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Rob Ingram of Enterprise Rent-A-Car answers Barker's Dozen
Date: 05 July 2010
BusinessCar's Paul Barker puts 13 testing questions to another victim
1. What was your first job? Valet parking for private parties and clubs in the posh area of Santa Barbara, California. I was only 16 when I started and I got the chance to drive dream cars everyday. Occasionally meeting celebs was a nice addition and parking cars at Michael Douglas' house was definitely a highlight!
2. What was your first company car? Whatever was left at the rental branch. But my first proper one was a Vectra SRi.
3. What did you listen to on your last car journey? Jamie and Harriet on Heart FM.
4. What one thing do you wish you could do better? Have better handwriting so that people wouldn't think I was writing in a foreign language.
5. What's your biggest achievement? Opened the fifth branch of Enterprise Rent-A-Car UK in 1995 with 11 new Fiat Unos, no customers, no accounts and no reservations. We grew that one branch to have over 100 cars on rent.
6. Who is your role model? Jack Bauer from 24. No matter how hectic my day gets, Jack reminds me that one person can save the world every hour. When I worked in a rental branch, I used to drive a different car home each night, and my neighbour (who was a policewoman) thought I worked undercover for some agency. I played along with that for a while.
7. What's the stupidest thing you've done? Today, trying to figure out how to work the satnav on my new, company Volvo V70, pushing every button on the dash and steering wheel before a colleague found the remote control in the glove box.
8. What was the most hotly debated topic at your last meeting? What has to change to make electric vehicles viable in a daily rental environment.
9. What's in your garage? Bikes, scooters and many things we think we just might need to use someday for something, but know we never will.
10. What's the worst thing about your job? Too many emails! I much prefer talking to people on the phone or in person.
11. What one law would you make or change? Make St George's day a holiday in England. More patriotism here would be great - and I'm not selecting this day just because it's my birthday!
12. What keeps you awake at night? Hoping that my kids will find success at whatever they do so that they will move out at a reasonable age.
13. Who is your ideal celebrity date? That's easy: Jennifer Aniston. Years ago I put my wife's mobile number under 'Jennifer Aniston' to surprise me when she called, although admittedly it was only amusing for the first couple of calls.
