstate Batteries is the industry leader in battery recycling, and has been since before recycling was cool.

05

POWER TO SAVE

12

FUTURE OF MOBILITY

18

MEET NORM MILLER

First responders and hospitals know that

Buckle up for the mobility revolution: An auto

The chairman of Interstate Batteries and

biomedical batteries mean the difference

industry consultant believes the future presents

founder of the Christian ministry I Am Second

between life and death.

unparalleled opportunities for companies,

encourages everyone to follow the Golden Rule.

big and small, that are prepared.

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A FRIEND IN NEED

The Automotive Aftermarket Charitable Foun-

52 16

OH, WHAT A FEELING

RECHARGE

In New York, it takes speed and dexterity to

dation helps its own — industry employees who,

Discoveries certain to profoundly alter our daily

beat the parking patrol, but no city’s pecca-

due to catastrophic illness or terrible accident,

lives are on the horizon, like self-driving cars, but

dilloes inspire as much cultish devotion as

have exhausted all other available resources.

the Toyota Research Institute isn’t stopping there.

Gotham’s alternate-side parking rules.

1

meet the team

JENNIFER BIRN Jennifer Birn is a veteran journalist who has interviewed celebrities and written about her adventures for publications including The Arizona Republic, the New York Daily News, Us Weekly, Maxim Magazine, ESPN Magazine, Yahoo Travel and OK! magazine.

CRAI S. BOWER Seattle-based award-wining writer, photographer and broadcaster Crai S. Bower annually contributes scores of articles to more than 25 publications. He regularly appears on KUOW (NPR), American Forces Network and Rick Steve’s Travel, where he is the Canadian travel expert.

RICK GOSSELIN Rick Gosselin has spent 44 years reporting on the NFL, the last 28 in Dallas. He also has worked in Detroit, New York and Kansas City, and was named Missouri Sportswriter of the Year in 1980. He has covered 34 Super Bowls and has been a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame selection committee for 22 years.

JOSH GRIMM Josh Grimm, Ph.D., is an associate professor at Louisiana State University. His research focuses on the importance of diversity – with an emphasis on gender, race and sexuality – and he has written 14 scholarly articles and books on those issues.

MATTHEW MILLER Matthew Miller is a writer, editor and translator who lives in Lansing, Michigan. He writes about science, technology and religion but seldom about their intersection.

His work has appeared in the Detroit Free Press, The Independent Film and Video Monthly and American Way.

JOE MURRAY Joe Murray is a journalism nomad who has written for daily newspapers, alt-weeklies and magazines around the country. Since alternateside parking rules care naught for deadlines, you might catch him doubleparked, hammering away furiously at a laptop behind his steering wheel.

JOE PAPPALARDO Joe Pappalardo covers aerospace and military for Popular Mechanics as a contributing editor and is the author of Spaceport Earth: The Reinvention of Spaceflight. He lives in Dallas with his wife and two shelter dogs.

KATHLEEN PARRISH Kathleen Parrish is the editor-in-chief of the alumni magazine of Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania.

She has written for Better Homes & Gardens and the Saturday Evening Post, as well as co-authored My Life on the Run: The Wit, Wisdom and Insights of a Road Racing Icon with Bart Yasso.

JILL K. ROBINSON Jill K. Robinson writes about travel, adventure, food and drink for the San Francisco Chronicle, AFAR, National Geographic Traveler, Outside, Robb Report, Private Clubs, Saturday Evening Post, Sunset, Coastal Living, Delta Sky, Celebrated Living, Rhapsody, Beyond, Sierra, Men’s Fitness and more.

ALYSON SHEPPARD Alyson Sheppard is a writer and editor whose work regularly appears in Popular Mechanics, GQ, Esquire and Us Weekly, among other titles. Her time is split between Gulf Shores, Alabama, and her home in Dallas, which she shares with her husband, two mutts and a tiki mug shaped like Ernest Hemingway’s head.

Tyler Reeves Shannon McWilliams

Adam Pitluk David Halloran COPY EDITOR Becky Williams CREATIVE CONSULTANT Bob Grossman

PRESIDENT AND GM OF NATIONAL ACCOUNTS

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR

VP OF RETAIL, ROADSIDE, AND MARKETING

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

VP OF OES AND END USER

Eric Roberts

Chris Roden Teri Thomas MANAGER, SPONSORSHIPS AND PROMOTIONS MARKETING Charlie Brimm SR. MANAGER-CHANNEL STRATEGY, NATIONAL ACCOUNTS SR. MARKETING MANAGER, NATIONAL ACCOUNTS

ABOUT GROOM LAKE MEDIA Groom Lake Media is a full-service communications outfit made up of experienced industry experts. Based in Dallas, let us be your turnkey provider for all your communications and publishing needs.

CONTACT THE PUBLISHER info@groomlakemedia.com groomlakemedia.com 972.378.4845

2

publisher’s note

I

Humble Past, Powerful Future

love the automotive aftermarket industry. After starting my cabrand that powers virtually every kind of machine that takes a batreer in consulting — finding my way to run Cheetos, Fritos and tery. While our core remains Starting, Lighting and Ignition bathousehold brands while at Frito-Lay — I have finally found my teries (SLI), we continue to grow and adapt to market needs around home within our industry. While there are many similarities bethe world. tween corn chips and batteries (don’t get me started), what I love Recently, Scott Miller, Norm’s son, took over as CEO. Under his the most are the people, passions and rich partnerships leadership, we have tightened our purpose — to glorify God that define our industry. and enrich lives as we deliver the most trustworthy As I travel around the U.S., I am blessed to meet source of power in every community we serve with internal and external partners who typ— so we can continue our 65-year legacy and ically started from humble beginnings and WHAT I LOVE THE MOST deepen our existing and future partnerships. quickly became pioneers whom we know, A safe estimate is that we have 50 million ARE THE PEOPLE, respect and continue to learn from today. batteries on the road today, meaning 1 in While most of these individuals, compa5 cars is driving with Interstate. Not only PASSIONS AND RICH nies and foundational stories are wellare we experts in fresh batteries, but we PARTNERSHIPS THAT known throughout our ranks, I wanted to also safely handle and recycle used ones. take a moment to share a bit about our humIt’s important to us, given our purpose and DEFINE OUR INDUSTRY. ble beginnings. commitment to the communities we serve.

Back in the spring of 1950, a World War II And yet, our performance and commitveteran named John Searcy began selling and ment to quality products is not what define us delivering car batteries to wholesalers in Dallas. as a company. What defines us is our commitment He would load them into the bed of his red Studebaker to service, to people and to causes, all of which you’ll pickup and make the rounds on winding Texas backcountry learn more about in this magazine. To that end, the magazine roads. Two years later, right around the time the new interstate will be of value to our customers and the automotive aftermarket. highway system was riding high on a wave of good public relations, We know where we’re from and where we’re going. We also know Searcy named his company Interstate Battery System. The compathat this ride is better with a partner. That understanding will enny became recognized around the country for its quality product sure a bright future for us, and we’ll keep powering a bright future and for Searcy’s friendly and helpful demeanor. Even though Interfor our partners. state Batteries didn’t have its own logo until 1963, the word was out among both wholesalers and retailers that Interstate was a company they could do business with.

Tyler Reeves By the time Searcy retired in 1978 and handed the proverbial keys to the company to Norm Miller, Interstate Batteries was selling well over 1 million batteries per year. Under Norm’s leadership, editor - in - chief Interstate has grown from a one-man show to a beloved household 3

editor’s note

I

It’s a Long Road

work for a purpose-driven company. And because I do, I have to excellence: When most people think about automotive techtell you, it’s extraordinary to come to work every day with a clear, nology in the future, they think of self-driving cars. However, Toydefined purpose (“to glorify God and enrich lives as we deliver ota’s Research Institute is diving deep into artificial intelligence. the most trustworthy source of power to the world”).

Go into the future with “Oh, What a Feeling” (Page 16).

Our purpose is confirmed and buttressed by our concise, suclove: Since 1959, there’s been a concerted effort in the autocinct, well-articulated values: the venerable Golden Rule, as it motive industry to take care of those in need. The Automotive were. That rule is simply this: Do unto others as you would have Aftermarket Charitable Foundation (AACF) heard the call and is them do unto you. a friend indeed for “A Friend in Need” when all other reAs we gathered content for this inaugural issue of Power sources have been exhausted (Page 10).

Pages, those values were ever-present and top-ofmind. To wit, many of those values are reflected OUR PURPOSE IS integrity: Norm Miller, whose emphasis in the stories you’ll be reading, and in some CONFIRMED AND on integrity in business was instrumental cases (if we successfully and purposefully in growing Interstate Batteries into the did our job), rereading.

BUTTRESSED BY OUR successful business it is today, is a man CONCISE, SUCCINCT, team: It’s a bold statement to say that with a revolutionary vision and a story Joe Gibbs is “the greatest coach of the to tell. His myriad successes include WELL-ARTICULATED Super Bowl era.” Bolder still is when founding I Am Second, the religious VALUES: THE VENERAthat statement is made by award-winnonprofit focused on placing God first. ning sports writer Rick “Goose” GosGet a glimpse of what makes the man in BLE GOLDEN RULE, selin, who anchors this magazine with “Meet Norm Miller” (Page 18).

AS IT WERE. the cover story, “Not Your Average Joe.” The NFL Pro Football Hall-of-Fame-voting Enjoy our inaugural issue of Power Pages writer makes a very compelling argument and and let us know what you think. Visit survey. demonstrates how Gibbs’ success on the gridiron groomlakemedia.com and your five minutes could translates well to the racetrack (Page 20). win you a $250 Visa gift card.

A puritanical work ethic is as American as church and NFL servant’s heart: One of Interstate Batteries’ own also and NASCAR on Sunday. But a purposeful work ethic – enjoying works as a first responder, and in “Power to Save,” you can really what you do, whom you do it for and whom you do it with – is divine. understand the importance of being prepared to render aid and Being mindful of our industry and of the changes therein makes us save lives (Page 5). able to better serve you, our readers. And serving our readers is our purpose. fun: What could be more fun than taking a road trip up the beauWith that, welcome to Power Pages magazine. We’re embarking tiful Pacific Coast Highway in a cool Audi with your family on a on a journey. weekend afternoon? Read how things go wrong in a very funny way “On The Road with America’s Next Action Star” (Page 42).

Want to come? courage: Forging a career in a male-dominated world might be daunting for some. But Amy Bonder has risen through the ranks to become an industry leader and 2016’s Auto Care Woman of the Year.

Read her story in “A Woman on a Mission” (Page 36).

4

Teri Thomas

editor - in - chief

unstoppable power

POWER TO SAVE First responders and hospitals know that biomedical batteries mean the difference between life and death by joe pappalardo

5

unstoppable power

W

hen an ambulance arrives at the scene of an emergency, it’s like a small piece of the hospital has arrived as well.

Emergency medical technicians treat patients on the scene with an array of mobile devices that can bring a patient back from the brink of death.

And those devices had better work when you switch them on.

Tammy Kendrick knows this better than most. She’s national accounts sales development manager with Interstate Batteries’ medical division in Phoenix. It’s her job to offer reliable power to medical facilities, systems that ensure patients can be treated without interruption no matter how disruptive an emergency. “In the medical field, we say, ‘It’s not just a battery, it’s a life,’ ” she says.

Like many people, Kendrick has a job on the side. Unlike most, she moonlights as a lifesaver. She not only volunteers with Mormon Lake Volunteer Fire Department, she became a certified EMT to fill the small town’s need. “We go to a cabin there, and I saw the fire department needed volunteers, so I joined in 2014,” she says. “When I saw how they needed EMTs, I became nationally certified.”

For Washington, D.C., area emergency medical technician Toby Jorrin, mobility means life. Getting care to the injured means relying on equipment that will work the moment he needs it. His list of battery-powered, livesaving tools ranges from the mundane (flashlights and radios) to the highly specialized (intubation GlideScopes and glucose monitors).

6

“Without battery-powered devices in my rig, I might as well be a Civil War medic,” Jorrin says. “We keep battery management in mind constantly.”

Not only is this essential for saving lives, but it protects the city’s bottom line as well. The city of Chicago in 2009 settled out of court with a patient’s family for $3.2 million after its fire department tried to deploy a defibrillator with dead batteries.

A hospital has to contend with more power supply worries than an EMT. Its supply must remain uninterrupted in order to power an array of equipment ranging from advanced medical devices to backup generators to exit lighting. “Batteries are really the heartbeat of a hospital,” Kendrick says. “Ventilators, incubators for babies, defibrillators on carts, everything has to have a battery backup.”

Kendrick’s job is to determine how Interstate can help hospitals run smoothly. That means educating them in a key concept: A better battery can save money and hassle, not to mention lives.

“Engineers at each hospital have to meet codes that regulate how often they change batteries,” she says. Interstate not only sells high-quality batteries, but its distribution hubs enable the delivery of batteries when the hospital needs it, rather than stockpiling batteries that will lose potency as they sit in storage.

Kendrick says her day job selling batteries and weekend job as an EMT complement each other. “People don’t think about batteries until the batteries go dead,” she says. “But if I have someone coding on me, and I use my defibrillator, it better work.”

EMTs:

empowered to save lives Emergency medical technicians use a variety of battery-powered equipment to save lives. Here are some examples.

suction Suction aspiration units are medical devices used to extract mucus and other bodily fluids from an individual.

glidescope intubator EMTs often have to intubate their patients — inserting a breathing tube into their trachea. The GlideScope is a small fiber-optic camera that helps EMTs aim the tube, to avoid inserting it into the esophagus.

tough book laptop Computers are standard operating gear for EMTs, and keeping them charged is a constant priority when responding to multiple calls.

flashlight As simple as it seems, EMTs say that a powerful and damage-resistant flashlight is the piece of gear they use most on calls.

lifepak Lifepak units are one-stop lifesaving data collectors. They constantly monitor heart rate, and alert the user to sudden changes. The device can also be used as a defibrillator, to kick-start a stopped heart.

7

grab a book

Read These… … just not while driving

fins (HarperCollins, 2018)

The birth of modern automobile design was not in the factories of Detroit but in the silent movies of Hollywood. Fins: Harley Earl, the Rise of General Motors, and the Glory Days of Detroit by William Knoedelseder tells the story of how Harley Earl, a stuttering college dropout, would bring artistic design to auto manufacturing and catalyze the automobile’s effect on our national heritage.

8

by steven kirlin

land rover: the story of the car that conquered the world (HarperCollins, 2016)

For 67 years, the Land Rover Defender has been a symbol of durability and a British icon worldwide. No other vehicle is as recognizable, and it is said that for more than half the world's population, the first car they ever saw was a Land Rover Defender. Land Rover: The Story of the Car that Conquered the World by Ben Fogle looks at the unique history of the British automobile that has marched across the globe.

janesville: an american story (Simon & Schuster, 2017)

girls auto clinic glove box guide (Touchstone, 2017)

The Great Recession of 2008 dealt a blow to the American heartland, especially the closing of a General Motors’ assembly plant in Janesville, Wisconsin.

Janesville: An American Story is an exploration by Pulitzer Prize winner Amy Goldstein that delves into the hearts and minds of a community pulling together to rebuild the American middle class.

From changing the blinker fluid to rotating the air in your tires, no group of the population has been more taken advantage of in the auto garage than women. No more. In Girls Auto Clinic Glove Box Guide, Patrice Banks empowers women to shift back into control at the garage and know what to do when things go wrong under the hood.

YOUR

OPINION

COUNTS (and it just might pay)!

Please tell us what you think of Power Pages magazine and be entered in our drawing for a $250 Visa gift card. Drawing is January 2, 2018. survey.groomlakemedia.com

9

giving back

Inside an AACF marketing summit recently aided by Interstate Batteries

A Friend in Need

Automotive Aftermarket Charitable Foundation helps its own

I

by jill robinson

n 1959, a group of automotive aftermarket industry veterans who people knew about the foundation was by word of mouth,” Ayres says. had a common friend with a long-term illness, banded together “Now, in more than 2,600 locations, our company partners provide to help him. Their all-volunteer efforts ultimately grew into the information to employees through their own human resources deAutomotive Aftermarket Charitable Foundation (AACF), an organi- partment, posters in the break room or a letter that describes the zation that assists those who, due to catastrophic illness or terrible purpose of the foundation.” Additionally, interested parties can conaccident, have exhausted all other available resources. tact the AACF directly, by email or telephone.

Assistance has taken many forms, from covering According to Ayres, 90 percent of recipients come hospital bills and rent to providing service dogs from the Awareness Partner Program, and after and accessibility home improvements to, the foundation helps an employee or two from when necessary, paying funeral expenses. a particular company, the awareness and Since its founding, the grass-roots orgoodwill generated from the experience “FOLKS STEP IN AND igins of the organization have morphed sometimes inspire the company to beHELP WITH FREE ADVERinto an official nonprofit. However, volcome a donor.

TISING AND PRO BONO unteers are still an essential part of its The requirements for those in need success. “We’ve been very fortunate,” are simple: You must have worked in the WORK, WHICH HELPS says Joel Ayres, executive director of automotive aftermarket industry for at US KEEP EXPENSES AS the AACF. “Folks step in and help with least two years, need assistance for yourMINIMAL AS POSSIBLE.” free advertising and pro bono work, self or an immediate family member and which helps us keep expenses as minimal have no other resources to draw from. as possible.”

No other charity is specifically focused One of the most important elements in on the employees of the automotive aftermarconnecting those in need with the AACF is the ket industry. An informal research project unAwareness Partner Program, a partnership between dertaken by the foundation showed that potentially automotive aftermarket companies and the foundation to more than 1 million people employed in the industry may promote awareness of AACF services. Current partners include: In- face a personal tragedy in their lifetime, whether it’s an illness, acterstate Batteries, BF Goodrich, Bridgestone, Advance Auto Parts, cident or death.

Truck Accessories Group, K&N Filters, ATC Truck Accessories, E-Z “Most of these people helped contribute to the success of the On Auto Tops, Meyer Distributing, K&W Tire Co., Pioneer Tire Pros, company they work for,” Ayres says. “Tragedy can happen to anyRobbins Auto Top, Takit Inc., Topline Tire & Auto Center, Magna- one at any time. In these times, we need to take care of our own.”

Get in touch with the Automotive Aftermarket Charitable Flow and Gold Eagle Co. “Before we started the Awareness Partner Program, the only way Foundation at 772-286-5500 or info@aacfi.org.

10

helping by the numbers

4.1M Employed in the automotive aftermarket industry

8% wholesale trade, vehicles & parts

1 in 4

20-year-olds will become disabled before they retire

23%

Potential for disability of 3 months or longer*

38%

Potential for disability of 5 years or longer *

41%

13%

retail, parts, accessories, tires

Potential for disability of 3 months or longer**

22% manufacturing

69% retail dealers

22% repair & maintenance

$5M

Aid given by the AACF in the past 15 years

80+

Applicants for AACF aid per year SOURCES: 2016 AASA status report; Council for Disability Awareness disability statistics

*Healthy adult; **Less-healthy adult with poor life choices

11

12

future tech

Prepare Now for the Mobility Revolution by crai s. bower

M

obility resides at an inflection point not seen since the advent of the assembly line, or perhaps even the combustible engine. Though the mature automotive market moves forward at a pleasant pace, everything is about to change. Like most revolutions, there are multiple and diverse reasons, from the physical to the philosophical to the players.

Though the challenges for traditional automotive companies are undeniable, Neal Ganguli, managing director at Deloitte Consulting LLP, believes the future of mobility presents unparalleled opportunities for companies that are prepared for the mobility revolution.

“There’s no question that the traditional automakers and suppliers that are taking aggressive standpoints will be part of the new ecosystem,” says Ganguli, who leads the automotive supplier practice for the U.S. auto consulting arm and has studied the American automotive industry for more than two decades.

Ganguli and his team cite several key indicators, converging forces that will likely radicalize the future of mobility. The revolution began with new powertrain technology, specifically the battery and fuel-cell electric vehicles that immediately increased energy efficiency and lowered emissions, leading ultimately to new vehicle design. The introduction of lightweight materials allowed for larger rechargeable batteries by reducing structural weight without sacrificing safety.

“These changes are happening faster and sooner than many people thought,” Ganguli says, citing both traditional manufacturers as well as industry disruptors like Tesla.

The disruptors, Tesla, Google, Amazon, even Apple Inc., are driving innovation as well as completely new paradigms of mobility such as autonomous cars, trucks and drone delivery systems. These companies are well-skilled at raising capital to pursue such innovation, due in no small part to their excellent track records. Of equal

importance, they are not the traditional automotive industry, so they have no constraints.

The digitization of the automobile is yet another example of the disruptor’s influence. Wi-Fi vehicles possess the potential to communicate with each other, increasing safety as well as information access for drivers. The very technology that allows today’s drivers to avoid upcoming accident scenes may someday eliminate the accident altogether because of inter-vehicle location sensors and other forms of V2V communication.

Ganguli sees “connected cars” as another huge potential growth opportunity. “The [connected vehicle] can be captured in so many different ways including digitization, telematics, data analytics and mobile enabling, among others,” he says. “These are opportunities with potential profits that could be several times the current rate.”

According to the Deloitte consultant, this hugely changing channel involving players from technology and digital sectors will no longer be based on traditional B2B and B2C segmentations, but will appear as integrated systems due to shifting mobility preferences.

This disruption, largely the result of the millennial generation’s changing mobility preferences and the rapid advances in connectivity and other technologies, may be the single-greatest change in the American driver profile since mass-produced cars first appeared in American driveways. Whether opting for ride-share or car-share programs, the status of vehicle ownership is beginning to disappear.

“Our research reveals that millennials may no longer value the asset of vehicular ownership, preferring to purchase mobility instead,” Ganguli explains. “Due to urbanization, as long as the experience is acceptable, they see no reason to own an asset that costs a lot as long as they are getting mobility by other means. This shift helps to eliminate congestion, getting them where they wish to go faster, and

13

future tech

improves the environment, which they also value highly.” maintenance, is enormous.”

According to the most recent edition of Deloitte’s Global AutomoGanguli believes the development of the driverless vehicle will tive Consumer Study, “The Future of Mobility: How transportation present unparalleled potential gains for two types of industry memtechnology and social trends are creating a new business ecosys- bers, those who are prepared to adapt to the needs of their partners tem,” 50 percent of Gen Y consumers like using a smartphone app for and those who will create new technologies. transport and already plan travel so they can multitask.

As with all new industrial paradigms, he says, “there will This study expounds on the merger of technology be some consolidation, and some companies are goand mindset, where new generations consider ing to get left behind because they just can’t get mobility services equally with mass-tran“THERE’S NO QUESTION there. Other key partners will deliver to insit alternatives, resulting in the potential dustry needs, doing what it takes to remain THAT THE TRADITIONAL elimination of such contemporary ura preferred partner.” ban headaches and eyesores as traffic “Yet still other established and startAUTOMAKERS AND jams and parking lots. In this future up suppliers are taking a new route, a SUPPLIERS THAT ARE world, energy demands and the cost proactive approach that states ‘we will of travel plummet due to maximum own this area of technology and we are TAKING AGGRESSIVE efficiency of vehicle usage and rehappy to partner with whatever OEM STANDPOINTS WILL source allocation. wishes to partner with us.’ ” While the millennial generation Who will remain “the only partner BE PART OF THE transforms the vehicle ownership trastanding” remains to be seen, observes NEW ECOSYSTEM.” dition, autonomous vehicles generate the automotive industry consultant. the headlines. Though definitely spurred “There have been many cycles in this inon by the technology disruptors, Google’s dustry. I look at this not as a cycle but a transdriverless cars have surpassed 3 million miles formative change, a fundamental change. The in testing and traditional automakers are also rapidtraditional values have remained well defined for dely developing autonomous vehicles. cades, but now a lot of these relationships are being altered The potential change to the travel modality as we know it is well by both new and traditional players.” worth the buzz, Ganguli says. “The autonomous vehicle frees up Neal Ganguli, for one, looks forward to the future. driver time, doubles as an entertainment venue, a mobile worksta“There is certainly some risk, but to me the opportunities are far tion or both within the same vehicle. There is no reason the car won’t bigger than the risks. Somebody is going to capture this emerging look completely different, as it will be outfitted differently. The op- opportunity, a huge opportunity to be relevant during a fundamenportunity for the aftermarket, from updating electronics to general tal change in industry. Simply put, it’s a very exciting time.”

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generation gap consumers who use ride-hailing services at least once a week

consumer interest in fully autonomous vehicles

india china

60%

57%

53%

64% 41%

india

50%

58%

62%

30% china

south korea

49%

47%

37%

51%

united states

24%

36%

38%

57% 20%

japan

35%

33%

united states

40%

44% germany

20%

28%

32%

17% 4%

consumers who use ride-hailing and question the need to own a vehicle

south korea

20% 19%

germany

57

58

%

%

64

%

66

%

20%

4% 4

3%

%

%

% 20

% 16

28 % 23 22 % %

%

27

%

35

37

% 34

7%

26

4

3% 4

4

6%

14%

2% japan

7% 3% india

united states gen y/ z

japan

gen x

china

germany

south korea

pre / boomers

2%

source :

Deloitte Global Automotive Consumer Study 2017

As used in this document, "Deloitte" means Deloitte Consulting LLP, a subsidiary of Deloitte LLP. Please see www.deloitte.com/us/about for a detailed description of our legal structure. Certain services may not be available to attest clients under the rules and regulations of public accounting.

15

future tech

clockwise from top: Toyota Research Institute’s 2.0 generation advanced safety research vehicle; the Toyota Effect HSR; 2017 Prius Challenge at Sonoma Raceway; decorated veteran Romulo (Romy) Camargo helps with development of the robotic assistant

Oh, What A Feeling

Toyota Research Institute is at the forefront of applied AI technology by crai s. bower

T

he autonomous, or self-driving, car has swiftly The Toyota Research Institute was founded with this gone from fanciful myth to inevitable realexact course in mind, an Artificial Intelligence and ity. Because of a marriage of traditional Computer Science laboratory for development “TOYOTA’S GOAL car manufacturers with the technology inprimarily in autonomous vehicle research yet dustry’s brightest stars, the image of sitting open to a far-reaching array of applications REMAINS TO DEVELOP back and relaxing while computers drive in other areas such as domestic robotics THE SAFEST VEHICLE us to work or on holiday is becoming less and new materials design.

IN THE WORLD THAT of a movie plot and more of a reality.

“Artificial intelligence is definitely the But we’re hardly there yet. Well-pubunderpinning of TRI,” says Rick BourgoWILL EVENTUALLY licized self-driving car trials have mostly ise, communications manager for the ToyELIMINATE TRAFFIC involved rudimentary driving situations. ota Research Institute. “But autonomous FATALITIES.” Still, as with any tech race, this autoncar research accounts for only 60 percent omous car rally will eventually cross the of our focus here: 30 percent of our work is finish line, spawning myriad unforeseen indedicated to robotics and the other 10 percent novations along the way. To wit, discoveries that is based in materials research.” are certain to profoundly alter our daily lives are It’s no surprise that Toyota is a leading player in on the horizon. autonomous car research, “the space race of our genera-

16

tion,” according to Bourgoise. Founded in the 1930s as a loom manufacturer with a new apparatus that revolutionized the garment industry, the world’s largest auto manufacturer began developing self-driving car technology in 2005.

“TRI was founded two years ago, and we inherited the autonomous car division,” Bourgoise says. Though much attention is given to movie watching or working “drivers” traveling the roads, “Toyota’s goal remains to develop the safest vehicle in the world that will eventually eliminate traffic fatalities. Our mission is: How can we start working toward safety?”

Given such challenges as speed changes, weather conditions, certain street complexity or certain traffic, Bourgoise acknowledges “we are a long way away from an all autonomous driving future.

TRI is the gap between research and development advancing the technology for engineers. It is then up to them on how to adopt and introduce this technology into the actual vehicle.”

While self-driving vehicles garner most of the ink, TRI is is also engaging AI to develop dazzling technological advances in robot-

ics. The Home Robotics and Assistive Technologies department is charged with the mission to aid aging populations with mundane domestic obligations and other daily challenges. It is entirely possible that domestic robotics may soon be as ubiquitous in our homes as cars are in our driveways.

“We pivoted from loom company to cars in the 1930s; this is a new pivot point to look at robotics in a larger format,” Bourgoise says. “We are currently implementing a trial robot for an injured soldier that provides many levels of support and previously unforeseen comfort within the home.”

The Materials Design and Discovery department looks for similar pivot potential, as engineers attempt to discover or design materials that change the landscape of what we today consider contemporary. AI technologies also guide these discoveries.

“We are looking at transformational technology for the auto industry and for our society as a whole,” Bourgoise says. “When you look at where futurists are predicting society is going, with autonomous vehicles on the road at the forefront, it’s jaw-dropping.”

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profile

Meet Norm Miller

The chairman of Interstate Batteries encourages everyone to follow the golden rule by alyson sheppard

M

ost people would assume that Norm Miller, chairman ity, Miller says. “Who would you want to do business with?” he of Interstate Batteries and founder of the I Am Second asks. “People you trust, who have your interests at heart. We feel Christian ministry, would live by that credo: God comes like that’s what God says he wants us to do. If we treat people right, first and Norm comes second. But that isn’t entirely true. “For me, they’re going to like us and they’re going to want to buy our batterit’s more like I Am Third,” Miller says. “God first, other people sec- ies. It’s common sense.” ond and me last.”

Interstate Batteries innovated in other ways as well, including Miller, who has worked for Interstate Batteries for nearly 60 accepting small accounts – an unheard of practice at the time. It years, also applies that philosophy to the company. He uses his also expanded into other markets before other battery companies platform to spread the gospel, emphasize integrity in business and thought of it. During the 1970s energy crisis, for example, Amerfollow the golden rule – do unto others. Today, Interstate Batteries icans had to wait in line for hours to get gasoline. If the gas station is a billion-dollar, privately held company and the No. 1 reran out before your car got there, you’d have to drive to placement battery brand in North America. “We’ve another station and get in line. The car battery busisold more batteries than anybody else for over ness was tanking as people chose to drive less 20 years, which is kind of crazy when you and less. So Interstate Batteries decided to try think back to when Mr. John Searcy and something revolutionary. “We just called his wife started the company, in their on anybody that sold or we thought could “WHO WOULD YOU dining room with a used plumber’s sell batteries,” Miller says. pickup truck,” Miller says.

They targeted lawn mower and maWANT TO DO BUSINESS Miller grew up in Galveston, Texrine shops, and in diversifying their WITH? PEOPLE YOU as, where his father ran a service staclientele, they doubled their customtion and garage. He wasn’t much help er base. At another point, the price of TRUST, WHO HAVE YOUR around the shop, so he worked selling lead, a main battery component, skyINTERESTS AT HEART.” World Book encyclopedias door-torocketed. The big battery manufacturdoor. He learned a valuable lesson: Keep ers could not keep their prices down. finding people who may want to buy your But Interstate could produce a less exproduct and just ask them. pensive battery, so it made inroads into That lesson stuck with him through the auto dealerships and service stations that it 1960s, when he worked with his father and brothpreviously was unable to pierce. “Looking back, ers selling batteries from an Interstate distributorit’s pretty dadgum amazing what we did,” Miller says. ship in Memphis. He would go out on sales routes, approaching John Searcy retired from the company in 1978 and handpotential battery dealers and cold-calling them. “You really devel- ed it over to the new CEO and chairman, Norm Miller. Soon after, oped relationships with people like that,” he says. “We didn’t pay Miller set out to plan a company-wide convention. But he didn’t much attention to anything other than going and getting business.” know how, and too many distributors in one location were known to Miller’s chutzpah impressed the company’s founder, Searcy, so much get unruly. “I thought, ‘My gosh, we better pray about this thing,’” that he called Miller’s father and asked if he could offer Miller a job he says. As a result, every morning, Miller and his leadership team at the national headquarters in Dallas. Everyone agreed it would be would meet and pray about the company’s goals and specifics about an ideal move. the convention. The event turned out to be a success; the distribuWhen Miller got to North Texas, he was mentored by none other tors even coined the term Interstate Family to describe themselves, than Searcy himself. “Mr. Searcy was a godly guy; he lived it,” Miller which the company still uses today. says. Inspired, Miller, too, turned to the Bible. “A key thing in there Miller continued to start every morning meeting with prayer, at is ‘do unto others as they would do unto you.’ So I said, ‘OK, we are 9 a.m. sharp. The company even hired its own chaplain. Meanwhile, going to treat everybody we do business with, as much as we possi- Miller co-founded the Great American Race, a premier vintage car bly can, the same way we want to be treated.’ ” event, and began sponsoring NASCAR race cars, where the InterThose values had a direct impact on the company’s profitabil- state Batteries name could land significant television airtime. The

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battery also got mentioned on major radio shows and was praised for its performance in Consumer Reports magazine. “The headline said, ‘Of all the batteries tested, one stood above the rest,’ and it was our battery,” he says. “I lost count of how many responses we got to that, but all of these answered prayers were just amazing.”

In 1990, Miller decided to step down as CEO. “When I first became a Christian, I told God, ‘I’ll do whatever you want me to do and I’ll go wherever you want me to go, but otherwise I’m going to stay here doing this until you tell me to do something else,’ ” he says. “I spent my time doing 70 percent business and 30 percent ministry, fishing and family. I went right along like that for years, but I eventually lost the passion. So I decided to flip it. Now I’m doing 70 percent ministry, fishing and spending time with my family.”

While Miller maintained his role as chairman of the board for Interstate Batteries, he took on a few new titles as well. He is also a board member of the religious organizations Dallas Theological Seminary, Dallas Seminary Foundation and the Overseas Council. He and his wife, Anne, have two children and five grandchildren.

Ten years ago, Miller was struck with a fresh idea: starting a new Christian ministry that encouraged putting God first and yourself second. That project, known as I Am Second, turned into a worldwide phenomenon with thousands of members and celebrity endorsements, including one from Fixer Upper’s Chip and Joanna Gaines.

So how did Miller work his way up from an encyclopedia salesman to CEO and excel in all of these diverse aspects of his life? “It’s the little joke I tell everyone,” he says. “Just do it.”

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joe Joe Gibbs is

not your average

By Rick Gosselin

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Joe Gibbs Racing driver Kyle Busch celebrates his victory at the Duck Commander 500 at Texas Motor Speedway in April 2016

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Find a great NFL coach and you’ll find a great quarterback 23

COURTESY WASHINGTON REDSKINS

Gibbs huddles with the team to discuss a play.

Paul Brown won seven championships with the Cleveland Browns, all of them with Otto Graham taking the snaps. Both coach and quarterback are now in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Vince Lombardi won five championships with the Green Bay Packers, all with Bart Starr taking the snaps. Both coach and quarterback are now in the Hall of Fame.

Chuck Noll won four Super Bowls with the Pittsburgh Steelers, all with Terry Bradshaw at quarterback. Both now have busts in Canton. The same with coach Bill Walsh and quarterback Joe Montana, who combined to win three Super Bowls with the San Francisco 49ers in the 1980s.

Don Shula won two championships at Miami with Bob Griese at quarterback, Tom Landry won two at Dallas with Roger Staubach, Jimmy Johnson also won twice in Dallas with Troy Aikman, and Mike Shanahan twice in Denver with John Elway. More recently, Bill Belichick has won five Su24

per Bowls at New England with Tom Brady at the helm.

Quarterback has long been the key component in football’s championship equation. Twenty-five of the 51 Super Bowl champions were quarterbacked

by Hall of Famers. If you want to count the recent championship rings collected by Brady, Peyton Manning, Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees and Ben Roethlisberger, the number of Lombardi Trophies won by past and future Hall of Famers zooms to 36.

Which is why Joe Gibbs is the greatest coach of the Super Bowl era.

It’s easy to win when you are dealt the aces. Gibbs wasn’t dealt any aces.

He won three Super Bowls as head coach of the Washington Redskins with three different quarterbacks.

Not one is a Hall of Famer. Not one has ever been discussed as a Hall of Fame finalist.

Gibbs won his first title in just his second season as head coach of the Redskins in 1982 with Joe Theismann

“THE ONLY THING I’D EVER DONE WAS FOOTBALL. BUT WHAT I LEARNED WHEN I STEPPED OVER HERE WAS EVERYTHING THAT STARTED HAPPENING TO ME I HAD ALREADY EXPERIENCED IN FOOTBALL.”

“YOU’RE TRYING TO PUT A TEAM TOGETHER, ASKING EVERYONE TO SACRIFICE THEIR INDIVIDUAL GOALS FOR THE GOALS OF THE TEAM, LIKE YOU DO IN FOOTBALL.”

at quarterback. He won again in 1987, this time with Doug Williams as his quarterback, and again in 1991 with Mark Rypien taking the snaps.

Counting the playoffs, Gibbs won 62.9 percent of his career games.

That’s the 10th best winning percentage in NFL history among coaches who spent at least 10 seasons on the sideline. And it’s worth repeating – he achieved those heights without any Hall of Fame quarterbacks. Gibbs was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1996.

His greatness is packaged in his ability to identify, coach and motivate talent. What sets him apart from the Browns, Lombardis, Belichicks and other NFL coaching legends is that Gibbs has repeated the process in a second sport. A sport in which he had no previous background.

Twenty-six years after prodding from his son J.D. — and after scribbling his crazy notion for a NASCAR team on a single sheet of paper — Gibbs turned up on the ballot as a nominee for the NASCAR Hall of Fame’s Class

of 2018. What started as a one-car team with 18 employees in 1992 has evolved into a seven-car, 600-employee mega-operation in 2017.

“The whole time,” Gibbs says, “I’m thinking, `This is a big world. We’ve never been in it. I was out of my element. I loved [NASCAR] but I said this would take a bona-fide miracle. God is going to do this. We’re not going to do it. If God gives us a path, this is what we need to do. But if he closes the door, which I thought there was about a 90 percent chance, we won’t do it.

“When Norm stepped up, that was an answer to a prayer.”

Norm would be Norm Miller, chairman of Interstate Batteries. Miller provided Gibbs a deep-pocketed sponsor and the money to dive into the sport. The football coach hired Dale Jarrett as his first driver, and Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) won its first race on opening day of its second season, the Daytona 500 — ironically, the Super Bowl of NASCAR. Since then, JGR has won four NASCAR championships. And Gibbs has

Gibbs huddles with his pit crew at a Monster Energy Cup Series race.

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week. And we film them. Sometimes the car will throw you a curve ball.

But it’s exactly the same in both football and racing. It’s team building.”

Like football, success begins at one position.

“You’re not going to win without a quarterback,” Gibbs says. “Over here, you’re not going to win if you don’t have a driver. They are such a critical part of what you do, what you’re trying to accomplish. The parallels are exactly the same, all that you experience with them. I laugh about it.

When you first get them, everything is great. They just want to play and this and that. After they win a couple championships, the egos kick in and they become jerks.”

CLEARLY THERE IS MAGIC IN THE JOE GIBBS WAY – A WAY THAT NOW TRANSLATES INTO TWO SPORTS. THE PARTS MAY BE INTERCHANGEABLE, BUT NOT THE PLAN. Gibbs smiles. “That’s a joke,” he says, “that’s a joke.”

Gibbs gave four NASCAR rookies their first rides – Tony Stewart in 1999, Denny Hamlin in 2006, Joey Logano in 2009 and Daniel Suarez in 2017. Gibbs added his second car in 1999, his third in 2005 and his fourth in 2015. He also has three cars that race in the Xfinity series. Labonte gave Gibbs his first NASCAR championship in 2000. Stewart delivered the next two in 2002 and 2005, and Busch the last one in 2015.

Gibbs became a champion in football, coaching a big-market team in the nation’s capital. But while competing in NASCAR, he finds himself the underdog. He has become the

Green Bay of his sport.

“If you look at all the other power organizations — Hendrick, Penske, Stewart-Haas, Roush, Childress — they all have business outside of racing,” Hamlin says. “They do the racing part for fun. But Joe Gibbs is a family organization. That race team is their livelihood. This is a business to them.

Joe is a competitor and spares no expense when it comes to giving us whatever we need to be competitive on the racetrack.

“That’s hard for a guy who’s not a billionaire like those other guys. So it makes it tough at times when you look at what he’s up against. But I think he’s done an amazing job optimizing all the people within the organization.”

NASCAR was a financial risk for Gibbs – but a risk worth taking. He’s from North Carolina, his family lives there, and his NASCAR team is now based there. Hamlin nailed it – for Joe Gibbs, the move from football to NASCAR was all about family.

“J.D. and Coy are here,” says Gibbs of his sons. “There are grandkids interning here [JGR] doing all kinds of stuff. My dream was to give this to them and the grandkids. I couldn’t do that with the Redskins.”

Gibbs left the Redskins after the 1992 season to devote himself full time to his race team. But he was lured back to the NFL by the Redskins in 2004 when owner Dan Snyder presented him with a five-year contract.

He missed football. But four years into that contract, after an in-season family dinner in Washington, Gibbs realized where he was supposed to be.

“We had all the grandkids there,” Gibbs recalls. “Ty was 6 then, and he looked up at me and said, `Coach,’ and I said, `What, Ty?’ He said, `I want you to come back.’ That always stuck with me.”

Now Gibbs is back. For good this time. There are no longer any games to be won. Only races.

COURTESY WASHINGTON REDSKINS (2)

followed the same script he wrote for football: He has won those NASCAR titles with three drivers – Bobby Labonte, Tony Stewart and Kyle Busch – and three car manufacturers (Pontiac, Chevy and Toyota).

Clearly there is magic in the Joe Gibbs way – a way that now translates into two sports. The parts may be interchangeable, but not the plan.

“I was scared to death,” Gibbs says of his NASCAR venture. “The only thing I’d ever done was football. But what I learned when I stepped over here was everything that started happening to me I had already experienced in football. It was exactly the same thing. You’re trying to put a team together, asking everyone to sacrifice their individual goals for the goals of the team, like you do in football.

“After awhile, people would walk up to me and say, `You’re not going to believe this.’ And I’d say, `Yes I will.

It’s already happened to me.’ ” The football helmets have been replaced by fire suits, the shoulder pads by restrictor plates. The football itself has been replaced by a car. The 40-second play clock has been replaced by 11-second pit stops. But you’re still competing on Sunday afternoons.

“In football, you need a good coach,” Gibbs says. “They pay them a lot of money. Coaches are very important.

You come over here and we have crew chiefs. It’s those four guys sitting up there. They make a lot of money and there’s a lot of pressure. They make those calls on race day. I look at them and there are sweat beads popping out of their nose. Are we going to take two tires? Are we going to stay out? So the coach/crew chief is an exact parallel.

“Then you take our pit crews. They are part of your athletic team. There are seven guys per car that go over the wall. They are recruited and signed to long-term deals. Big bonuses. Mandatory weight training twice a week, mandatory practice three times a

clockwise from top:

Gibbs briefs players in the Redskins locker room; on the sidelines of his football team; Gibbs watches a NASCAR race from the pit.

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Classic

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Beauties These unique car clubs demonstrate that there’s a ride out there for every taste

By Matthew Miller

The heart wants what it wants, and sometimes it wants a Fiero. Or a camper van. Or a boxy 1980s sedan. Or an electric car that looks like a motorized cheese wedge. “If you’re a car enthusiast, sometimes you just sit in a car and everything is perfectly placed for you,” says Jim Hallman, founder and president of the Northern Illinois Pontiac Fiero Enthusiasts.

The rest of the world’s tastes have nothing to do with it. Muscle cars and classic cruisers and sleek sports cars may be overrepresented in the ranks of car clubs, but there are other clubs, too. Car clubs for more idiosyncratic tastes, for vehicles that are hard to find and maybe harder to love.

Or maybe not.

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long island mini enthusiasts

Bob Rath drove his first Mini in the mid-1960s, a car that belonged to a cousin in Colorado. “As soon as I got in it, I fell in love with it,” he says. “It corners so well.” In 1966, he bought one of his own, a ’66 Mini Cooper sedan. He was stationed in France with the Air Force. He and two friends – one with a Triumph Spitfire and the other with a Sunbeam Tiger – would set up autocross courses on unused runways at Châteauroux-Déols Air Base. If the course was all curves, the Mini always won.

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Rath, a retired telephone company engineer from Wantagh, New York, is a founding member of the Long Island Mini Enthusiasts. It’s an organization for fans of the diminutive British motorcars built before the complete redesign unveiled in 2001. The club’s two dozen members gather for spring drives along Long Island’s north and south forks, divided by breakfast at Rath’s house and a ferry ride as well.

“You get a lot of looks and a lot of ‘oh wow,’ thumbs up and stuff,” says Rath, who now owns an Australian-built 1969 Mini Cooper S. “All the neighbors love it.” limeny.org

c- car and tropica club

The origins of what might have been the C-Car and Tropica Club can be traced to a Saturday night phone call from a rest area in Maryland. Peter Crisitello had bought a 1976 A model CitiCar on eBay. The electric commuter car was 8 feet long, orange and looked like “a cheese wedge going down the street.”

But Crisitello, who works in technical support at Rutgers University, was fascinated. Unable to find a consistent account of the car’s history, he began piecing it together himself: how the CitiCar evolved from a glorified golf cart called the Vanguard Coupe, how it rose and fell during the energy crisis of the 1970s, how a slightly modified version of the same design would be rechristened the

Comuta-Car and sold into the early 1980s.

The man Crisitello called on that Saturday night in 2008 was Bob Beaumont, creator of the CitiCar and, decades later, an electric sports car called the Tropica. They’d never met. Beaumont was in ill health, but he agreed to speak at a gathering of owners that Crisitello was organizing.

Which is why, nearly a year later, a line of CitiCars and Comuta-Cars pulled into Beaumont’s driveway.

It wasn’t the birth of a club, but what is now a loose group of more than 350 early electric vehicle owners, with Crisitello at its center. Beaumont was ahead of his time, Crisitello says. “He was out there doing this back when everybody else was talking about more horsepower, more horsepower.” citicar.org

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international amphicar owners association

The fun of owning a floating car isn’t all in the water.

“The biggest thing that we all get a kick out of is when you go to a boat ramp and you just drive in,” says Jim Golomb, president of the International Amphicar Owners Association. “A lot of the other members, they’re driving in and, all of a sudden, the police or fire are showing up because somebody got on their cellphone and called in saying, ‘They just drove their car into the water!’ ” Even President Lyndon Johnson, the owner of a Lagoon Blue Amphicar, was known to pull a no-brakes act on his way into the lake on his Stonewall, Texas, ranch.

Nearly 3,900 of the amphibious vehicles were produced in Germany for the American Amphicar Corporation from 1961 through 1965. Somewhere between 500 and 1,000 of them still exist in various states of repair. The Internation-

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al Amphicar Owners Association accounts for more than 300 of those. They bring them together every summer in Celina, Ohio, on the western shore of Grand Lake St. Marys.

It’s the organization’s largest “swim-in.” They play water games, among them a version of poker involving 104 plastic balls and one called “bobbing for booze.” They make a show of entering the water with a splash.

One member, Billy Syx, also known as Billy the Splash King, “hits the water about 30 mph and almost stands his car up 90 degrees, and he makes a heck of a splash,” Golomb says. “And that’s what the crowd came to see.”

Golomb, a retired businessman from Northfield, Illinois, bought his 1964 Amphicar as a retirement project, though he ultimately turned the restoration over to a specialist.

“The kind of cars I want to have are unique cars,” he says, “not necessarily high-performance.” amphicar.com

northern illinois fiero enthusiasts

The gold 1986 Pontiac Fiero SE that Jim Hallman bought in 1989 was only supposed to last until he could afford its more iconic cousin, the Corvette. But the plastic-bodied two-seater clicked with him. The members of his old model car club had called him the Corvette Kid, but the Fiero felt like “an extension of me,” Hallman says.

He bought a 1988 Fiero GT two years later and “never thought about owning a Corvette since.”

Hallman is the founder of the Northern Illinois Fiero Enthusiasts. The club began in 1991 with 11 members. It now has 300, spread from Canada to Australia. Hallman, who lived in Naperville, Illinois, and works in the customer satisfaction department of a corrugated box broker, has been its president for most of its 26 years.

“What started to get me real excited about the Fiero was that General Motors was trying something brand new,” he says. In its approach to production, GM was taking a page from the playbook of Japanese automakers.

But the excitement that accompanied Fiero’s launch in 1983 – first-year sales approached 137,000 – quickly dimmed in the face of engine failures, fires and other quality issues. By the 1988 model year, the Fiero was much improved but on its way out. Hallman still owns the ’88 GT. It has 57,000 miles on the odometer and awards from car shows across the country. But the funny thing that’s happened over 26 years, he said, is that the cars themselves don’t seem quite so important. “The cars are what bring us together, but it’s really the people who are holding us together over all this time.” fierofocus.com

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texas vanagons

The fact that Abel Longoria’s 1987 Volkswagen Vanagon Westfalia breaks down on occasion is more of a feature than a bug. “It’s not necessarily the most reliable vehicle, but owning this type of vehicle, you kind of understand that from the get-go and roll with it,” he says. “In fact, some of my best travel stories, my most memorable stories about people I’ve met and fun I’ve had, have been around a breakdown.”

Longoria, who lives in Houston, founded the Texas Vanagons in 2014 because he wanted to find other owners of the classic camper vans. Texas isn’t California, but he knew they must be out there.

He was right. He’s brought together a group of almost 150 owners.

“It’s kind of like a support group in a sense,” he says,

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built around wrenching days and part swaps.

“Everyone is very giving as far as their time, because they know how finicky these vehicles are, and they know that, at some point in time, they’re going to need that help as well. It kind of helps build up some good karma.”

Longoria bought his Vanagon in 2013, thinking he’d quit his job to travel for a year. As it happened, his job as a computer aided design (CAD) designer quit him two years later. He spent about seven months of the 16 months he was between jobs traveling and living in the van.

“I’ve never named a vehicle in my life. This is the first,” he says. “I named my van Libby, which is short for Liberate, because that’s what the van does for me any time I’m on a trip. I can go anywhere I want. I have a refrigerator. I have a stove.

I have water. I have everything on board this 80-square-foot vehicle.” texasvanagons.com

the chrysler k- car club

The cars built on Chrysler’s K platform are the cars that saved Chrysler. Guy Coulombe wants to be the one who saves the K-cars.

“Basically in 2007, when I saw that all the old cars were disappearing, I got inspired to start a club to try to preserve them,” says Coulombe, a Sylmar, California-based bookkeeper and tax accountant who bought his first K-car, a 1989 Dodge Aries LE Coupe, in 2003 and just kept buying them. He now owns six.

The Chrysler K-Car Club has a roster of close to 2,300 members, Coulombe says. They have shows twice a year, piggybacking on events put on by a Mopar club called Chrysler Performance West. One gathering in 2016 brought together 23 surviving K-cars, a club record.

“We have a few car cruises. We did a lot of junkyard

runs until recently, but now there’s almost nothing in the junkyards,” he says. He blames California’s stricter-than-average environmental regulations and its clunker buyback program.

Over the course of the 1980s, Chrysler would tweak and stretch the original K-cars, the Aries and Plymouth Reliant, into multiple models: the Chrysler LeBaron and Dodge 400, the Chrysler E Class and Dodge 600, even a limousine. It’s the unifying look that that first drew Coulombe’s attention. “They just really stand out as a sharp-looking boxy car,” he says. “It really represents, to me, Chrysler of the ‘80s.”

And he feels a certain urgency about bringing in more members to save more cars. “The more members we can get,” Coulombe says, “the more cars we can prevent from getting crushed.” chryslerkcar.com

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A

Woman Mission on a

Former Bridgestone executive Amy Bonder illustrates that women are on the rise in the automotive industry

By Josh Grimm

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Amy Bonder likes to say that everything is a journey.

Hers began in Pennsylvania, in a town in the Allegheny National Forest. Bonder longed to leave the small town, but she didn’t act on that impulse until she received some advice from an unlikely source.

Bonder’s sister’s soccer coach approached Amy out of the blue and simply said, “You don’t belong here.” He went on to explain that she should be going to a more challenging school where she could push herself and go to for college.

“He was the first person who really influenced me to think differently and challenge me,” Bonder says. Without his advice, Bonder might not have changed schools, and she “one hundred percent would not be where I am today.”

Bonder ended up graduating from Penn State with a dual major in international business and marketing and a minor in Japanese. Her career took her farther from that small town in Pennsylvania: to Atlanta, Chicago, Baltimore and back to Chicago, each stop a new challenge, a new experience. She worked as a product manager for 38

W.W. Grainger, where she learned more about toilet paper than she ever thought she’d learn, drove around in a big yellow pickup truck with work boots on to talk about tools with customers for Black & Decker, and built a slew of teams to help reshape Advance Auto Parts, all before eventually becoming vice president of sales and strategy for Bridgestone.

Working for four Fortune 500 companies has provided Bonder with a slew of experiences, but it has presented some challenges as well.

“Sometimes you have to make choices, to keep climbing up that ladder rather than hanging out on a rung,” she says.

And some of those choices haven’t been easy.

In Baltimore, Bonder had an exciting job at Black & Decker but was offered an opportunity to launch DeWalt in Japan. At first, the offer seemed like a perfect fit for her ambition (not to mention her college minor), but there were a few complications, both professionally and personally. She had recently started a serious, long-distance

relationship, so she looked at the position logically and rationally, and soon realized she didn’t have the experience at the time. Instead of heading to Japan, she moved back to Chicago. As for the long-distance relationship, she’s now been married for 15 years.

Bonder continued to work hard, embracing new challenges. “Whether it’s a leadership journey, your career path journey, or your personal journey, you need to evolve and adapt,” she says.

A key to evolving and adapting is personal initiative – that willingness to improve in order to grow. While Bonder has repeatedly demonstrated this quality, she found that it requires more than mere persistence.

She has been especially successful at building and managing teams, but early on it was difficult. In one of her first evaluations as team leader, Bonder was stunned to see that she had earned a very disappointing score.

“It about broke my heart,” she says. “But I wanted to do better.”

After the initial shock wore off, Bonder used this setback as an opportunity to grow. She researched leadership methods for running an effective team, learning about strategies such as goal alignment, role awareness and communication. And as part of the process, she shared the results with her co-workers.

“I said, ‘Look, here is my score, it’s not good. I need to do better, but I can’t do it alone.’ ” Bonder was only able to do this because she wanted to improve. “I had the humility because I wanted to be better for my team.”

Her team responded well to both her honesty and her newly acquired techniques.

In a two-year period, she improved her score from the mid-50s to the 90s.

During that time, Bonder learned a lot about building teams, particularly what to look for in prospective members.

“You can teach aptitude, but you can’t teach attitude,” she says.

Lining up team members with a variety of skills for the task at hand is important, but Bonder warned that a team leader must not shy away from her own weaknesses.

“You cannot be afraid that people on your team are better at a specific skill than you might be,” she says. “Don’t shy away from it, embrace it.”

And, of course, the team needs diversity.

“Diversity of experience, diversity of thought, diversity of culture, you just need complete diversity,” Bonder says.

“But being diverse isn’t enough; you have to be inclusive.”

Diversity and inclusiveness can be difficult in a male-dominated industry. Bonder has seen both inspiring and worrying attitudes toward diversity in the workplace, particularly as a successful woman.

“People judge, period,” she says. “We all do it. If you say you don’t do it, you must be the Dalai Lama.” That judgment results in people making unfair assumptions. “Typically, if you’re a senior female and you exude confidence – which you have to do because it’s a senior role – it’s easy to be branded ‘emotional’ or a ‘workaholic.’ ” This is just one example of how women in the automotive field face a unique set of challenges surrounding stereotypes and expectations. Failing to acknowledge and understand those differences can result in frustration and, if people aren’t careful, unequal opportunities.

A former colleague of Bonder’s once told her that his wife took care of the house and kids while he was on the road from Monday morning to Thursday night. “I don’t feel guilty about not being at home,” she recalls him saying. “I remember thinking, ‘You feel guilty every darn minute of the day; it’s written on your face.’ ” This surprised Bonder, not because she didn’t recognize her own feelings – she says she fashions her guilt “like a boa constrictor” around her neck – but rather that her male colleagues didn’t experience it to the degree that she did. It was one of her earlier 39

interactions that helped shape her understanding of gen- she began working through Women in Auto Care to help der issues at work. other women in the field. She was so successful that Stu Unfortunately, not all such encounters were enlightening. Crum, the president of Bridgestone’s retail operations, After giving birth to her first child, Bonder was accused recommended her for the Car Care Council’s 2016 Auto by one of her bosses of being distracted, questioning her Care Woman of the Year award for her work with the work ethic.

Women in Auto Care.

“You can question my decisions or tell me I did a terrible Bonder was humbled to receive the award, noting that it job,” she says, “but don’t you question my work ethic.” was particularly meaningful to her.

And so Bonder asked him who shuttles his kids “I was so honored,” she recalls, “and I actualaround, who takes care of the dry cleaning, ly felt great because I knew that my mother and who pays the bills. He reluctantly acwould be extremely proud of me. She was a knowledged that it was his wife who trailblazer herself and made things hapshouldered those responsibilities. pen for herself while bringing along oth“YOU CAN “Exactly,” Bonder responded. “I’m er women when she could.” the wife.” In the United States, child Bonder sees her influence time and TEACH APTITUDE, care and household duties are more time again. Most recently, a female BUT YOU CAN’T likely to fall to women, something that teammate came up to her to say thank too often can be taken for granted. you for “making it ok to be ourselves.”

TEACH ATTITUDE.” A lack of understanding is an importBonder says moments like that help her ant issue, but isolation is another. After 12 realize how fortunate she is to have the years in the industry, Bonder, a young profesability to positively influence others, an sional who was also a wife and mother, needed opportunity she is sure to share with her own to figure out what was next. And that’s when it hit her: family, much like her mother did.

“I don’t have anyone to talk to.”

“I am proud of the work that I have done,” she says. “I Adrift, she called the most senior woman she knew in am proud that I can help others, and I am setting the stage her field, and that’s how Donna Broome became Bonder’s for my two sons to understand how strong their mother first female mentor. Broome helped her talk through con- is. Although they don’t always get it, this will make them cerns such as guilt, being a working mother and figuring a good husband and teammate in the future because they out her career path. will have a different paradigm.”

“A good mentor doesn’t tell you what to do,” Bonder says.

Given Bonder’s role as an accomplished change agent, “She tells you what to think about.” she will undoubtedly continue to inspire those around her, Bonder realized this was an important experience, and both at home and in the workplace, her journey rolls on.

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WOMEN WHO CARE IN AUTO CARE In 1996, Kathleen Schmatz, who was working for Babcox Media and would eventually become president and CEO of the Auto Care Association, gathered a group of women together in her kitchen – the story varies on how many were there – and together, they outlined a plan for helping women in the industry, which soon became the Women in Auto Care organization.

Today, Women in Auto Care provides opportunities, education and career guidance to women in the auto industry. This is accomplished primarily through conferences, an extensive mentorship network and a robust scholarship program.

Conferences are held twice a year, and while they had drawn 40 to 50 attendees in the past, the most recent event drew more than 120. The programming at the conferences has to appeal to as many of the varied professions as possible, and the event features roundtables, speakers and panels. The topic of a recent panel was e-commerce, and the individual moderating the panel had ordered an auto part from Amazon’s Prime Now service to see if it would be delivered by the two-hour guarantee. The part arrived, demonstrating how new advances can be a real opportunity for some and a serious challenge for others.

The mentors are leaders in the field who can provide guidance to women in the auto industry looking for career development. One such mentor is Amy Bonder, who Women in Auto Care Manager Katy McQuiston said has developed a reputation as a “fabulous mentor.” The organization works hard to make sure that mentees find success with their mentors.

Along with the mentorship program and leadership conference, Women in Auto Care also provides scholarships for high school and post-secondary students. Last year, the organization handed out $65,000 in scholarships to 22 students.

Interstate Batteries recently became a Platinum Level Sponsor, which means next year the company will have a named scholarship available for a prospective student.

“The sponsorship supports women in the industry and allows us to offer better programming at our conferences so we can empower and support our industry,” McQuiston says. “We’re extremely grateful for everything they’re doing for us.”

More information about those opportunities can be found at Women in Auto Care’s recently renovated website: womeninautocare.org.

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On the Road with America’s Next Action Star

What started out as a picturesque drive along the Pacific Coast Highway with actor AJ Buckley turned into anything but Sunday Funday

By Jennifer Birn

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Photography by Aaron Lyles & Kate Hauschka

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AJ

AJ Buckley is a veteran of CSI:NY who is currently starring in CBS’s new fall series SEAL Team. He’s also a voracious road-tripper who knows that taking his family a few hours up and down the iconic Pacific Coast Highway is akin to a long plane ride to parts unknown. That’s because each mile marker of the PCH produces a singular experience. And sometimes, that experience involves misplaced keys and a tow truck.

Thankfully, AJ, his wife, dermatology nurse and The Chic Mamas founder Abby Ochse, their adorable 3-yearold daughter, Willow, and I were never without something to talk about. Or, Willow to provide ample entertainment – serenading us with a playlist that included “Rock-a-Bye Baby” and “Three Blind Mice” and playing backseat driver, telling her daddy to “go faster, go faster” from her plush car seat, complete with a cup holder.

AJ graciously agreed to take a road trip up the coast on his one full day off from filming SEAL Team, but he asked if we could get a “cool car for the shoot.” So, we borrowed a white Audi S5 Sportback, fresh out of the dealership’s showroom, with royal red leather interior, a dash like a video game and massage chairs for seats. AJ recently purchased a Lexus, which he likes – but he loved the Audi S5. We all did.

After installing a car seat in record time and loading up the trunk with a collection of adult and Willow-approved snacks, we were ready to hit the road. Our destination – Santa Barbara, California, with several pit stops planned along the way.

First slated stop: El Matador Beach, 30 miles away in Malibu.

While AJ drove, I sat up front to start the interview and learn more about his critically acclaimed new show and the litany of other projects he’s always juggling.

Born in Dublin, Ireland, AJ moved to Vancouver, Canada when he was 6.

At 16, he booked a part in an episode of the wildly popular TV show The X Files, playing “a dude.”

“Acting is the only thing I ever wanted to do,” he says while keeping his eyes on the road. He’s known his calling ever since seeing Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs as a boy in Dublin. “I remember hearing the audience laugh, and I looked around and hadn’t ever seen that many people laughing before in a congregated space. I told my mom that I wanted to be an actress.”

After graduating from a Canadian high school at 17, he packed up the car and took his first major road trip – driving to Los Angeles with his dad.

“I was supposed to go to college, but school wasn’t for me,” he says. “I’m 45

AJ and family head down the Pacific Coast Highway in an Audi S5 Sportback.

dyslexic and have ADD. Now they have tools to help kids, but then I thought there was something wrong with me. I mean, there is something wrong with me for sure, but for acting, it’s great because I can think of six different things at once and say lines.”

Learning disabilities aside, when he made it to Hollywood, he was your typical starving actor. He admits that by the time he booked CSI:NY when he was 26-years-old, “I was broke and only had $32.95 to my name. It changed my life.”

For the next nine years he’d play the role of Adam Ross, a geeky lab scientist on the astoundingly popular CSI spin-off. “I made a conscious decision to get in really good shape because I was terrified that I was going to have to keep playing these nerdy characters,” he says. “I really wanted to change my body and how I looked and how I was perceived in the business.”

His ambition and hard work paid off.

Five years after the end of CSI:NY, “The same studio that hired me to be a 135-pound lab rat has now hired me to 46

play a 180-pound Navy Seal.”

SEAL Team, which premiered Sept.

27 on CBS, is an hour-long drama told from a soldier’s point of view that follows the professional and personal lives of Navy SEALs as they train, plan and execute dangerous, high-stakes missions. David Boreanaz plays the leader of the Tier One team that includes AJ in the role of Sonny. While he says it’s a dream job he wouldn’t trade for anything, he also says it’s the hardest thing he’s ever done.

Most obvious are the physical challenges and pressure to be in shape - which AJ loves. Since physique and energy are significantly affected by nutrition, AJ hired nutritionist Kevin Libby, who created a meal plan for him tailored to this role and ordered Regiment meals from a veteran-owned and operated company. He credits Libby with keeping his diet on point, and he sticks to the diet with the discipline of someone in the military. A gallon jug of pink water is a nearly constant accessory. Explaining that it’s a mix of amino acids,

“I MADE A CONSCIOUS DECISION TO GET IN REALLY GOOD SHAPE BECAUSE I WAS TERRIFIED THAT I WAS GOING TO HAVE TO KEEP PLAYING THESE NERDY CHARACTERS.”

Abby and Willow at Malibu Farm

AJ ON FATHERHOOD: “IT MAKES YOU WORK HARDER. EVERYTHING I DO IS TO PROVIDE FOR HER AND FOR MY WIFE. AND YOU GET TO BE A KID AGAIN AND RELIVE YOUR CHILDHOOD AGAIN THROUGH YOUR KID’S EYES. I’M A HUGE KID ANYWAY.”

electrolytes and a few fancy things I couldn’t quite understand, he says, “I drink two gallons of this every day, it’s my nutritionist’s trick to everything.” Ultimately he says it’s because your body operates better if you’re hydrated. But, “the downfall is you stop to go to the bathroom a lot.”

His strict diet combined with two-aday workouts with “Eric the Trainer” and boxing with AJ Perez help AJ with the physical challenges of the role.

We’ve made it nearly an hour and so far, no bathroom stops. Willow is sound asleep in her car seat and Abby is next to her looking out the window at the beautiful beach that lines the PCH. AJ enthusiastically shares with me more about the show, getting prepared and into the character of a Navy Seal, then interrupts himself, saying, “Whoa, they’re getting engaged!”

I missed it, but apparently a man was down on bended knee proposing at a Chevron station in Malibu. We figured they must have met there; there had to be a story. We debated turning around to find out, but doing that on

the PCH can easily add a half hour. We were on schedule and didn’t want to risk falling behind. We still had a long way to go before Santa Barbara.

In addition to acting, AJ also has several business ventures. When he sees something missing in the marketplace, he sets out to create it. While filming in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, he noticed that tax incentives made it a popular place for TV and films to shoot, but there was no industry magazine covering entertainment. So, he started SCENE magazine. After having everyone from Brad Pitt and Matthew McConaughey on the cover (the last who called and requested the honor himself), the magazine is now available online.

Another entrepreneurial idea came about after a “magical poop” by his then 7-month-old daughter Willow left him at a restaurant with friends and no way to change her diaper, he and friend Artie Baxter, also a new dad, invented a unisex diaper bag with a removable fold-out changing table inside. Hence, PaperClip was 47

AJ and Willow enjoy a game of pinball at Malibu Farm.

born with a pair of backpacks named after each of their children. More successful than they’d imagined, they’ll have two more designs debuting in early 2018. “I’m very grateful that Willow pooped her pants that day,” AJ says.

With that, we pull into the El Matador Beach parking lot. It’s packed, but it is late afternoon and the daytime beach crowd is beginning to leave. New ones haven’t yet arrived to watch the sunset. We pull off to the side of the parking lot waiting for a family to pack up their car and relinquish their spot. AJ gets out of the car to stretch his legs and I reach over to press the “start” button on the car to turn the A/C back on. The dash, lit up only minutes ago, now says, “No key.”

We search our pockets, the car, the surrounding areas. No key. Who knew the new Audis could start and drive 29.6 miles from the key without yelling, or even beeping, at you?

While I call Audi SOS, AJ, Abby and Willow take a minute to check out the beach.

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Getting no response from my Audi contact on a beautiful Sunday, I call roadside assistance and it takes 10 tow companies before one will agree to tow a car without a key. Thankfully the photographer brought a second car and took AJ, Abby and Willow back to Marina del Rey in search of the key. There was an accident on the PCH and it would take them nearly four hours to get back. That’s when my nightmare began: • 2 hours, 8 mosquito bites and my belly full of Plum Organics baby food for lunch later, the tow truck arrived.

• 3.5 hours later: A Parks and Recreation ranger pulls into the lot and tells us he needs to lock the parking lot gates – despite seeing our car obviously being put on the flatbed of a tow truck with a fair amount of struggle.

• Almost 4 hours later: The Parks & Recreation officer walks up the flatbed of the tow truck to put tickets in the window for being parked in a red zone – although we were only there because we were stuck – and not paying for a parking spot – because we never made it to a parking spot.

• He said he was going to lock us in if we didn’t get out. When I said, “Shouldn’t you be trying to get us out rather than locking us in?” he informed me, “You’re over 18.”

• 4 hours and 5 minutes later: AJ gets home and finds the key sitting on a table. He puts it in an Uber to the beach so I can drive it home – but the ranger informs me he’ll lock the gate if we don’t keep trying to get the car on the tow truck. The Uber turns around with the key.

• 4 hours and 15 minutes later: The tow truck driver asks me to help him with some levers, so I stand up from the log I’d been sitting on, leaving my new iPad behind.

• 4 hours and 20 minutes later: The ranger speaks to the tow truck driver who nervously says, “Get in, he wants us to get out.” I go back to get my iPad, and it’s gone, despite us being the only ones there. I’d never see it again.

• 5 hours later: The tow truck driver has deposited me on a corner in Venice, where I order an Uber and get home just before midnight – having completed only one stop on our road trip.

ROAD TRIP, TAKE TWO Determined to finish what we started, we set out to do the road trip again the following weekend. This time, rather than Santa Barbara, our destination was a mutual friend’s birthday party at the far end of Malibu. Less ambitious, but a road trip for sure. stop 1: malibu farm

An amazing stop, we shopped for a beach blanket and birthday present for our mutual friend. We took a break for Willow, who loves fast cars like her dad, to take a ride in the Speed Demon boat, stand on a stool to play a game of pinball with her dad, check out the ocean and get an ice cream. stop 2: a gas station

A quick stop so AJ could microwave his Regiment meal. stop 3: neptune’s net

A casual biker bar with more fried food than anywhere else in Malibu, but a staple. Abby opted for the clam chowder because she said that’s what they were famous for, while Willow took a bite of a burger and AJ ate his pre-made meal. stop 4: malibu cafe

One of the more beautiful places in Malibu to spend a day, Malibu Cafe is full of picnic tables and scattered with games like life-size chess and Connect Four. A perfect place for a birthday party for one of AJ and Abby’s friends.

We couldn’t have been happier to see the “Howdy” sign welcoming us to the end of our road trip.

To learn more about PaperClip, visit papercliplife.com.

Follow AJ and Abby on social media at @AJBuckley and @TheChicMamas.

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staying green

Get the Lead Out

Interstate Batteries is the industry leader in battery recycling, and has been since before recycling was cool by kathleen parrish

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op quiz: What’s the most recycled product in America? If you guessed aluminum cans, plastic yogurt cups or newsprint, you’d be wrong. The answer? Lead-acid batteries, the kind found under the hoods of cars, RVs and golf carts.

Leading the charge in those efforts is Dallas-based Interstate Batteries, which recycles 25 million acid-lead batteries annually, 8 million more than it sells a year.

Founded in 1952 — the same year the average car cost $1,700 — Interstate is now the No. 1 collector and recycler of lead-acid batteries in the United States.

“We’re committed to making sure batteries don’t end up in the environment and are managed with processes that exceed all regulatory requirements,” says David Willis, Interstate’s director of recycling.

A vehicle battery contains about 21 pounds of lead, 3 pounds of plastic and 1 gallon of sulfuric acid, materials that must be properly handled and disposed of. Fortunately, about 99 percent of spent lead-acid batteries in Europe and North America are collected and returned to government-regulated recyclers, keeping roughly 2.4 million tons of batteries out of landfills, according to the International Lead Association.

As part of the recycling process, Interstate ships its scrap batteries to refineries to have them recycled and reclaimed for reuse in new battery manufacturing. Unlike most cradle-to-grave recycling, Interstate is a true cradle-to-cradle process. Lead is reclaimed, as well as the polypropylene plastic casing to make new battery covers and cases. In addition, battery acid is neutralized, treated 50

and reused. “We want to be good stewards of the products we handle and manage,” Willis says.

With more than 1 billion gas and diesel vehicles on the road, lead-acid-based batteries account for more than 80 percent of worldwide lead usage. It’s important to note that in North America, more lead is produced by recycling these days than mining. In fact, very little lead mining goes on in the U.S., thanks in large part to tough standards adopted by the Environmental Protection Agency regulating the presence and processing of lead in the environment in the 1980s. As such, it’s less expensive to reclaim lead from an existing scrap battery than to manufacture one using virgin lead purchased locally or overseas from countries like China, one of the world’s largest producer and consumer of lead. And because lead is a naturally occurring element, the quality of the recycled material is more cost-effective and less environmentally intrusive than the metal obtained from mining.

But even when lead mining was pervasive in America, Interstate still relied on scrap recycling to fuel its new-battery manufacturing.

“We were recycling before recycling was cool,” notes Willis. “It’s always been part of our value proposition.”

Today, 280 distributors service roughly 200,000 battery sellers and dealers across North America. Those centers also function as drop-off points for spent batteries. That’s why Interstate recycles more batteries than it produces.

As a way of ensuring those batteries are safely transported to approved recycling facilities across the country, Interstate has created a Green Standard closed-loop on-

line program to train personnel in battery packaging and shipping practices that exceed federal and state transportation and environmental regulations. It also provides tracking for accountability.

“Other companies do what we do, but we don’t believe as well,” Willis says. “Having a Green Standard sets us apart.”

Although lead-acid batteries are Interstate’s primary focus, they’re only part of its recycling story. The company also takes in other kinds of batteries for reuse, including alkaline, lithium and rechargeable varieties. “Anything we sell, we recycle,” Willis says.

Interstate also manages the disposal of hazardous waste for 23 of the 25 automotive makers in the U.S. and two of the country’s largest environmental companies.

“We manage their environmental risk for them. We do it and we do it well,” Willis says, noting that none of Interstate's clients for over 65 years has ever had an environmental infraction due to the company's management of their hazardous waste.

The company’s commitment to the environment extends beyond recycling batteries. In the meantime, the company is doing its part to help the rest of the world. A member of the International Lead Association, Interstate has funded training in China lead smelters involving the proper recycling of batteries.

“Being environmentally conscious has always been important to us,” Willis says. “It’s part of our DNA." For more information, visit interstatebatteries.com/m/recycling.

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ILLUSTRATION THOMAS KORZON

recharge

The Cult of Alternate-Side Parking It takes skill, speed and dexterity to beat the New York parking patrol

I

f being a New Yorker were a video game, there are a few achievements that would represent your graduation to the next level.

Jaywalking in front of a police officer gets you a few points on the board.

Doing so with a folded slice of pizza in one hand while wearing don’t-bother-me earbuds, which aren’t plugged into anything, and thinking about how much you still – after all these years – earnestly dislike former Atlanta Braves relief pitcher John Rocker is another.

Then it’s sit back and let the gold coins rain down upon you, expert-level New Yorker.

But you have not defeated the final boss until you have ordered scallion schmear on an everything bagel (yes, of course toasted, you barbarian) and hustled to your car just before the alternate side parking rules go into effect. That way, you can double-park it on the other side of the street and listen to NPR as you slowly devour your messy breakfast.

Other cities have their own strange parking customs. Chicago, for example, utilizes the “dibs” protocol during winter, wherein you use a chair to save the parking spot you dug out of the snow. (In New York, this gesture would be interpreted as “free chair.”) But I would argue that no city’s parking ritual inspires such cultish devotion as Gotham’s alternate side rules.

No mere mortal fully understands the reasoning behind these rules, in which cute little signs dictate what hours of which days of the week you must move your car from that side of the street.

It allegedly involves street cleaning, but the city’s street sweeper trucks appear to only brush the garbage to the opposite side in a never-ending nihilist polka of cigarette butts and crushed Arizona iced tea cans.

Nonetheless, the alternate side parking rules on your street become an integral part of your circadian rhythm — or at least they do 52

by joe murray

after the second or third time you sleep in and find a $65 parking ticket under your windshield wiper.

You come to learn that seemingly hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers appear to own vehicles for the sole purpose of moving them from one side of the street to the other.

The civilized alternate side parker remains in their double-parked car for the full duration of the banned period, openly and notoriously awaiting the tick of the clock that signals he may return to his self-designated spot on his favorite side of the street.

In nature, this would be called “presenting.” But bewilderingly common are the more uncouth counterparts who leave their double-parked cars for hours, socking in the legally parked vehicle behind them.

What sort of monster violates the norms of society like this? OK, me — on a few shame-filled occasions. But the alternate side parking racket will force otherwise honorable men to do things they never thought themselves capable of.

There are blessed periods of reprieve. Alternate side parking rules are suspended on holidays both major and obscure, and a veteran of the struggle will have the Jewish holiday calendar memorized and an extra spring in their step on the Solemnity of the Ascension, for their Corolla shall not be ticketed.

During winter storms, you learn to check the city’s alternate side parking Twitter account — truly the saddest Twitter feed this side of that belonging to IRS representatives — and rejoice upon learning that the rules are suspended for snow cleanup.

These winter suspensions can last days. You will return to a car embedded in a block of hardened, grimy snow packed by the city’s snow plows.

But you will feel refreshed, for you did not have to move your car. And you will be showered with bonus points.

Let’s Get You Back to Being a 10 0

“Uh-oh!”

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Determined

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Working

Find financial help for yourself or a co-worker.

The AACF (Automotive Aftermarket Charitable Foundation) offers financial help to those people involved in our aftermarket suffering because of a catastrophic accident or terrible illness not covered by worker’s compensation, medical or life insurance.

Each case will be decided upon individually by our board and can include assistance with medical and living expenses created by their particular need.

The AACF manages and dispenses a fund raised by donors through charitable events to help workers, spouses and dependents of employees in auto repair, parts manufacturing, sales and marketing, etc.

Applying for help is completely free and confidential; simply provide basic identification, income and tax statements and proof of benefits received or declined.

If you or someone you know needs help, go to aacfi.org for an application. There’s also a link for you to donate and help our mission to assist others.

aacfi.org

IF ONLY VEGAS MARRIAGES LASTED AS LONG Sometimes, you can see the quality in aftermarket parts without even looking under the hood.

Like Interstate Batteries, the number one replacement battery brand preferred by auto techs* and backed by a worry-free, nationwide warranty. Now, isn’t that the kind of long-term commitment you’re looking for?

*IMR Inc. 2017

©Interstate Batteries