Just one day after his graduation from Palo Verde High School in 1987, Luke Gray headed to his first day on the job at a local car audio shop with dreams of all the cars he would work on and the mountains of money he would make as a stereo installer. After arriving for duty, Gray said, he was promptly put to work sweeping floors and cleaning bathrooms for the now-closed Progressive Concepts.
Fast-forward to March 2006.
Gray traveled to Louisville, Ky., for KnowledgeFest, an awards ceremony for installers presented by Mobile Electronics Magazine and Mobile Enhancement Retailers Association.
Gray arrived at the ceremony as one of 12 top car audio installers nationwide, and returned to Tucson as the national car audio installer of the year.
"I think it's a really great accomplishment to be recognized by your peers. That's the biggest kick I get out of it," Gray said. "When my name got called, I was definitely surprised. I had to make an acceptance speech, and that was a little bit crazy. People in my line of work rarely get to do that."
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This floor sweeper has come a long way since 1987. He worked at a variety of car specialty shops and had a three-year stint at Circuit City, where he learned the corporate world was not for him. Then he spent nine years at The Specialists.
Bob Baker, technical specialist for The Specialists, worked side-by-side with Gray for many years.
"He was definitely somebody customers sought out. He was someone who would book up months in advance, and people were willing to wait for him," Baker said.
During his gig at The Specialists, Gray was able to grow his own customer base and decided it was time to pursue something he could call his own.
In 2003, Hard Core Enterprises was born. Gray and his wife, Jaime, formed the company, which is the parent of two businesses: Hard Core Car Audio, the installation business, and Hard Core Training, dedicated to training installers around the Southwest.
"The focus for the company was originally more on training, but that didn't grow at the rate I thought it would so I started doing more car audio also," Gray said.
Several things set Gray's business apart from most car audio shops. For one, he doesn't have a shop; his business is completely mobile.
"I have a completely different approach. I don't have a storefront or a sound room, I just have a couple of demo vehicles. I can meet customers at their house or a car shop and I listen to what they want and from there can rebuild the whole interior of a vehicle," said Gray.
"I always thought I would have an actual storefront, but it kind of evolved (into a mobile business) because there was a need for that."
Gray's business card says he is an installer/fabricator. In the installation realm, fabricating is the art of building pieces for cars in order to fit the after-market amenities many customers want.
"Because of shows like "Monster Garage" (on the Discovery Channel), it's becoming more popular to refer to yourself as a fabricator because that's really what you're doing," he said.
The success of shows like "Monster Garage" and "Pimp My Ride" on MTV means that Gray may soon have the opportunity to star in his own reality show about installation.
"I'm talking to a production company in Phoenix that wants to do a pilot TV show based on fabrication," he said. The show would focus on Gray and his work as a fabricator, whereas many of the current shows focus only on the fancy gadgets being put in cars.
Gray says they will probably start taping at the end of May, and after that the production company will pitch the pilot to different networks.
Hard Core is still relatively new in the car audio industry, and for now relies mainly on word-of-mouth and referrals for business.
"I don't even have an ad in the Yellow Pages," Gray said with a smile.
Carlos Salas was referred to Gray through Photofinish car shop, where he took his 1996 Mystic Cobra Mustang after deciding he wanted to make it strictly a car for show.
"I told him what I wanted and never drew anything down, and he gave me what I wanted," Salas said. "I've been to five car shows in the past five weeks and I have other installers taking pictures of what he did in my car. The work is phenomenal and his imagination is out of this world."
SEE audio / D7
Name: Luke Gray
Age: 36
Job: Co-owner, Hard Core Enterprises
Friday On the Job focuses on the people who make Tucson businesses run — those who are in charge, keep a business running, are just starting out or hire workers.