Grease Monkey has more than 500 auto centers in the United States, China, Columbia, Mexico and Saudi Arabia.
Like his father, Ron Morrow Jr. had a corporate career before discovering he preferred working on cars more than sitting behind a desk.
“I started working with Grease Monkey when I was 13 years old when my father became a franchisee in 1987. I started out washing windows, checking tires for him,” Morrow said. “It’s where my love for the business started.”
Along with having a passion for the quick-lube business, Morrow shares something else special with his father and mentor. After acquiring seven existing Grease Monkey shops in Arizona and Colorado from the D&A Group, Morrow, the president of Greenwood, Colorado-based Oilex Operating, is the largest operator for the brand with 23 Grease Monkey locations with 21 of them in Colorado and two in Arizona.
His father, Ron Morrow Sr., was once the brand’s largest operator with 17 locations. He was the first inductee into the Grease Monkey Hall of Fame before selling his portfolio of shops to corporate in 2016.
Grease Monkey lands at No. 204 on the Franchise Times Top 400 with global sales of $284.7 million in 2022. The company is part of FullSpeed Automotive, which is owned by private equity firm MidOcean Partners and includes fellow quick-lube franchises SpeeDee Oil Change & Tune Up and Kwik Kar.
Ron Morrow Jr., right, has followed his father’s legacy at Grease Monkey as the largest operator for the brand.
Related story: FullSpeed Automotive Accelerates Growth With Kwik Kar Acquisition
Financial terms of Morrow’s recent multi-unit acquisition were not disclosed, but his plans are to continue growing the portfolio of shops in Colorado, Arizona, Utah and Texas.
“We’ve got 23 stores now and I can see us adding 10 to 20 more,” Morrow said.
Like his father, Morrow has enjoyed a long and successful association with Grease Monkey, which was founded in 1978 and has more than 500 auto centers in the United States, China, Columbia, Mexico and Saudi Arabia. He said his Grease Monkey businesses increased 10 percent in 2023, with revenue at his stores growing to more than $20 million.
“Our stores work on average 60-plus vehicles a day now and our customers are spending on average about $137 per visit, which is up from a $120 ticket average from a year ago,” said Morrow, whose Grease Monkey locations also offer repair services. “Overall, our stores are serving about 18,000 cars per month now and we get vehicles in and out in about 14-15 minutes. Business is great.”
In a crowded space that is dominated by oil change chains Jiffy Lube and Valvoline, Morrow said his company differentiates itself from the competition with extra attention to personalized customer service like cleaning windows and vacuuming cars.
“What I really like about the business is the relationships we develop with not only our customers but with our employees who are in the trenches and doing the hard work,” said Morrow, whose company has 200 employees. “Some of our managers have been with us for 20-plus years, having started off at my father’s stores.
“The thing I learned from my father was that at the end of the day you’re only as good as your employees and the people that work under you,” Morrow said.
Loyalty to the company and passion for the business is a big thing with Morrow. After working as a mortgage broker and running a landscape company for a few years, Morrow realized how much he missed the quick-lube business.
“When I graduated from college, I asked my father if I could take over one of his stores. He had three of them at that time and his comment to me, ‘Well, you don’t have a job. That’s not the way it works. You need to go out on your own and get some real work experience,’ which I did,” said Morrow.
As part of his father’s deal to sell his portfolio of Grease Monkeys to corporate, Morrow Jr. was made vice president of retail operations for FullSpeed Automotive. In 2021, he decided to rekindle his father’s legacy with the purchase of a Grease Monkey location in Fort Collins, Colorado. Last year, Morrow founded Oilex Operating after acquiring a portfolio of 14 Grease Monkey stores in Colorado. His minority investment partners at Oilex include New York-based Tamarix Equity Partners and Chicago-based Concentrix Equity Partners.
Morrow said his company will continue to invest in digital marketing to grow his business.
“People are Googling everything on their phones now, and that goes for finding oil changes near them,” said Morrow. “We put a big effort into that by texting customers about our services.”