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Business & Tech

Hartland High School Grad New Owner of Bogie's Car Wash

Ribbon cutting, re-grand opening slated for Friday morning.

The new owner of Bogie’s car wash may be young, but at the age of 24, Mike Rochowlak already has years of management experience and big ideas for transforming his new business.

“I’m excited to make the building a lot nicer. I’m excited to make the property nicer,” Rochowlak said. “We really want to get involved with the community and try helping out as much as possible.”

A Hartland native, Rochowlak graduated from Hartland High School in 2005 and worked for several years, while going to college for business, helping the previous owner of Bogie’s run the car wash.

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"Originally, I started working here to help pay for school," Rochowlak said. "So I was enrolled at Washtenaw (Community College) and then I was enrolled at Eastern (Michigan University) for business. So I got the opportunity 'cause he said he was going to be selling it sometime in the future and I kind of stuck around." 

With new ideas that range from a possible undersea mural through the car wash, to daily specials and deals in conjunction with and , Rochowlak is looking to grow and change his business within the next year. Possible name changes are also being discussed, but for now, Bogie’s and the car wash deals will stay the same.

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“We’ll kind of stick with the theme, bogie, par, birdie, eagle,” Rochowlak said, although that theme may change with the name in the future.

Rochowlak is also commited to helping and getting invovled with the community to help promote the new ownership and new attitude of Bogie's. Rochowlak already has ideas on how to help local efforts and may look to sponser some sports teams in the future.

“I just want people to know that it’s going to be different," Rochowlak said. "We actually care about the customer now. We want to make things nicer around here. We want things to work the way they should be.”

With just a two-week turn around period, Rochowlak, with help from his staff of seven, his family and his girlfriend have been working almost non-stop to spruce up, repair and update Bogie's.

"We want to gut everything, take everything that doesn’t work, and everything that we don’t need and take everything out and then build it back up from scratch," Rochowlak said.  "It’s a little bit of a mess in here right now, but it’s a work in progress."

The grand re-opening of Bogie’s Car Wash will take place on 7 a.m. Friday with a ribbon cutting ceremony slated for 9 a.m. with refreshments being served. Throughout the course of Memorial Day weekend, Bogie’s will also be offering free dash wipes and Rain-x, as well as free car washes on Monday for anyone in uniform. 

Business hours are 7:30 a.m. to  8 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday.

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