When most people have an unsatisfactory experience with a business, they might leave an online review. Sedona resident Debbie Johnson did something else in October 2014.

“So I bought a car wash, and [my husband Bill Johnson] was there with me every minute of the way,” Debbie Johnson said of what became Cleaner Quicker Car Wash and Detailing. “We tore everything out, just this facade is all that’s left, and we put in the best equipment we could get.” 

The couple relocated to Sedona in 2011 from Aspen, Colo. to escape the winters of the Rocky Mountain and to be closer to Lake Powell. 

“She helps us all and we’re still here,” site manager Chris West, who has been working at the property for the last 22 years, said. “I wrote a testimonial one time, and she’s like freaking Miss Santa Claus … I had an old credit card debt … that I didn’t know about, and they called her to garnish my wages, and she paid it off for me.”

Bill Johnson had been coming to Sedona since 1993, acquiring real estate.

“We bought three mobile homes in Cottonwood for [our employees] that had families to give them a hand up, and everybody that we put in those homes went on to buy their own home,” Debbie Johnson said. “Most of our crew has been with us a long time, and we’ve had a lot of crew go on. Some of them have started their own businesses … but that would be Bill’s legacy. He loved these kids.”

“I had two kids, and we were struggling with where we were staying,” said Cleaner Quicker Car Wash Supervisor Riley Kemper, who lived in the Johnsons’ employee housing for five of his eight years with the company. “She had offered up one of her houses to me … that helped me save up quite a bit of money.”

After a career across numerous industries, Bill Johnson died in September 2023 at age 82. He was a U.S. Army combat engineer and his education included a degree in American Studies from Yale University and business management training from Harvard Business School. In 1967, Bill joined McKinsey and Company as a management consultant, doing work in Amsterdam, Toronto, Paris and New York. He later made partner and focused on strategic reorientations. He was the CFO of Standard Brands from 1976 to 1978, the chairman of the Investors Committee at International Management Associates, managing director at Strategic Redirections, served on the board of the Hoffman Institute and was chairman and CEO of Scientific-Atlanta Inc.

“Mr. Johnson — a race-car driver in Europe during his youth and now a white-water rafter and downhill skier, plunged full-speed into the challenge of turning around the company,” a April 1, 1990 New York Times profile stated.

The daughter of an oilfield worker, Debbie Johnson was a single mother of three to Don, Maralea and Travis, before having a professional career is as impressive as her husband’s.

“I started my career with General Electric in the oil and gas industry,” Johnson said. “Back when women weren’t in the oil and gas industry, nor were they corporate climbers. We’re talking the late ’70s and I put myself through college, ended up with three degrees.”

She became one of the first women to attend GE’s Advanced Management Program at Crotonville, N.Y., specializing in finance and strategic planning. After an energy industry downturn in the late 1980s, she became director of planning and analysis for the Rocky Mountain News 

“Just do it,” Johnson offered as advice to young entrepreneurs. “You can’t be shy, you got to find something you want to do.”

She would go on to work for a decade at Gray Line Worldwide bus tour company as the chief financial officer and chief of staff.

The couple met while Bill was the chairman of an investors committee set up by the federal government.

“They were having a board meeting in Vegas,” Johnson said. “And [Bill] told everybody around the table, ‘I’m doing all the work, and you guys show up for these meetings once every six weeks, and I have never met my perfect soulmate, and now I don’t have time to and I’m 65 years old. You and your [wives] have 90 days to find my perfect soulmate, or I’m going to resign and one of you guys is going to have to take this job.’” 

They were introduced by her supervisor at the tour company, and perhaps to make up for lost time, the couple eventually got married three times and had three wedding anniversaries. 

The first wedding took place on Dec. 12, 2005, when they exchanged vows in Las Vegas. However, it turned out that the bishop who performed the service had no legal right to do so in the state of Nevada, so they re-tied the knot the following month. 

Their third wedding took place in the spring of 2006 while they were on a 12-week safari, flying across Africa.

One evening in Botswana, they were sitting at an outdoor table with a group when a local chorus performed. As part of the performance, the singers placed woven bracelets with their names on their wrists and included them in a circle dance. At the end, the local leader declared them married according to their tradition. 

“We celebrated all three of those wedding dates,” Debbie Johnson laughed. “Bill was unbelievable. He was the most incredible man ever. … He was the founder of the Center for Integrated Health in Aspen. So he was a very involved person, he took care of people.”

The Johnsons have been involved in a range of local charities and organizations, including churches, schools, the Sedona Elks Club, Rainbow Acres, Rotary clubs, the Sedona International Film Festival, the Sedona Humane Society and the Sedona Community Food Bank.

“I will absolutely guarantee one thing — you will never feel as good as you do when you are helping others, and you will come through this feeling better about yourself and closer to those around you,” Bill Johnson previously said of his work with the food bank.

Northern Arizona Healthcare

“I got the idea several months ago to do something in memory of Bill, who was a staunch advocate for keeping the Sedona Emergency Department open that Northern Arizona Healthcare operates,” NAH Chief Philanthropy Officer Larry Kushner said. “When he passed in September of 2023, I felt there was an opportunity. We all have a legacy that we leave, and part of his legacy was his passionate advocacy for the residents of Sedona and the surrounding area, and Bill had as much to do with keeping that ED open [as anyone].”

NAH will be establishing a new professional development scholarship for Sedona staff in the couple’s honor. The scholarship will be awarded as part of NAH’s annual scholarship program, which makes awards in May during Hospital Week and Nurses Week.

The scholarship will launch once the fund reaches at least $75,000, of which about $40,000 has been raised so far. Once that amount has been raised, Kusher said, it is NAH’s intention “to also name our emergency department in memory of Bill.”

“We’re still trying to get enough; we need $100,000 for it to be perpetual, and so we’re going to do a drive here at the car wash,” Johnson said. “It’s going to start on Oct. 18, and it’ll go through Nov. 2, because that’s my birthday and 25% of all the proceeds [will go to the fund].” 

Residents can also make a donation directly to the NAH Office of Philanthropy in Bill Johnson’s memory at nahealth.com/office-philanthropy.

The NAH staff scholarship program began three years ago with a goal of awarding five scholarships; last year it made 31 scholarship awards. These scholarships are available to both clinical and non-clinical staff. There were over 140 applicants last year, and Kushner said the process has become competitive.

“Bill was a passionate advocate for the community. He was a forward thinker, visionary, and saw the importance of health care to everything that we do in day-to-day life,” Kushner said. “Bill had the firm understanding that quality health care was and is an absolute must in the community … He wanted to be able to do good for his community, and by God, he did … and Debbie is the same passionate advocate for her community that Bill was … They don’t make them any better than Debbie.”