We’re Laura Shuler and Steve Mochel, founders of Fresh Green Light.

As the first of our four children turned 16, we faced the inevitable fear of every parent who’s handed over the car keys to their teenager for the very first time.  Over the years we’d mentally catalogued each new tragic story of a high school student who’d been severely injured or killed in a car crash.  And we’d imagined how devastating it must be for the parents. We wanted to ensure we never found ourselves in that situation.  We researched our options and were shocked at the lack of a comprehensive, high-quality driver training experience in our community.   

So we decided to do something about it. 

We educated ourselves.  We sought the expert counsel of educators, doctors, scientists, government agencies, car manufacturers, policemen, even professional race car drivers. We looked at innovative programs that have been developed in other parts of the US, as well as other parts of the world.   And we talked to parents and teenagers too.  Armed with all of that knowledge and insight, we developed what we believe is one of the most innovative, comprehensive and effective driver training experiences available today.  

We call our company Fresh Green Light.  

In driving terminology, a "fresh green light" is that moment when a traffic light turns from red to green.  It’s the signal that says "you’re ready to go … you can drive on with confidence".  That’s what Fresh Green Light is all about … creating confident drivers.  

In 2009, we opened our first Fresh Green Light Training Center in our hometown of Rye, New York.  A year later, we opened another Center in Greenwich, Connecticut, and 18 months later, we opened in Darien, Connecticut.  

We’re proud to say that in the four years since we first opened our doors, we’ve helped over 2,500 young people become safe, responsible drivers who are far less likely to have a car accident than other teenagers.  In fact, Fresh Green Light students have an accident rate of 12.5% their first year of driving, compared to the national average of nearly 50%.  Being more effective is one of the reasons we were only driving school in the U.S. to be featured in a 2012 report on the state of teen driver education across the globe.  It’s been equally gratifying to become a vital part of our community too, as teenagers and their parents have become vocal enthusiasts for our program and our brand.

We spent 25 years in the marketing industry.

Much of that time, we both worked for Jack Morton Worldwide, a global experiential marketing agency.  Most recently, Laura was President of U.S. Operations, overseeing ten offices with a staff of 350, Chief Strategy Officer and a member of the six person Executive Team.  Her leadership in the field was recognized in 2007, when Advertising Age named her one of 25 “Women to Watch” in the marketing industry.  Steve held a number of management and business development positions with the Jack Morton, including head of the agency’s Entertainment Practice, Managing Director of the Atlanta office and head of the Consumer Marketing Group in New York.

Throughout our career we worked with a number of Fortune 100 companies to create memorable marketing experiences, including Bank of America, McDonalds, Samsung, and BMW, to name a few.

Today, we're putting our corporate experience to better use by creating good at a local level. 

In founding Fresh Green Light, we wanted to create a business that would let us own our future, while  doing good for the community around us.  In franchising Fresh Green Light, we want to give people like us the same opportunity, with an added benefit: giving people the opportunity  to  be in business  for themselves, without being by themselves.

Ultimately, we are on a mission to reinvent driver education in America.  We know that Fresh Green Light creates safer teen drivers through a more engaging and empowering training experience.  By continuing to do that well, in communities across the country, we will keep more teenagers alive behind-the-wheel.

Fresh Green Light is a more engaging, more convenient and more effective driver training experience for new teen drivers.

The proof is in the numbers:

• In their first year on the road, Fresh Green Light students' have 75% fewer accidentsthan other teens drivers.

• 95% of parents and students rate us a 9 or 10 on customer satisfaction.

• We are the only U.S. commercial driving school featured in the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's 2012 report on the state of driver training across the globe.