Life in the Fast Lane
Swerve passes its competitors in the age-old driver-training business.

At Swerve, the first rule of accident prevention is: Do not talk about accidents. According to Swerve CEO Fred Wright, the rule is not a superstition, but a reality. A meteor falling on you car is an accident; a car crash is nearly always someone’s fault.

Founded by brothers Joe and Justin Pruskowski, along with Canadian racecar drier Ross Bently, Swerve dispenses with the harried gym-teacher-turned driving instructor stereotype. Insteatd, instructors go to “boot camp,” where they receive 150 hours of training (the state requires 100 hours) and the company cars are smooth, colorfully decked-out Scions, or “Swerve-mobiles.” One program, called Reality Check, puts students in a variety of different hands-on driving situations on closed tracks in ofder to prepare them for the risks of the actual road.

Teaching students to drive is a niche market that has been expanding in recent decades as cash-strapped, high school-based programs have dwindled. But Swerve officials maintain that any of the pribate programs now dominating the industry simply teach students to pass the driver’s license test via 1950s methods and don’t really prepare kids for today’s increasingly difficult driving conditions.

In addition to instructing new drivers, the company added fleet training to its curriculum two years ago and business boomed. Today, Swerve has clients such as Comcast, Patelco, Microsoft, the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries, and Amazon.com (for its Amazon Fresh delivery service).

“Most of [the fleet drivers] are people who drive for a living-construction, snow plows, dump trucks,” says Wright, a vintage-car collector who realized an opportunity when he discovered that most other fleet-driver programs offered virtual, rather than hands-on, adult training. He laughs, “If you’re going to train someone on a computer, would you really put them in an automobile?”

The company’s methods appear to work. In four years, Swerve has trained thousands of drivers and grown to about 60 employees. By the end of this year, company officials expect revenues to reach $3.2 million, marking a growth rate of 2,600 percent since 2005.

"There are a couple of things that are really important to us,” Wright explains. “I’ve always had the philosophy that you want to turn [your customers] into your raving fans because they will tell other people about you. Conversly, if they have a bad experience, they’re also going to tell everyone about it.” The middle ground is just as bad, he adds, because mildly pleased customers won’t say anything at all.

Wright-who began his career in media and founded Kirkland-based Who’s Calling, a call-measuring and -monitoring service-doesn’t mince words about his aggressive aspirations. “We’re venture funded, we invest in people, we’re on track to do the things we’d hoped,” he asserts. Uninterested in franchising, Wright immediately focused on growing the company in Western Washington. Eventually, he wants to expand nationwide.

Although Wright says he never imagined he’d be the CEO of a driving company, it’s clearly a great fit. “We’re creating a new definition of what driver training is about,” Wright says. “We believe people can be collision-free for life.” –Niki Stojnic