Vermont Business Magazine Famous for his radio ads promoting car sales in the Northeast Kingdom at several dealerships ("Take route 14, 15or 16")Dan Keene, dealer principal and president at Twin State Ford in Saint Johnsbury, Vermont, has been nominated for the 2019 TIME Dealer of the Year award. The nomination was announced Monday by TIME.
Keene is one of a select group of 51 dealer nominees from across the country who will be honored at the 102nd annual National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) Show in San Francisco on January 25, 2019. The announcement of this year’s 50th annual award was made by Jorg Stratmann, publisher, TIME, and Doug Timmerman, president of Auto Finance for Ally Financial.
The TIME Dealer of the Year award is one of the automobile industry’s most prestigious and highly coveted honors. Recipients are among the nation’s most successful auto dealers who also demonstrate a long-standing commitment to community service. Keene, 50, was chosen to represent the Vermont Vehicle and Automotive Distributors Association in the national competition – one of only 51 auto dealers nominated for the 50th annual award from more than 16,000 nationwide.
“I am very proud to be an auto dealer but, most of all, proud of being a good role model and leader to my team,” nominee Keene said. “Being a dealer for me has never been about how much money we could make or the title. It's been about setting goals and realizing my dreams as a successful dealer while being an employer with whom people are proud to work.”
Keene is a 1987 graduate of Bayside High School in Virginia Beach, Virginia. His father, who had a successful career in the United States Navy, was stationed in the Norfolk/ Virginia Beach area where Keene grew up with six siblings.
“My folks instilled some basic principles in all of my brothers and sisters that have served us well,” he said. “The first is that no matter what job you may have or the difficulty of the task you have at hand, you must try and give your all to be the best at it.”
And that’s what Keene did when he had his first job in the auto industry at age 16. While working at Western Auto in Virginia Beach, he quickly advanced from tire installer to tire sales. “I outsold my adult peers regularly even though I did not come to work until after school,” he remembered. And when a customer told him that since he did such a great job selling four tires, he should try selling the whole car, a career was born.
While Keene was in high school, his mother was diagnosed with lung cancer. And it was how she faced this adversity that inspires him to this day. “After being told she had less than a year to live at 50 years of age, my mother enrolled in a community college and later transferred to Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, on a full Ada Comstock scholarship,” he said. “She received her degree at 58 years of age and lived to be 84 and the cancer became just one chapter of her incredible life story.”
Keene followed his mother to Northampton and, remembering what his customer had told him, he searched for jobs in auto sales. He was young and didn’t have experience, but his persistence landed him a position at Ford of Northampton. “About three years into my sales career, I knew that I wanted to own and operate a dealership of my own and set a goal to accomplish this by the time I was 35,” Keene said.
An avid snowboarder, he later moved to Vermont and was hired as general sales manager and later general manager of Formula Ford in South Barre. By the time he was 35, he realized his dream and bought his first dealership in Hardwick, Vermont, renaming it Lamoille Valley Ford.
Today, Keene oversees five dealerships in Vermont, employing 160 full-time and part-time employees, and has offered several key managers the opportunity to be his partners. “They are also in line to be my successors, which is gratifying to me,” Keene said.
His family’s background in United States Navy has inspired Keene to give back to the military community. He provides complimentary scheduled maintenance to all active members of the United States Armed Forces and Vermont National Guard. In addition, his employees who serve continue to receive pay and their jobs are secure even if they are on a long deployment. “It feels great and is simply the right thing to do because of how much these families sacrifice, especially when a parent is deployed overseas,” Keene said.
In 2014, two of Keene’s dealerships were recognized for green initiatives and received the Governor’s Award for Environmental Excellence from the state of Vermont. The dealerships were challenged to promote and sell plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. “While sales for these cars were sluggish, we came up with a plan to dispel the myth that plug-in hybrids are just for wealthier folks or people that live in the city,” he said. “Additionally, because of our success, many our customers persuaded their employers and local businesses to install charging stations.”
Keene is thankful for all of the gifts the automotive business has given to him. “My legacy of helping others from similar backgrounds to realize their potential and dreams is now my main focus,” he said.
Dealers are nominated by the executives of state and metro dealer associations around the country. The award is sponsored by TIME in association with Ally Financial, and in cooperation with NADA. A panel of faculty members from the Tauber Institute for Global Operations at the University of Michigan will select one finalist from each of the four NADA regions and one national Dealer of the Year. Three finalists will receive an additional $5,000 for their favorite charities and the winner will receive an additional $10,000 to give to charity.
In its eighth year as exclusive sponsor, Ally will recognize dealer nominees and their community efforts by contributing $1,000 to each nominee’s 501(c)3 charity of choice. Nominees will also be recognized onAllyDealerHeroes.com, which highlights the philanthropic contributions and achievements of TIME Dealer of the Year nominees.
“It’s an incredible honor to recognize these dealers for their business accomplishments and their unwavering commitment to ‘Do It Right’ by helping others in their communities,” Timmerman said. “They are extraordinary auto leaders who care and go the extra mile to give of themselves to make their communities stronger. Ally is proud to support and celebrate their achievements.”
Keene was nominated for the TIME Dealer of the Year award by Marilyn B. Miller, executive director of the Vermont Vehicle & Automotive Distributors Association. He and his wife, Karen, have two children.
About TIME
TIME is a global multimedia brand that reaches a combined audience of more than 100 million around the world. A trusted destination for reporting and insight on the people, places and issues that matter, TIME captures the events that shape our lives. TIME’s major franchises include the TIME 100 Most Influential People, Person of the Year, Firsts, Best Inventions, Genius Companies, World’s Greatest Places, and more. With 45 million digital visitors each month and 40 million social followers, TIME is one of the most trusted and recognized sources of news and information in the world.
About Ally Financial Inc.
Ally Financial Inc. (NYSE: ALLY) is a leading digital financial services company with assets of$171.3 billionas ofJune 30, 2018. As a client-centric company with passionate customer service and innovative financial solutions, Ally is relentlessly focused on "Doing it Right" and being a trusted financial partner for its consumer, commercial, and corporate customers. Ally's award-winning online bank (Ally Bank, Member FDIC and Equal Housing Lender) offers mortgage-lending services and a variety of deposit and other banking products, including CDs, online savings, money market and checking accounts, and IRA products. Ally also promotes the Ally CashBack Credit Card. Additionally, Ally offers securities brokerage and investment advisory services through Ally Invest. Ally remains one of the largest full-service auto finance operations in the country with a complementary auto-focused insurance business, which together serve approximately 18,000 dealer customers and millions of auto consumers. Ally's robust corporate finance business offers capital for equity sponsors and middle-market companies. For more information and disclosures about Ally, visithttps://www.ally.com/#disclosures.
About the NADA Show
The annual NADA Show brings together more than 20,000 franchised dealers and their employees, industry leaders, manufacturers and exhibitors to learn about the latest auto industry tools, trends, products and technologies.