Outtasight Window Tinting and VEHICLE Wraps celebrates 20 years with a unique, large-scale project
Greg Harrison didn’t follow the traditional route to successfully owning his own business. He might not have a college degree hanging on his office wall, but what he does have is a passion for what he does and a team of hardworking employees working alongside him.
Over the last 20 years, Harrison’s passion and work ethic have allowed him to see his business—Outtasight Window Tinting and Vehicle Wraps—grow from a small mobile tinting business with a handful of customers to a window tint and vehicle wrap servicer that is trusted by individuals and corporations throughout Virginia.
Born and raised in Lynchburg, Harrison first learned window tinting when he was a senior in high school through a work program that allowed him to get outside the classroom and gain valuable hands-on experience.
In 2002, shortly after graduation, Harrison started his own tinting business from scratch.
“Basically what I did was a mobile tinting business out of the trunk of my car,” Harrison said. “Because that’s all I had—a couple boxes of window film, a car and all the tools I needed to do it with.”
In March 2004, Harrison began leasing the building on Graves Mill Road that became the first home for Outtasight, which also allowed him to hire a few employees and expand his customer pool. Harrison and his team continued doing automotive, residential and commercial tinting in the Graves Mill Road location for the next eight years, before purchasing land on Cottontown Road in 2012 and building a new facility for the thriving business.
“We built this building with options to grow,” Harrison said. “We knew that it was going to grow, we just didn’t know which direction we were going to go yet.”
Two years after opening the new facility on Cottontown Road, Outtasight began offering a new service—vehicle wraps.
Since that time, wraps have become a lucrative and rewarding component of Outtasight’s business model. According to Harrison, his business is split equally into three main services—automotive tinting, residential/commercial tinting and vehicle/commercial wraps.
One of Outtasight’s biggest vehicle wrap customers is Wooldridge Heating and Air. Since Outtasight initially wrapped three vans for the company, Wooldridge has grown to the point that Harrison has wrapped their entire fleet of more than 50 vehicles.
“Since we’ve started doing wraps, Outtasight has been able to help transform companies,” Harrison said. “We just sit back and watch them grow!”
Another project Harrison is especially proud of is the work Outtasight has done for Liberty University’s School of Aeronautics. In their building, Outtasight helped design a wall wrap the size of a tractor trailer that shows a timeline of aeronautics, among numerous other projects.
“…we’ve transformed this entire place,” Harrison said. “With floor wraps, wall wraps, tinting glass…we wrapped the flight simulators…that’s probably the most fun job I’ve had.”
It was also among the most complicated.
“When you walk in, the floor is a runway—to scale,” Harrison said.
“I actually took the amount of feet that a runway is and then did the math on it and got it all back to scale down to the size it should be for that room.”
Harrison said that a wrap project has three phases: design, production (printing) and installation. His 10 trained employees oversee all three phases.
“Outtasight wouldn’t be the success that it is without our team and our work ethic,” Harrison said.
Harrison is also grateful for every individual and business they have partnered with over the years.
“We value and appreciate each customer that comes into our door,” Harrison said. “All Outtasight employees treat customers the way we would want to be treated as customers, and we want them to keep coming back.”
With a wide variety of projects varying in complexity, Harrison admits that his line of work is not easy, but to him, nothing is more satisfying than a job well done.
“That is what gets me up in the morning,” Harrison said. “It’s knowing that what we do today—if we deliver—we have given someone immediate joy and satisfaction. We immediately please them the minute they see the product—and that is what it’s all about.”
On Feb. 2, Harrison celebrated the 20th anniversary of Outtasight. He has enjoyed the journey so far, but there is still more to be done.
“This is a very interesting and a very challenging business, but it is extremely rewarding,” Harrison said. “It is not easy to do this but once you get in and you learn it, it’s so much fun.”
