Gustavo Vildósola, a successful Mexican entrepreneur CEO of MEXLOG and the first Mexican racer to win the off-road Baja 1,00 championship has been recently appointed Ambassador of Polaris, including an exclusive content shoot showcasing how Polaris’s RZR and GENERAL products support his “Tough Doesn’t Quit” mindset.
WHO IS GUSTAVO VILDÓSOLA?
GUSTAVO or “TAVO” as his family and friends affectionately call him, was born and raised in Mexicali, Baja California México with a bicultural background growing up with the duality of cultures, languages and business practices that only a person raised on the border can grasp.
You could say that Gustavo Vildósola is an exceptional multitasker. For starters, he finished his Business degree at the University of San Diego and he is the CEO in charge of Mexlog, a family owned transportation and logistic powerhouse based in Mexicali on the Northeastern México/ US border.
Gustavo Vildósola is also a professional off-road racer being the first Mexican, together with his family team, Vildósola Racing, to win the Baja 1,000, the annual Mexican off-road motorsport race held on the Baja California Peninsula. One of the most prestigious off-road races in the world, it attracts competitors from six continents.
In addition to that, Gustavo further expanded his dynamic career with his passion for wine making. In 2021 he started and founded VV Vineyards in California, successfully producing his first wines within the last two years.
More recently, Gustavo was appointed Ambassador of Polaris, including an exclusive content shoot showcasing how Polaris’s RZR and GENERAL product support his “Tough Doesn’t Quit” mindset.
I had the opportunity to interview Gustavo and was able to feel all his enthusiasm and passion for the broad scope of all of his endeavours.
GROWING UP IN MÉXICO
Gustavo Vildósola was born into a family that shares a passion for their business and off-road racing. He is a third generation businessman and the only one of his siblings that is involved one hundred percent in the family business MEXLOG.
MEXLOG provides transportation and logistic services for trucks, buses and automobiles with a North American presence. About 98% of their business is transborder with important customers such as Toyota and Ford and they move and deliver about 400 hundred thousand units each year.
Gustavo Vildósola has been the CEO of Mexlog for the last ten years, a company that currently employs about 2, 000 employees and he reports “ that keeps me pretty busy!”
GUSTAVO VILDÓSOLA AND MEXLOG
Gustavo, how does a CEO like you function in a bicultural mentality and run a successful business?
Today, with all the information available on social media, it might seem to you that success is easy and very easy to acquire. But I think that success is defined in many ways.
In our case, our business is a legacy. My grandfather was an entrepreneur who started in 1960 with American and Mexican partners and obviously he was an entrepreneur all his life. When my grandfather’s business was sold, my father followed his legacy and started his business which is what we have today.
“My experience and what we have lived through is that you have to work and be passionate about what you do. If you are not passionate about what you do, it is difficult to get up every day, work and exceed your expectations. No matter how you feel, you have to go to work and have the perseverance to work”.
Mexlog is founded on strong institutional values such as integrity, respect, and loyalty . Those values allow us to offer a service that exceeds the expectations of our clients.
BUSINESS CHALLENGES
Is there any extraordinary adversity your family has faced in the past that has influenced the way you do business today?
I think one of the most complicated challenges we had to face was the pandemic. In the U.S. there was so much support, that a lot of businesses actually did better during the pandemic than before -because of the great help from the government.
In Mexico it was the opposite. We have 900 employees who are commission merchants. All the plants were closed. The whole industry was closed. We didn’t know what to do. We didn’t know if it would last two months or two years. There was no support from the government. There was nowhere to go for support. But we managed to survive and we are still going strong.
As an entrepreneur, what would be one thing that you would identify necessary for success when launching a new business?
Do what you are passionate about. I’m a firm believer in that, if you’re passionate about being whatever you may decide, whether its a lifeguard, or a bartender, and you have a passion for doing it, that passion will lead to great ideas to be successful.
Madame President /Border Politics
How does having the First Woman President in México and potentially the First Woman President in the USA would affect your business relationship in both countries?
The U.S.-Mexico relationship is very important to our business. Ninety-eight percent of our work is on the U.S.-Mexico border. So it is extremely important that this relationship between Mexico and the United States is good and bears good fruit among the agreements we have between the two countries.
I believe that in Mexico, the fact that there is a woman elected as President changes a lot for me. It is exciting to see how the country is progressing from that point of view, especially the stigma – that Mexican thinking of machismo.
As for the United States, I am politically neutral, I am not a Republican or a Democrat, but I am excited from the perspective of the possibility of having a woman president.
And I like it very much because for example in our Mexlog business, we believe that our future is very much about training women operators. We are investing a lot in training female operators.
Currently it accounts for a huge segment of the population that is not included in the business and we are working on it. On the other hand, more than 60% of our administrative staff are women.
POLARIS / THOUGH DOESN’T QUIT
What are your responsibilities going to be as an Ambassador for Polaris?
Being an ambassador of a brand like Polaris, or any other brand you endorse, is full of responsibilities, – because I have the privilege of being the one representing that brand.
For me it doesn’t involve a big change because that’s what I am, a second generation off-road racer. In this aspect, for a long time we were the only Mexicans in the race and I considered myself a Mexican representative, of my last name, of the races.
So when you kids ask for autographs, the standards of behavior have to be high. I don’t want to disappoint that good image they have of me or the brand. I’ve always carried my image with a lot of pride.
When Polaris asked me to be their brand ambassador, for me it’s very natural to transition to that responsibility, for myself, my country, my state. I am not going to let them down, or disappoint them.
So the Polaris brand values go with what we do in our business and racing. I look to partner with those who have something that I believe in, and that is important to me. I really appreciate the Polaris opportunity.
Which is your favorite Polaris model?
My favorite model is the Polaris RANGER, which is the one I use on my ranch to get a lot of things done.
I have a ranch where we harvest grapes and I love the RANGER because you have an enclosed cab that allows me to work and come back to a cool cab when sometimes the ranch can get up to 110 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s worth a lot to me.
VV VINEYARDS
How did you get interested in being a winemaker?
During the pandemic my wife and I were looking for an opportunity to make an investment.And we loved a small 50-acre ranch in the mountains of Ramona, CA.
When we went to see it it had a fifteen year old vineyard that the winemaker had developed and installed it. But they only harvested the grapes, they didn’t have any of the facilities to proceess the wine.
The results were fantastic and we produced four thousand bottles in 2022, six thousand bottles in 2023 and this year we corked almost eith thousand, without planting many more seeds.
We designed and built a storage for the wine. We bought containers, We changed the irrigation of the vineyard. We put a lot of effort and passion into the project. And a lot of tender loving care, as you may say in the wine business.
The rosé shiraz is the most recent wine we produced and was released in June 2024. We have been selling it for two months now. It has been a success.
And the challenge at the end of 2024, is that we are going to release our first red wine that has been preserved 18 months in a French oak barrel, and bottled for six months.
Wine making is a passion project. We love wine, sharing with friends, and the community.
AUSTIN
Do you have any plans to come to Austin to promote Polaris, or your wines?
I do go to San Antonio often because we work with a plant in San Antonio, but we don’t spend enough time there. We’re focused on the Southwestern U.S. and Northeast Mexico. We do some work in Chicago as well, but to have a reason to go to Austin such as motor races – it would be spectacular.
WE CELEBRATE HISPANIC HERITAGE WITH GUSTAVO VILDÓSOLA WHO FALLS INTO THE CATEGORY OF MEN THAT SHARE AN EXCEPTIONAL DRIVE TO GO BEYOND BORDERS TO EXCEL IN WHAT THEY DO.
