More Than a Car Wash: Remembering Dr. Mike Rice and the Beginning of Mighty Wash

Ask the people who helped build Mighty Wash how it all began, and you probably won’t get one perfectly rehearsed answer.

You’ll get stories.

One person remembers a detail. Someone else jumps in with another piece of the story. There’s laughter, a little debate and memories that haven’t necessarily been talked about in years, and somewhere in almost every story is Dr. Mike Rice.

Long before Mighty Wash became the company our customers and team members know today, there was a small group of friends, an opportunity and a man who could see what something might become before everyone else could.

Watch: Stories, Laughter and Our Beginnings

Some of the best parts of our founder’s story come out when we sit down together and reminisce. In this short, lighthearted video, we share stories and laughs while remembering Dr. Mike Rice and the early days of Mighty Wash—a little glimpse of the friendships behind the company.

Watch us share memories of Dr. Rice on YouTube.

Seeing the Opportunity

When the original group looks back on the beginning of Mighty Wash, one thing becomes clear: Mike was always looking ahead.

The car wash industry was changing. Technology was creating new opportunities, and Mike recognized that there was room to approach the business differently.

Where someone else might have simply seen a car wash, Mike saw possibility.

He saw an industry evolving. He saw opportunities to improve the customer experience. Most importantly, he had the kind of belief in an idea that could make the people around him start believing in it, too.

Mighty Wash didn’t begin as the large organization it is today. It started with a relatively small group of people willing to take a chance together. They weren’t just investors or coworkers sitting around a conference table. They were friends, and that friendship became part of the foundation they built on.

Building It Together

Listening to the people who were there in those early days tell the story of Mighty Wash makes one thing obvious: there was no perfectly mapped-out path.

There were decisions to make, problems to solve and plenty of figuring things out along the way.

That is part of what makes the story special.

The beginning wasn’t about having everything figured out. It was about a group of people believing there was something worth building and being willing to work through the challenges together.

The stories they still tell today aren’t just about business decisions. They’re about relationships, conversations, risks, funny moments and the kind of shared experiences that happen when you build something from the ground up.

Through those memories, Mike becomes more than the name attached to the title “Founder of Mighty Wash.”

He becomes the friend they worked beside. The person who brought an idea into the room. The person who could get people excited about what might come next, and the person whose impact remained long after those earliest days were over.

The Man Behind Mighty Wash

As Mighty Wash has grown, more and more people have become part of the company who never had the opportunity to meet Dr. Rice personally.

That is one reason conversations with the people who knew him matter so much.

The people who were there can tell us who he was.

Their stories reveal someone who was forward-thinking, willing to see opportunities differently and able to bring people together around a vision. They also reveal something a company timeline never could: the friendships behind the business.

The laughter that comes naturally when the original group remembers those days says as much about the beginning of Mighty Wash as any list of milestones ever could.

They didn’t simply build a business together.

They built memories together.

From a Small Group to Something Much Bigger

It’s easy to look at Mighty Wash today and focus on how much has changed.

More locations. More employees. More communities. More customers, but when you put the people who helped start it together in one room, the scale of that growth becomes even more remarkable. What began with conversations among a relatively small group of friends eventually became something much larger than any one person.

That growth is an important part of Mike’s legacy, but the numbers alone don’t tell the story.

The more meaningful question is whether the company that grew from those early conversations still carries pieces of the person who helped start it. For the people who knew Mike, the answer can be found throughout Mighty Wash.

It’s in the way people are treated.

It’s in the importance placed on service.

It’s in the willingness to keep growing and improving.

It’s in the relationships built within the company and the communities Mighty Wash serves. And it’s in the belief that what you build should mean something beyond the business itself.

Introducing Mike to the Next Generation

There are team members at Mighty Wash today who were not part of those early conversations. Some never had the chance to shake Mike’s hand, hear one of his ideas or sit in a room with him while the future of the company was still being figured out. But they are now helping write the next chapter of the company he started. That makes preserving these stories important.

Knowing that Dr. Mike Rice founded Mighty Wash is one thing. Knowing why people believed in him is another.

Understanding how a group of friends turned an idea into something that would eventually grow far beyond that original circle gives a different meaning to the company’s history.

It reminds us that Mighty Wash did not begin as a logo, a building or a business plan.

It began with people.

Carrying the Vision Forward

The people sitting around the table today can look back and remember Mighty Wash before it became what it is now.

They can remember Mike not only as a founder, but as their friend.

And while Mighty Wash has changed tremendously since those early days, the company continues to carry pieces of that original vision forward. That may be one of the most meaningful parts of Dr. Rice’s legacy. He helped start something he would not get to see fully unfold, but the people who believed in him kept building.

New people joined them. New communities became part of the story, and what began with one man’s vision and a small group willing to take a chance continues today through every person helping move Mighty Wash forward.

The buildings may look different. The technology has changed. The company has grown, but the story still leads back to a group of friends, an opportunity and Dr. Mike Rice asking them to believe in what Mighty Wash could become.

And all these years later, they’re still telling his story.

Remembering Dr. Rice

Dr. Kenneth Michael “Mike” Rice, founder of Mighty Wash and founder and Chief Executive Officer of Apex Secure Care, dedicated his life to helping others. He recognized a need across West Texas and surrounding communities for compassionate care for people living with severe mental illness and chronic medical conditions. That concern inspired him to develop a facility model devoted to patients whose care options were limited.

Dr. Rice passed away in a plane crash on February 4, 2015. His loss is still felt by those who knew him, but so are the warmth, friendship and inspiration he brought into their lives. When we gather to share stories and laugh about old memories, we remember the person behind the vision—a friend who cared deeply about others.

At Mighty Wash, we are proud to be part of the story he began. We honor his memory by caring for people, serving our communities and keeping those shared memories alive.

March 25, 1954 – February 4, 2015