Ever locked your keys in your car, or had a flat, or run out of gas? Who you gonna call?
If you’re in metro Denver, you’re probably going to be helped by Maggie Rice and her company, Road Runner Road Service. Her roadside assistance company was recently awarded its seventh (in eight years) national award by the towing industry magazine, Towman, for being in the top 1 percent in the country for customer service.
She will receive her award, an “Ace” beltbuckle, next week during the industry’s national convention in Baltimore.
“I got into this work because I really thought I could help people,” she said recently while unpacking in her new house in southwest Denver. She bought the property because the yard covers nearly a full acre, for her four Borzoi Russian Wolfhounds that she raises and trains.
“For years,I felt like I was helping people, but it’s getting harder, with the liabilities and higher gas costs.”
Rice, who doesn’t look near her 60 years, is well respected not just within the industry but even by her local competitors.
“Molly (Rice’s radio handle)works in a very difficult industry and has managed to make it work for many years because of her commitment to her customers,” said Bill Weihrouch, owner of Skyline Recovery and himself the winner of numerous Ace belt buckles.
“The industry is difficult to survive in because the corporations (road clubs) are pushing the prices down. It’s difficult to get paid for what you’re worth, but Molly always goes the extra distance for her customers.”
Road Runners does not tow cars but is termed “light road assistance” such as flats,lockouts and empty gas tanks. She employs a dispatcher and as many as 8 subcontractors who handle the actual calls, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, within the C/E-470 beltway, from 120th Avenue in the north to Lincoln Avenue in the south.
Most of her work comes from “road clubs” like AAA, Allstate, Geico, OnStar and others, many of whom use dispatchers in India, which causes her to laugh. A portion of her clients call her directly, either from business cards, the yellow pages or elsewhere.
The greatest number of calls are for keys locked inside a car. Second is for flat tires and third for jump starts on dead batteries. Children locked or abandoned in cars take priority over everything, and are done for free.
“It’s a service industry,” she exclaims. “Tips are OK to give to my drivers.”
The business has its ups and downs, partly from seasons, like summer auto tours and winter weather problems.
If Rice ever left the industry, she has a wide variety of skills she can draw on to make a living. A Denver native and graduate of George Washington High School, she has an undergraduate degree from Antioch College and a master’s degree in writing from Johns Hopkins University. She worked years in theatre in Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Chicago and Zagreb, Yugoslavia, in a number of jobs, including writing several scripts that were produced into plays.
She’s a graduate of the Culinary Arts School and a certified chef, and worked for six years as head chef at the Cactus Club in downtown Denver.
She also worked at a number of jobs for the city, in the city attorney’s office, the Department of Parks and Rec, and the police department’s 911 dispatch center. But her renegade attitude kept her from advancing as a bureaucrat.
“I don’t do desk jobs very well,” she laughed.
After her husband died in 1992, she ran the 911 dispatch center in Holyoke, for two years.
Taken together, her experiences made her a perfect fit for buying Road Runners in 1999.
Mike McPhee: 303-954-1409 or mmcphee@denverpost.com
