Meet the Detail Garage Leadership Team

With over 80 retail stores across the U.S. and Canada currently, community-oriented auto franchise Detail Garage has plans to reach 250 open units by 2025. Combining its globally recognized Chemical Guys retail products with industry-leading innovations and an unparalleled consumer experience, Detail Garage is a place where car enthusiasts of all ages can test new products, get educated or just hang out with other car fans.

This is where the magic lies in the Detail Garage formula. Between its franchisees, its customers and its employees, if there’s a “secret” to Detail Garage’s success, it’s people. And that starts at the top, with the Detail Garage executive team.

Here’s an introduction to a few of them.

Chad Zani, Director of Business Development

Chad Zani is a car guy through and through. He’s raced go-karts. He’s raced cars. “If it's got an engine and goes fast, I'm excited and interested in it,” he said.

But he brings more than just enthusiasm to Detail Garage. He also brings extensive business, marketing and growth hacking experience, having started multiple companies in his native country of Australia — seeing one through from an idea to an IPO in 2011 — before coming to the U.S. and starting an on-demand auto detailing business with the founders of Chemical Guys in 2015. He joined the Detail Garage project to head up its newly formed franchise business in May 2017.

“When I started on this opportunity, we had the OG store doing great and two other stores that were doing ok,” said Zani. “The Chemical Guys products are fantastic, the stores looked good, but the marketing and sales system just wasn't all it could be. We were leaving so much money on the table.  I had the pleasure of developing the end to end sales and marketing strategy, from software and POS selection, to new store and ongoing LAM marketing, at point of sale selling techniques as well as franchisee training and development — all of which I love to do.”

Since then, Zani has helped grow Detail Garage from three stores to more than 80 in the U.S. and Canada, and he’s helped build a special consumer experience in the process.

“Detail Garage is that local place where people who love their cars can come and get real professional advice to make whatever it is — whether it's a motorbike, a car, a boat, an RV or a truck — look as good as it can,” said Zani. “As car people we just love cars. We don’t care what you drive, what you do for a living, where you were born - we just want to help you develop your passion for shine. At our events we get people from all walks of life, races, religions etc so it's a very empowering, inspiring kind of environment to be in. You don't get that feeling at any traditional auto parts store. To this day, there's still nobody out there doing what we do.”

John Mansfield, Chief Revenue Officer

John Mansfield is a car guy who came to Chemical Guys and Detail Garage from Porsche, where he was head of retail for Porsche Design in North America. With additional experience from 15 years at Oakley, a recruiter reached out to him in 2019 and, seeing the intersection of lifestyle and automotive experience in his background, led him to Chemical Guys.

“Obviously Porsche is an amazing brand to work for,” said Mansfield. “But once I actually did come in and I met with Paul [Schneider] and Dave [Knotek], our founders, and I saw the brand and I saw the authenticity behind it, it was hard not to fall in love with it immediately.”

Since then, Mansfield’s focus has been revenue growth strategy, including everything from sales and marketing, to the brand’s presence and relationship with Amazon, to the Detail Garage website and customer care.

“Both Chemical Guys and Detail Garage have been on some massive tears over the last few years,” said Mansfield. “A lot of my time is focused on making sure that we're bringing on the right people and that we're taking on the right systems and processes to scale for growth over the next five to 10 years.”

Part of that growth is Detail Garage’s goal of crossing the 100-store threshold in 2022 and working toward reaching 250 stores by 2025. Quite a goal for a brand that has only been around for 20 years — not nearly as long as some of its competitors — and one that Mansfield is excited about helping the brand achieve.

“This is a brand that once you learn about it, you fall in love with it,” he said. “But we know from an awareness standpoint that we still have a ton of work ahead of us. We're gaining new followers and customers every day. It’s all about how to make Chemical Guys and Detail Garage household brand names for car care.”

Christine Eastburn, Director of Retail Operations

With over 27 years of retail experience, Christine Eastburn brought a lot to the table for Detail Garage when she joined the brand in 2019. From Sunglass Hut, to Victoria's Secret, to consulting for Snapchat, she’s done just about everything in the retail space, including a stint at Oakley, where she met John Mansfield, who introduced her to Detail Garage.

“I wasn’t really looking for anything at the time,” said Eastburn. “But when John reached out about Detail Garage, for me, it was the growth potential and what they were trying to really do from a customer experience perspective that was really exciting to me.”

Eastburn’s role at Detail Garage is twofold: One is on the new store operations side, the other in day-to-day retail operations.

On the new store operation side, Eastburn and her team help franchisees from the moment they decide to open a Detail Garage location. They help with site selection all the way through the design and buildout of the location. They also provide all franchisee training, from how they open their store to how they run it. That’s where the day-to-day operations side comes in.

They also play a large support role. They don’t just help franchisees plan their grand opening, they attend it. And from that day forward, they serve as the franchisees’ support system in their day-to-day operations.

“We really look at it as though their success in their retail store is our success, too,” said Eastburn. “So we do everything to support them however we can, whether it's opening the store, training, support with marketing and social media or product knowledge. Sometimes it's hard to say what our team does because we’re involved with the nuts and bolts of everything you could imagine.”

“I love retail,” said Eastburn. “I consider myself a retailer. And for me, Detail Garage has an amazing retail product and even more importantly, a great customer experience.”

Ken Brackett, Director of Fulfillment

Ken Brackett is another John Mansfield find from his days at Oakley, where Brackett was Director of Product. He then joined the Chemical Guys brand in 2019 after a stint at Monster Beverage.

Brackett’s team manages all order processing for both franchises and brand stores, including product ordering for company-owned stores based on their sales and current on-hand inventory. Brackett describes it as “a full-replenishment system,” allowing our store managers to focus on running their stores and creating the best experience possible for their communities.

“In most cases,” said Brackett, “our franchisees are not inventory management specialists. They're people that are very passionate about car care and passionate about our product. But the inventory management side of it is a skill that can be learned & we are dedicated to helping each owner on this part of their business.”

Brackett’s team provides individualized 1-on-1 training sessions available to any franchisee at any time. They walk through a franchisee’s actual inventory numbers and measure their sales against that inventory, showing them the best strategies to keep products in stock without overstocking them, which is the difficult balance a retail store must maintain.

“That's the challenge as a small business owner,” said Brackett. “They want to be in stock, but if they get too aggressive, they’ll end up with too much inventory, making it difficult to keep up with timely invoice payments. It's really about managing that flow of inventory. We take a very hands-on approach to assist in this area.”

It’s Brackett’s team that has helped Chemical Guys, Detail Garage and franchisees navigate the uncertainty of supply-chain issues over the past two years, and just like the best Detail Garage franchisees are people who love to talk about cars, Brackett has a similar passion for his role with the brand.

“I'm a numbers guy,” said Brackett. “So I love seeing the numbers on inventories and sales and all that goes to measuring those. When we do a deep dive for the franchisee, it's always fun to help them review numbers. We have the opportunity to help them become more and more successful.”