Keeper of the Vision
Bill Simmons has grown both a business and people
Bill Simmons loves to talk about MasterLube, and more specifically, its employees. When he does, his eyes light up like a bluebird day, and he leans in as he tells their stories.
Simmons, as most people know him, started MasterLube in 1981 with a single quick lube station on 24th Street. Now, Masterlube has five locations across Billings and in Laurel, as well as a hand car wash location. Over the years, the company has employed thousands of men and women, many in need of a second chance or helping hand.
There was an aimless young man who wandered up and down 24th Street, day after day, and Bill took a chance and offered him a job at the first location. There was a young woman who had a history of abuse who found a safe place behind the register of a MasterLube station, and later, with his support, went on to college and started a career and eventually a family. And a young father who mended his relationship with his son.
Bill remembers hundreds of come-from-behind stories.
Over the years, he’s taken chance after chance on formerly incarcerated individuals. He’s offered jobs to people off the street and to almost everyone who walked through the door. And he built the business on kindness, fairness and trust. Almost everyone leaves with a sense of purpose.
Diane Dimich remembers working for him in the late 1980s when she was in college at Eastern Montana College, now known as Montana State University Billings. She heard of an opening at MasterLube, and even though she had no automotive experience she applied. She was hired on the spot. Even then, she was struck by Bill’s enthusiasm and generosity.
“He had high expectations,” Diane says “I loved working there. I learned from Bill how important customer service was.”
She put her customer service experience at MasterLube to work in her own business. Diane owns the Napa Auto Parts store in Red Lodge. She also watched and learned from Bill’s interactions with employees. Now, decades later, she tries to do some of the same things for her employees.
“You need to treat your employees with dignity and provide a living wage and benefits,” Diane says. “I want to be sure my employees don’t just survive here in Red Lodge; I want them to thrive. I learned a lot of that from Bill.”
MasterLube was born in 1981 when five investors took a chance on Bill and sold him a failing service station. He was determined to turn it around, even though he had zero automotive experience and no idea how to run a business.
“I had nothing to lose,” he says. “It was finally a job I couldn’t be fired from.”
He hadn’t been running the business long when he had a light-bulb moment in the middle of the night. A single thought ran through his mind.
“The reality is, these guys working for me are really good at what they do. They do extraordinary work and they’re extraordinary people,” Bill says, remembering the moment his whole perspective changed. “I’d looked at them and made a judgment, based on an unrecognized bias. I needed to quit putting people in a box. I told myself, knock it off!”
He set off to transform the little service station into a 10-minute oil change location. The idea was new to Billings, and his techs fell into step with the new procedures. Customers were wowed by the speed and efficiency of the crew.
Bill had another light-bulb moment.
“Every one of these guys were working at a level three times the level I was paying them. Every hour they work for me, I’m going into debt to them,” he says.
He realized that he couldn’t pay his employees what the were worth, so he made a promise to them.
“I’ll use every resource available in the community to help you become whatever it is that you at your core want to be. And that’s when MasterLube was born,” he says.
He established a personal development program based on an article in Harvard Business Review published in 1989, and he began sharing his story with his employees. That personal approach hasn’t stopped since.
“Everyone in the company knows my story,” Bill says. “Every employee in the company knows I was just like them, unemployed, unable to pay my bills, fired from my job, doing dumb things.”
Bill then asks them to share their story. The vulnerability he shows them is always matched. They open up every time.
“All I do is talk about possibilities and get behind the disguise,” Bill says.
From those early coffee conversations, Bill and the leadership team at MasterLube have developed a formal employee development program.
Through small group and one-on-one coaching, employees are encouraged to discover their personal strengths — their greatest personal skills, their core competency. They are also asked what they want to do with the rest of their lives and are encouraged to think big. Through coaching, they identify short-term and long-term goals and develop a realistic map for how to get there. The personal development training continues no matter how long an employee is with MasterLube.
MasterLube employees have access to financial management classes, parenting classes, communications classes and many other individualized training opportunities.
Bill and his leadership team recognize that MasterLube’s workforce is temporary, and they embrace the idea. He’d just like them to stay long enough to have a plan for their lives.
“Other businesses invest in their employees to get them to stay. We want to invest in them to leave,” he says.
When an employee leaves, it’s called a launch. Whenever possible, MasterLube leadership provides a pathway to their next step and facilitates the transition. Each employee is celebrated, and their photo goes on the alumni wall at the store where they worked.
“I love this company,” Bill says. “The people are the heart of this company. They are all extraordinary people, and they should be recognized and held up.”
While Bill is nearing retirement, he still spends most days in the MasterLube office, where he’s known as the “Keeper of the Vision.”
“My job is to keep everyone focused on that spot on the horizon,” he says.
Zane Luhman, the president and CEO of MasterLube, came to the company because of the culture and business philosophy.
“The idea that business isn’t just about making money. It’s about lifting others up,” Zane says. “It’s not just about changing oil in people’s cars.”
That spot on the horizon that Bill refers to, that’s a deep commitment to the service of others.
“Just looking to lift people up around you isn’t that crazy of an idea, but to stay true to that idea in the good and the bad times, that’s when it matters,” Zane says.
Bill believes that it’s his leadership team and every single employee in the company who make MasterLube a success.
“Everyone knows that they finish on the shoulders of everyone who came before them,” he says. “And hopefully, what they get from me carries them on to their finish line.”
