True Multi- Dimensional Dealership Experience

I have had perhaps a little more "boots on the ground" experience than the average ADP sales representative. I would count myself fortunate to be able to leverage this experience for my own success and for the success of ADP as well.

I started my career in the car business at the age of 14 washing used cars and keeping the shop floors clean during the week after school. I also kept the parts warehouse organized. On Saturdays, I was responsible for keeping the lot clean, keeping the dust off the new and used inventory and cleaning the service department from top to bottom (our service department was closed on Saturdays in the early years).

When I turned 16 and earned my drivers license, I was put to work running parts deliveries in the afternoons and stocking in parts, I eventually worked my way to the back parts counter and front parts counter where I learned the value of accurate and timely information and the need for good communication between departments. Dayton Bird, our Parts Manager, was a good man and a great boss who set aside the time to make sure he was a mentor and not just someone keeping an eye on the dealer's kid. He had a great deal of respect for the power of the ADP DMS and shared that with me. I owe him a lot.

After Parts, I moved to the service department as a Service Advisor and eventually an assistant service manager. It was from David Sullins, our service manager, that I learned how to deal with customers, manage schedules and juggle several different tasks and customers at the same time. Of the four Honda dealerships in Oklahoma City, ours was in the 4th worst location so I learned quickly how important customer relationship management was to our survival. We had a database of over 15,000 customers that we guarded jealously and mined for opportunities. I wish CRM had been available back then.

I went to college at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Oklahoma in 1984 and was lucky that we operated a smaller Honda franchise in that city at the time. This allowed me to continue working and learning while I earned a degree. I worked in new and used sales part-time during this period and eventually became the Service/Parts manager (the store was small enough to need only one manager for both departments) after graduating in 1990. In retrospect, this was a perfect arrangement as it allowed me to learn how to manage all fixed operations, manually at first and then with an ADP DMS later.

I moved back to Oklahoma City about a year later and worked as a new and used vehicle salesperson and then a new vehicle department manager. Shortly thereafter, I became the Vice-President of the company. The General Manager left in 1997 and I was promoted to General Manager.

In 2002 my father sold the dealership and I worked in the General Manager position for the new owners, Sonic Automotive. Throughout this period I saw the dealership through the transition from private ownership to public ownership and learned a great deal about dealership valuations and buy-sells.

I have been fortunate throughout my career to have had good opportunities but, most of all, I have been surrounded by terrific people who made my job easier that it may have ordinarily been.