Computer drives cutting-edge car dealership
WASILLA: Alaska Sales &
Service is most modern GM vendor on the West Coast.
By ZAZ HOLLANDER
Anchorage Daily News
Published: March 18, 2006
Last Modified: March 19, 2006 at 03:20 AM
WASILLA -- A computer controls just about
everything at the new Valley headquarters for Alaska Sales & Service: energy
use, water treatment, how warm the sidewalks get -- everything but the intercom
that pages employees.
"It's a regular good old-fashioned loudspeaking
system," said service manager Jack Jackson, who decided that hearing your name
hollered out loud is a lot more effective than a silent page.
In business in Alaska since 1944, the
dealership sells Buick, Pontiac, GMC, commercial and GM-certified used vehicles.
The company had a Valley store until the mid-1970s, then returned in 2001 with
a purchase of Valley Motors.
The dealership outgrew the location on
Blue Lupine Drive, which covered about 11,600 square feet, according to a borough
database.
The new facility, about five minutes
south on Blue Lupine, is 65,000 square feet and the most advanced GM dealership
on the West Coast, according to Jackson. The new building, assessed by the Matanuska-Susitna
Borough at $6.3 million, is state of the art, company officials say.
A Hydrokleen self-contained water
treatment system recycles wastewater generated by the brushless car wash or
rinsed from our shop into drains. Jackson described the self-monitoring system
as a miniature municipal water-treatment plant that uses bacteria or "Biodigesters"
to eat oil, antifreeze and other contaminants.
It's the only one in the state and
one of 200 around the country, he said.
Recycled waste oil heats the building,
concrete floors, outdoor aprons and sidewalks. Reusing waste oil is standard
in the auto industry. This system uses the heat generated to warm glycol that
circulates through a network of tubes buried in concrete floors and sidewalks.
The computer controls lighting, scheduled
to go on and off automatically, and building temperature.
"This place, it's like the HAL 9000,"
Jackson said, referring to the nefarious upstart computer star in the movie
"2001: A Space Odyssey."
"People come to me ... 'In my office
it's cold.' The computer 'thought' they were too warm."
Daily News reporter Zaz Hollander can
be reached at zhollander@adn.com or
1-907-352-6711.