After graduating from the United States Military Academy with a Bachelor in Systems Engineering in 2003, Ammon Redd received his commission, completed Ranger School, and then reported for duty. He began his deployment in Iraq as Battle Captain and finished as a platoon leader. He then went on to complete the Maneuver Captain’s Career Course at Fort Benning before returning to Ft. Bragg for the Special Forces Q-Course, which he graduated from 2008 and then got married a few weeks later. A medical condition eventually forced Ammon to retire in 2009 as a Captain (O3).
“Soon after taking my first job out of the Army, I knew I didn’t want to work for someone else forever,” says Ammon. “I had kids, and it occurred to me that I could offer a really important educational experience above what school offered, by giving them an example of how to be an entrepreneur and opening their minds to the possibilities they could pursue. That became an important motivator for me to break out of the rat race. I was always on the lookout for a business idea and dabbled in a dozen half-baked ideas. Some ideas were really big, disruptive type ideas (which I may get back to eventually), but in the end I decided to start with a simple, practical idea.”
“After experiencing ridiculously long lines for car washes in the area, I decided I needed to step up and address this obviously unmet need. I needed to build a car wash. The more I looked into it, the more I realized what a fabulous opportunity I had stumbled across and decided to commit to it,” says Ammon.
Ammon is working to build an Express Car-Wash in Colorado Springs, CO. The plan is to get the first location built, learn how to optimize the business, then expand to additional locations within the coming years.
“I’ve been looking for the start-up money for my business, and ran into The Jonas Project,” says Ammon. “I originally thought I could get the money, but once I started talking with The Jonas Project, I realized I might need a mentor. Working with my mentor turned out to be more helpful than I anticipated as I was working through the numbers and understanding what I needed to get done. In retrospect, I would have gotten a good mentor right up front to make the whole process more smooth and less stressful.”
Ammon lives in Colorado with his wife and four children.