Pioneer, groundbreaker, leader, promoter.  These are lofty but accurate terms that describe the detailing career of Karen Duncan.  In 1988, she started a “Love Your Car” detailing franchise – later going independent and changing the name to “We Love Your Car” – in Wilmington, Delaware.  She soon took over the business and dove, with both feet, into the detailing industry.

From the early days of owning a detail operation, Karen recognized the importance of “community”, marketing through involvement in local community events, as well as partnering with the local high schools to offer vocational education to students who gained experience by working at the shop.  She quickly gained the respect and trust of both female and male customers, as well as fellow operators in an industry that has long been male-dominated.  Her shop consistently earned community awards like “Best Detail Shop”.

Karen also realized the need for a boost in professionalism in the entire detailing industry and started reaching out to other local detail shops with a desire to assist them in their operations, the goal being to raise the standards of detailing in the local community.  She was an early pioneer in the concept of running dealership in-house detail centers, having three in-house dealership operations in addition to the brick-and-mortar shop.

Karen took her passion for the industry to trade shows like the annual convention of the International Carwash Association, helping to rally more detailers to attend the shows, but to also connect and join forces to improve the industry.  Karen proudly states, “my objective was to both establish an identity and give a voice to the professional detailing industry”.  She was embraced and gained the respect of other industry leaders like Bud Abraham, Greg Swett, Steve Okun, and Prentice St. Clair, who saw her as an equal in this effort.  Karen enthusiastically accepted leadership roles in the Professional Detailing Association, including President.  She also became one of the respected presenters on the topic of professional detailing at the annual conventions.

Karen’s leadership activities extended also to serving on several ICA committees, including the Detail Education and Express Detailing Certification Committees.

Her detail shop was destroyed by a massive flood in 2003, and she was soon “scooped up” with an offer to become Detail Manager at a local dealership for whom she had provided detailing service.  Out of respect for her operational prowess, she was given great leeway in overseeing the building of a new, state-of-the-art detail center at the dealership.  Additionally, dealership management entrusted her with creating a new profit center by offering professional detailing to service customers, a novel idea in those days.  At its height, the Union Park Auto Spa employed 12 full-time detailing technicians.

Karen was recognized as a detailing industry leader when she was included as an example of a successful detailing operator in the early 2000s Entrepreneur magazine publication “How to Start an Auto Detailing Business”.

Karen retired from the industry in 2008, ending 20 years of exemplary service to both her customers and fellow detailers alike.