It’s always an exciting time to be in the car wash industry. The International Carwash Association has been able to see that first hand as we’ve connected with members over the years, and we’re full of optimism as we head into the back 9 of 2013.

Why so optimistic? As we’ve evolved the Association and brought new product offerings to market, we’ve continued to see good adoption of the programs, as well as membership growth every year for the past four years. That’s no small feat. In fact, we have not had four consecutive years of membership growth since the early 1980s when we merged with the National Carwash Council.

We’ve continued to see growth in member engagement in both our Wash Count benchmarking program, as well as WaterSavers, our consumer-facing public relations initiative.

But, this publication has been a special point of pride for us. When we set out to create a new publication in the car wash industry, our goal was — and still is — to bring high-level, thought-provoking business knowledge and insight to bear that wasn’t previously available in one place for our industry. There are many great stories to be told, and we’re working hard to bring them to life.

Inside this edition of CAR WASH Magazine, you’ll find several articles that should inform and provoke thinking. For example, the Colombian car wash market appears to be on the rise, and we tracked down one of the major players in the market to gain insight. We also took an in-depth look at the generational segment that has been entering the workforce in droves over the last decade: Generation Y. We look at what they value and how you can best utilize their unique talents to improve your business. In this issue we also cover the evolution of philanthropy, concept of job swapping, and more. You’ll find our usual array of industry information, professional profiles and another marketing missive from our friend Champ Savage.

We’ve now released nine issues of CAR WASH Magazine, and have seen the publication evolve quickly over the past two years. We’re looking forward to the continued growth of the publication, with your ongoing support and involvement. Together, we are better.

As always, if there is something you’d like to see covered that we haven’t already or if you have a suggestion for how we can make this publication more valuable, please don’t hesitate to let us know.