Virginia Limo And Bus Company Serves White House, Rolls-Royce

Passengers getting ready to board A Goff Limousine & Bus Company's motorcoaches.

Passengers preparing to board A Goff Limousine & Bus Company's motorcoaches.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — President Obama and Rolls-Royce selected Charlottesville, Va.’s A Goff Limousine & Bus Company to provide transportation for a Richmond, Va.-area event on Friday, March 9. The President traveled by U.S. Secret Service motorcade and A Goff transported guests of the President. The group converged on a new Rolls-Royce aircraft engine production plant in Prince George County.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported that the President proposed a $1 billion national network of research centers to discover ways to improve manufacturing competitiveness and encourage U.S. investment, and that Rolls-Royce chose Prince George County in part because of Virginia’s exemplary system of higher education.

Sharpen your sword
A Goff’s relationship with the White House began when the company provided chauffeured ground transportation to President Bush when he visited Monticello, Va. in his last term year.

 “Once [the White House] finds you, and once you’ve been vetted and successfully perform the function, you get on ‘the list’ and then they find you again,” Dan Goff, A Goff’s general manager, told LCT. “A Goff Limousine & Bus Company was honored to have been chosen by President Obama to provide regional transportation needs for events. We are obsessed with providing the highest level of service for discerning clients who require discretion, on-time portal-to-portal service, and impeccable attention to detail.”

Goff said events with high-profile passengers, such as the President and Rolls-Royce, help operators sharpen their skills and polish their products, because those types of clients “won’t accept second class in any facet of the job.”

Train for the championship
A Goff sent eight vehicles capable of group transportation, ranging from Van Terras and minibuses to full-size motorcoaches. Barry Gross, A Goff executive director, coordinated the event onsite. Gross, along with A Goff company chair Regina Goff, had met with the Secret Service, White House liaisons and Rolls-Royce representatives and spent nearly half a day planning the event logistics.

Dan Goff always has approached his career in transportation as a craft. “The art of service,” he calls it. And part of that craft is paying attention to all the little details and putting in all the effort it takes to make the event seem effortless.

A Goff Limousine & Bus Company's motorcoaches

“It needs to be anticlimactic when executing the job,” he said. “The climax comes in preparing for it. I’m proud of my team because they performed the job well. Because there was an accident blocking the road, it took six of our buses to get two miles in 38 minutes, but it was handled in such a professional manner that the passengers didn’t even notice. This type of event is what we train for. You don’t train to play in the intermural game; you train to play in the championship.”

Goff attributes the event’s success to the rigorous procedures that Gross has brought to the company. “We always had game, but [Barry Gross] has really taken us to another level,” he said.

The event lasted about eight hours. A Goff has provided service previously to Rolls-Royce.

Source: The Media Consultant Group; Michael Campos, LCT associate editor

Photos courtesy of A Goff Limousine & Bus Company executive director Barry Gross.