New Generation Kids launches at the Petersen Automotive Museum in LA

Laguna Hills Businessman Launches Nonprofit Aimed at Training and Career Opportunities for Underserved L.A. Youth in the Automotive Detailing Industry

LAGUNA HILLS, CA June 11, 2024 — South Central Los Angeles native and internationally recognized automotive detailer, Rigo Santana, CD-SV, is seeing his dream come to fruition this weekend when he launches his long-awaited New Generation Kids nonprofit organization this Saturday, June 15, at the Petersen Automotive Museum. New Generation Kids is aimed at providing early training and career opportunities in the automotive detailing industry for low-income and underserved youth.

The launch will feature detailers from Santana’s New Generation of Detailers Network (NGD). They will lead a four-hour session with industry suppliers and business leaders offering encouragement, mentorship, and training for indigent youth ages 13-24, currently living on the streets with little or no parental guidance. It will also provide opportunities for advancement among those living in impoverished circumstances due to no fault of their own.

New Generation Kids is intent on encouraging more of L.A.’s young people to learn skills early and learn them correctly, so they can succeed in the detailing business.

The launch this Saturday will be followed up with five full days of real detail training from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the South Los Angeles YouthSource Center at 1773 E. Century Blvd. in Los Angeles, July 22-26. The New Generation Kids training is part of the City’s YoWatts! programs sponsored by the Los Angeles Economic & Workforce Development Department and coordinated by the center’s Project Coordinator Eddie Nuno.

“I grew up on the streets of South-Central Los Angeles, a first-generation immigrant with no education and very little parental supervision,” Santana explains. “I was in a gang and about to become another sad statistic if it had not been for my introduction into the automotive detailing industry.

“I was fortunate enough to get a job at a carwash where I not only learned responsibility and earned enough money to survive on my own, but it triggered a passion within me that remains until this day, and it introduced me to opportunities few young people in my situation ever get.”

Santana discovered a lot of natural talent and an eye for perfection when it came to car paint. He began to grow in his ability and economic freedom, building a reputation for himself establishing his Xtreme Xcellence detailing business first as a mobile operation, and growing it into his current freestanding storefront in Laguna Hills. 

He was eventually able to save enough to attend some of the country’s most prestigious and comprehensive training programs where he discovered not only a more efficient and profitable way to detail cars, but he discovered how to run a professional detailing business too.

Santana founded the New Generation of Detailers Network (NGD) five years ago as the only multinational, Spanish-language adult automotive detail training in the U.S. New Generation Kids is the youth nonprofit version of that entity. 

Rigo Santana (right) works with “Detail Kid” Stephen Thompson III (Left) at a detailing event at the Petersen Automotive Museum in March 2024.

Santana is dually certified (CD-SV) in automotive by the International Detailing Association, certified in watercraft, and is a Recognized Independent Trainer (RIT) with the organization.

Santana is also a Master-certified trainer for the SONAX detailing team, where he has worked on numerous prestigious projects at the Petersen Automotive Museum and is a member of the Museum Preservation Team at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum ‘Vault’.

He spent several years on the Air Force One Detailing Team at Seattle’s Museum of Flight and on the McCalls (now Motorlux) Motorworks Revival and The Quail detailing teams at Monterey Car Week, where he restored a rare 1968 Iso Grifo, winning second place at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. He later prepped it again for the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, KY.

“I have been blessed with highly prestigious projects that are well beyond any expectations I had when I first got into detailing,” Santana said. “But with skills, guts, and passion – anything is possible for these kids. 

“If I can make it, believe me, anyone can make a success of their life,” Santana continued. “Mine came with a little luck, but luck is not enough for most of these kids. I have long wanted to give that luck a little boost, and finally, after several years of putting it together, I am proud to be providing job opportunities and professional training for these kids that will help reveal their purpose in life and put them on a road to success and prosperity.”

*The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the IDA.