Pub. 2 2021-2022 Issue 2

Where are you from in Mississippi, and what’s your background? What interested you as a child and young man? I grew up in the central part of the state, in Neshoba County, about 10 miles from Philadelphia, Mississippi. We were country folk living primarily off the land, and my family had all the agricultural accompaniments, like pigs, cows, chickens and a lot of red clay. As a child and young adult, I constantly came up with ways to get away from the red dirt. I enjoyed math and science in high school, played all sports, and loved being outside to hunt and fish. I was very active in school, and as I progressed, I joined clubs and attended state conventions for different organizations. The state conventions meant traveling to cities I had never been to, and I liked them. They had different foods and nice restaurants and hotels. As a child, I earned money by selling greeting cards, newspapers, and seeds up and down the highway. That continued until the last two summers of high school. Then I lived at a local hotel in Philadelphia and worked there as a waiter and cook. Tell us about your experience earning a bachelor’s degree in Transport and Marketing from the College of Business and Industry at Mississippi State University. Why there, and why that degree? The guy who ran the hotel pushed me to go to college at Mississippi State, but I blew my first year of school there. In the next couple of years, I got married, did my active duty time in the Army National Guard, and attended a junior college. While attending junior college, I worked for the local newspaper until I got a night job as a billing clerk for a trucking company. The business interested me, and the job paid me more money than I had ever made. I tried to learn as much about it as I could. The inspiration for my career in the trucking industry came when executives from other parts of the country visited the terminal where I worked. They were from places such as Chicago, Milwaukee, Indianapolis. They were always very nice to me, worked with the local manager, then went out entertaining customers. I thought, “Why not me?” and began to study transportation. Your career has taken you to many different industries and places, including Asia, Europe, the Middle East and the Americas (North, Central and South). Which ones did you enjoy the most? My favorite was Hong Kong. London is in second place. How has your career benefited you as a general manager? I have been exposed to many concepts, philosophies, products, people and situations. One of my early mentors taught me to reduce all operations to the lowest common denominator. When did you become interested in the dealership industry? I met R. Bruce Deardoff socially. He asked me what I did and said he had a project he would like me to do. I did it, he asked me to do another project, and I did that one, too. Then he asked me if I would be interested in managing the Central Florida Lincoln store in Orlando. Travel wasn’t glamorous anymore, so I said yes. That was seven years ago. Working at the dealership has been wonderful and rewarding in many ways. I enjoy the people, there is always some kind of action in the dealership, and Bruce is a great guy to work for. Please tell us about your mentors. Bruce has been my mentor at the dealership. In the trucking industry, my mentors were Ed Randolph and Al Labinger. In the container business, I learned from Malcolm McLean. He is the father of the containerization industry because he was the first guy to load a truck trailer on a ship. Malcolm was faster with a pencil on numbers than anyone else with a calculator, and his mind seemingly never slept. As you look back on your life, have you experienced an “Aha” moment? What was it? My “aha” moment was when I was a trucking company billing clerk and met the traveling business executives. What are the three most valuable career suggestions you would tell someone you wanted to mentor? I have four: 1. Dream. Have a life goal that makes you happy while you are working on it. GETTING TO KNOW ELLIOTT BURNSIDE of The Central Florida Lincoln Store in Orlando 12 Pub Yr 2 | Issue 2