SCWA Carwash Tradeshow

Location & Date: Dallas / Fort Worth, Texas — February 25–26, 2025
Who Attended: Mel Ohlinger & Mike Ohlinger

South Central Car Wash Association

A little later in the year, Mel took the stage again, this time with a session called "Creating Bounce-Back Customers Through Social Media."

The premise is one we come back to constantly at OhmCo, because it's one of the things we see operators get backwards more often than not. Social media isn't just a megaphone for promotions. It's not about going viral or chasing likes. When it's working the way it should, it's a tool for keeping your car wash in the back of someone's mind on a Wednesday afternoon when they look over at their dirty car and think, "yeah, it's time." That's the bounce-back. That's the repeat visit. That's the member who sticks around for another year instead of cancelling in month three.

The session walked operators through practical, immediately usable strategies: consistent posting rhythms, content built around campaigns rather than random one-offs, and making sure your social presence is actually connected to what's happening with your memberships and promotions rather than operating as its own separate island.

None of it is rocket science, and that's kind of the point. The operators who do social media well aren't necessarily the ones with the biggest budgets or the fanciest graphics. They're the ones who show up consistently, keep it simple, and treat it like a relationship rather than a billboard. With the rampant rise of AI generated content, the focus on authenticity and "lo-fi" content was also key.

Heartland Carwash Association Trade Show

Location & Date: March 24–26, 2025 — Omaha Nebraska/Council Bluffs, IA
Who Attended: Mel Ohlinger & Mike Ohlinger

Heartland Carwash Association

The Heartland Carwash Association Trade Show brought another opportunity to get in front of operators and have the kind of honest, ground-level conversations we genuinely look forward to. Plus, the is the one trade show that we can trudge our bubble van down to, which is always a plus.

Mel's session there centered on modern car wash marketing strategies, but with a specific lens that we find ourselves coming back to again and again: clarity over complexity. The carwash industry is not short on people telling operators what they should be doing. New platforms, new tools, new trends, shiny objects in every direction. What we hear from operators, consistently, is that they don't need more options thrown at them. They need someone to help them cut through the noise and make smarter decisions about where their time and money actually goes.

The session focused on branding, websites, and marketing fundamentals that hold up in the real world, not just in a conference presentation. Things owners and managers can actually pick up and run with, without needing a full in-house marketing team or an unlimited budget to make them work.

And the Heartland crowd reinforced something we had been hearing all year from just about every corner of this industry. Operators are sharp, they are busy, and they have seen enough overpromised strategies fall flat that they have a pretty good radar for what is genuine and what is fluff. They want straightforward guidance that respects their time. They want to know it works.

We were able to spend some time around the Omaha area, a first for us.

The Car Wash Show (ICA)

Location & Date: Las Vegas, Nevada — 2025
Who Attended: Mel and Mike Ohlinger

International Carwash Association Tradeshow

This one felt like a huge deal for us.

2025 marked OhmCo's first ever exhibiting booth at The Car Wash Show in Las Vegas, and if you know anything about The Car Wash Show, you know that's not a small thing. It's the biggest stage in the industry, and for a long time it was a show we attended as observers. This year, we showed up as exhibitors, and that felt significant.

What the show did deliver was something a lot more valuable than any award. Conversation after conversation with operators, vendors, and partners who wanted to talk about real things. Websites that actually convert. Branding that holds up across a growing multi-site operation. Marketing systems that can scale without falling apart at the seams. The kind of dialogue that reminds you why you do this work and points you directly at what the industry needs next.

While the lights and action were exciting and the conversations non-stop, it was overwhelming. Lots of valuable leads and conversations with people that we've ended up working with throughout the remainder of the year and into 2026, but I think we enjoy the slower pace and more intentional feeling of some of the regional shows.

We're not Vegas people, by nature, so the gambling floors are a little outside of our scope of expertise -- but we were able to take advantage of staying at the Flamingo in regards to doing a little exploration.

Ohio Operator Visit – Soak City

Location & Date: Ohio — 2025
Who Attended: Mel and Mike Ohlinger

We also made a trip out to Ohio this year, which doesn't sound glamorous on paper but ended up being one of those visits that quietly pays dividends for a long time.

The main purpose of the trip was to get eyes on some waterproof and chemical-proof display technology that's currently in testing. There's only so much you can evaluate from a screen or a spec sheet, and when something has the potential to change the way operators present information inside and around their washes, you go see it in person.

While we were out there, we had the chance to visit a handful of washes, and the highlight was easily Soak City up in North Canton. Impeccable is the right word. Stephany Frost and her team run a great operation.

Pennsylvania Carwash Association Dinner

Location & Date: September 17, 2026 — Antique Automobile Club of America Museum, Hershey, PA
Who Attended: OhmCo Team

Carwash Association of Pennsylvania

The Pennsylvania Carwash Association Dinner was a first for us in a couple of ways. First time at the event, and first time in Hershey, PA.

Cameron Alleman, the CAP president, was kind enough to take us on a tour of local washes while we were in town, and that kind of thing is always one of our favorite parts of traveling in this industry. You learn things on a wash tour that you just can't learn anywhere else. Every site is a little different, every operator has made different decisions, and getting to see those choices play out in person gives you context that sticks with you.

Mel got up and spoke briefly about marketing during the dinner. Smaller regional events have a different energy than the big trade shows. There's more room to actually talk, to go a little deeper, to hear what's really on people's minds without the noise and pace of a convention floor competing for everyone's attention.

That's really what we took away from the Pennsylvania dinner more than anything. Regional associations like this one are doing something genuinely valuable. They're creating space for operators in the same neck of the woods to find each other, share what they know, and build something that looks a lot like community. We love seeing it, we love being a part of it when we can, and we left Hershey already hoping we get to come back.

Leadership Worth Following – Growth Summit

Location & Date: September 22–23, 2025 — Arvada, Colorado
Who Attended: Mike Ohlinger

Leadership Worth Following

In the middle of everything in 2025, Mike made time to attend the Leadership Worth Following Growth Summit, a two-day event built specifically around leadership-focused education.

It was created by carwashers, for carwashers, and that distinction matters more than it might sound. There's no shortage of generic leadership content out in the world. Books, podcasts, seminars, all of it broadly applicable and broadly forgettable. When the room is full of people who understand your specific world, the conversations hit different. The examples land. The challenges being discussed are your challenges, not a case study from some Fortune 500 company that has nothing to do with your life.

It was a welcome change from the product-centric nature of the trade shows. Conversations felt genuine and invigorating enough to actually want to bring some of these concepts home to apply them. 

European Car Wash Show

Location & Date: September 24–25, 2025 — Expo Greater Amsterdam
Who Attended: Mel Ohlinger

Car Wash Show Europe

Car Wash Show Europe was a full circle kind of moment for us, and one that we're still pretty proud of when we stop long enough to think about it.

Mel presented on an international stage this year, delivering a session titled "Design Psychology Can Make or Break Your Car Wash Menu." If you've spent any time with us, you know this topic sits right at the center of everything we believe about good design. It's not decoration. It's not aesthetics for the sake of aesthetics. Design is a decision-making tool, and when it's done well, it guides your customers toward choices that are good for them and good for your business at the same time.

The session pulled from behavioral psychology principles that don't get talked about nearly enough in this industry. Anchoring. Social proof. Visual hierarchy. Decision fatigue. These are not abstract concepts. They are the invisible architecture behind every menu board, every price list, every package presentation your customers encounter before they pull up to a wash. The parallel to restaurant menu design was a natural one, because the restaurant industry has been studying and applying this stuff for decades. Car washes are leaving real money on the table by not paying closer attention to it.

The core message was a simple one: small, intentional changes to how you present your packages and pricing can move average ticket value in meaningful ways, without adding a single new service or running a single promotion.



Taking that message to a global audience felt significant. The challenges operators are navigating around purchasing behavior, customer experience, and menu design are not unique to the United States. They are universal, and it was genuinely exciting to be part of those conversations on that kind of stage

Northeast Regional Carwash Convention (NRCC)

Location & Date: October 6–8, 2025 — Atlantic City Convention Center, NJ
Who Attended: Mel and Mike Ohlinger

Northeast Regional Carwash Convention

The 35th NRCC in Atlantic City was one of those shows that reminds you why this industry's conference scene is genuinely worth showing up for. Nearly 1,800 attendees, and the energy that comes with that kind of room, people who traveled to be there, who carved time out of busy operations to invest in getting better. That enthusiasm is contagious and we never take it for granted.

Mel taught a session on website design and SEO, which sounds straightforward until you realize how much ground that actually covers. The big idea behind the session was the same thread we keep pulling on all year: the decisions you make about how your website looks and functions are not just aesthetic decisions. They are sales decisions. The way information is organized, the way a customer moves through your site, the way your services are presented and your brand comes across, all of it is quietly influencing whether someone becomes a customer or keeps scrolling. Operators who understand that connection start making very different choices about what their website should be doing for them.

This was also another show where we had a booth on the floor, which continues to be one of our favorite ways to spend a few days. There's a different quality to the conversations that happen at a booth versus a session. People come over because something specific is on their mind, and those conversations tend to go deeper and faster. Website performance, long-term brand consistency, marketing strategies that hold up as an operation grows. The kinds of topics that don't always fit neatly into a forty-five minute class but absolutely need to be talked about somewhere.

We have a lot of clients in the Northeast, so catching up with them at the show was a great opportunity. It's a different energy out there from Wisconsin --- which is nice to experience.

Mel was Invited To Speak To Governor Tony Evers

Location & Date: October 27, 2025 — Brown County Library's East Branch (2253 Main St, Green Bay)
Who Attended: Mel Ohlinger

In between all of the industry travel, there was a moment this fall that hit a little closer to home.

On October 27th, Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers held a roundtable at the Brown County Library's East Branch in Green Bay to talk about something that's been quietly stressing out a lot of small business owners in this state: the potential impacts of a federal government shutdown on ACA premiums and healthcare costs. We were there for that conversation.

As a small business, healthcare is not an abstract policy issue for us. It's a real, recurring line item that affects real decisions, and when the possibility of subsidy lapses gets added on top of an already complicated landscape, it gets your attention fast. Sitting in that room and hearing other small business owners and residents share the same concerns was one of those grounding moments that reminds you that the challenges of running a small business extend well beyond marketing strategy and conference schedules.

Governor Evers was direct about what he wanted to see: less finger-pointing, more action from federal representatives on getting spending bills across the finish line before the people who can least afford disruption end up absorbing the consequences. Hard to argue with that. Regardless of where you land politically, most small business owners just want some stability and a fair shot, and that's a pretty universal ask.



It was a good reminder that the work we do at OhmCo doesn't happen in a vacuum. We're a small business too, navigating the same landscape as a lot of the operators we work with every day

Contests, Local Bizz Outreach, and Everything Else

The Governor's roundtable was actually just one piece of a bigger thread that ran through the second half of 2025 for us.

We've been getting more involved with Main Street Alliance, a small business coalition focused on advocating for the people actually in the trenches running businesses day to day. Healthcare costs, policy impacts, the stuff that doesn't always have a loud enough voice in the rooms where decisions get made. That work has pulled us into a lot of conversations we didn't necessarily expect to be having this year, in the best possible way. One of the highlights was hosting a "Bring Your Own Business" event, a campfire gathering where we brought together local business owners and politicians to do something deceptively simple: just listen. What are the most urgent needs small businesses in our area are actually facing right now? Getting those voices in the same space as the people who have some ability to act on what they're hearing felt important, and the conversations that came out of that fire were the kind you don't forget quickly.

The advocacy work spilled into a lot of other formats too. Interviews on radio, television, newspaper, you name it. If someone wanted to talk about what small business owners are actually dealing with, we were happy to show up and say it out loud.

And then there's this: Mel won the grand prize at the Chippewa Valley Hill Capital Summit pitch competition!

It was a full, genuine win, the kind that catches you a little off guard even when you've put real work into something. And it didn't stop there. We moved on to the next tier of the competition in Minneapolis in November, representing the region and taking the work we do to a bigger stage.

In Closing... it's been another wild year.

Let's see what 2026 brings!

So that's 2025. Or at least the version of it that fits on a page.

Conferences, stages, road trips, pitch competitions, campfires, trade show booths, international presentations, and somewhere in the middle of all of it, the actual daily work of building websites, designing brands, and trying to help car wash operators put their best foot forward. It was a lot. It was good. We are tired in the best way.

Going into 2026, we're not planning to slow down. If anything, this year showed us what's possible when you stay curious, keep showing up, and say yes to the things that scare you a little. We've got more to build, more to contribute, and a few things in the works that we're genuinely excited about.

To every client, operator, partner, and friend who was part of our 2025 in any way, thank you. You're the reason the word of the year was busy and not something worse.

Here's to 2026. We'll see you out there.

Mel & Mike - OhmCo