Strickland Brothers 10 Minute Oil Change announces their newest franchise owners, husband and wife team Stephanie and Long Westerlund. Stephanie and Long’s area will span the Washington DC region of Northern Virginia with four Strickland Brothers stores. With their three children Lucy, Charlie, and Bianca, Long coaches youth flag football, an NFL Regional Tournament Travel Flag Football team, and basketball, while Stephanie, a native Spanish speaker and former public school teacher, volunteers on county school organizations such as Advisory Council on Teaching and Learning (ACTL), the World Languages Advisory Committee (WLAC) and the PTA. Long, an artificial intelligence and robotics expert, saw the opportunity to bring goodness with hyper-focus on customer care to the automotive services sector. “Strickland Brothers is giving the customer the greatest gift we know of — time.”
Stephanie and Long heard about the opportunity from Long’s Duke business school classmates and close friends, Martin Evans and Gianna Venturi, and, after analyzing the data, fell in love with the model. “We love Strickland Brothers’ epic affection for our customers, and we just want to be a part of this upward trend and outsized energy.” Long is fond of the Waldorf Astoria’s motto, “the difficult immediately, the impossible takes a few minutes longer.” He feels that the entire Strickland Brothers organization lives this everyday. Stephanie and Long share CEO Justin Strickland’s path as an amazing entrepreneur, husband and father. “Justin built Tater Bugs while raising a young family, and we’re living his life, finding teachable moments with three young children and ‘on the run’. We’re inspired by his emphasis on community involvement; we love being involved in our community, whether it’s through youth sports leagues or working with the bilingual parents and children in our community.”
Justin Strickland expressed his excitement to have Stephanie and Long on board, “Long and Stephanie are a very special couple that we are honored to partner with. Long is analytical in all of the right areas and has a strong connection to his community which we love. We anticipate and expect terrific things from Long and Stephanie throughout the partnership. We couldn’t be more excited for them to join our family and have them lead the footprint near our nation’s capital.”
