Ross Buick GMC/Ross Motor Cars
Where: 85 Loop Road, Centerville
Brands: Buick, GMC, Mercedes-Benz, Fiat.
Revenue: $49.6 million in 2010
Employees: 83.
Source: Jenell Ross, Black Enterprise magazine
CENTERVILLE — One morning last week, Jenell Ross, president of the Bob Ross Buick/GMC and Mercedes-Benz dealerships, conferred with employees on how to best protect vehicles on her lots from an approaching thunderstorm.
As the daughter of company founder Robert Ross Sr., Jenell Ross may have the corner office, but she also involves herself in important details of running the business.
Those who know her aren’t surprised. Maybe it’s that approach that helped the company win Black Enterprise magazine’s Auto Dealer of the Year honor twice, most recently in this month’s issue.
The elder Ross started working for Shannon (today, Reichard) Buick in the early 1960s. He took on his own dealership in Richmond, Ind., in 1974 after participating in the first General Motors Minority Dealers Academy.
In 1979, he took over Davis Buick and Mercedes-Benz in Centerville, and his family has operated dealerships in the Dayton area ever since. Robert Ross died in 1997.
Sharon Howard, a friend of the Ross family and marketing director with the Dayton Development Coalition, remembered meeting the elder Ross years ago.
“Wow, what a presence,” Howard said. “For an African-American young woman starting a career, to see Bob Ross as the owner of several dealerships was amazing. It meant possibilities for me.”
After his passing, the family carried on and grew the business.
Jenell Ross declined to offer specific figures, but she said sales this year so far are up 20 percent over last year, compared to about 14 percent growth this year for the auto industry in general.
She is refurbishing her Mercedes dealership, bringing the dealership in line with Mercedes-Benz’s “Autohaus” standards. The investment, Ross said, is “significant.”
In addition, she’s preparing to welcome the Fiat brand, perhaps by late this year. She said all of the nameplates she sells represent quality — something her customers appreciate.
“I’ve been very fortunate to represent the customers that we have,” Ross said.
She noted that surviving GM’s 2009 bankruptcy — in which more than 1,000 dealers were closed, purchased or merged into other dealerships nationally — stemmed from her business doing what it has always done.
“There were no guarantees,” she said.
Eric Peterson, GM vice president-diversity, knew Jenell’s father years ago. “He was one of the pioneers,” he said, noting that the elder Ross was the first graduate of the GM Minority Dealers Academy to go on to be approved as a dealer.
He praised the Ross family for building on the foundation Robert Ross built.
Jenell Ross is a “student of the business,” Peterson said, adding her parents started by treating customers and employees right.
“They learned from (parents) Bob and Norma, quite frankly, that you start with people,” Peterson said. “And this is a people business.”
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