Vanguard Car Rental has proud corporate culture.

Business ethics can't be absorbed, assumed or taken for granted -- they must be taught, says Greg Stubblefield, president of Vanguard Car Rental.

Speaking Thursday at the Oklahoma Business Ethics Consortium at the Hilton Inn Southern Hills, Stubblefield said a corporate culture that prides itself on ethical behavior anticipates situations where employees could make bad decisions.

"Ninety-nine percent of ethical problems come from making a decision on the spur of the moment," Stubblefield said. "Good people make bad decisions at that time because they freeze up, they don't know the right thing to do.

"Inherently (with training), you'll know the right thing to do."

A 25-year employee of Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Stubblefield was named president of Tulsa-based Vanguard and its two rental car brands, National Car Rental and Alamo Rent A Car, in July.

Enterprise, the nation's largest rental car company, completed the acquisition of Vanguard in August after company executives agreed to the sale in March. No transaction price was disclosed.

Privately held and St. Louis-based Enterprise reported 2006 revenue of $9 billion.

Combined with Vanguard's 10,000 employees, 400 of them in Tulsa (down from 700 in March), Enterprise operates 11,000 rental car locations, has 1.1 million rental car vehicles and 85,000 employees.

Enterprise will purchase one of every 15 vehicles sold in the United States this year, Stubblefield said. It is the owner of 50,000 hybrid and alternative fuel vehicles, the largest such fleet in the nation.

"Enterprise is the size of Hertz and Avis combined," said the Los Angeles native and University of California-Berkeley graduate.

"Big organizations are going to have problems. There are going to be issues," Stubblefield said. "If you build your philosophy and culture . . . from an ethical point of view, you will build a great, sustainable organization in which, when good people are faced with tough decisions, they'll make good decisions.

"(Enterprise) is a very autonomous organization in which we trust people to do the right thing. . . . But unless you have standards of business ethics and practices, your business will implode.

"You have to teach, train, articulate . . . business ethics. It's like a reputation."

Joining Alamo and National, which are major players in the leisure and on-airport markets, with Enterprise, which dominates the home-city, body shop and insurance rental businesses, was an ideal marriage with little overlap, Stubblefield said.

As impressed as he was by the quality and dedication of the people he encountered at Vanguard, Stubblefield said it was necessary to bring the company's top 250 managers to St. Louis to meet with Enterprise Chairman and CEO Andrew C. Taylor and his executive team.

Taylor and Enterprise executives explained the corporate culture of the Taylor family-owned organization and what was expected of Enterprise employees.

"The idea is to be transparent about the values and beliefs you have," said the former Cal-Berkeley football offensive guard.

"Business ethics is the single most important and highest priority a company can have as far as sustaining a corporate culture."

D.R. Stewart 581-8451
don.stewart@tulsaworld.com