Have you had any mentors? What did you learn from them? My mentor was my dad. As I’ve tried to bring on a third generation of dealer, I refer to the things my dad did that were good. I remember my dad often saying, “We ride to success or failure on the shoulders of our people.” That is so true. I’ve got people on my staff who are better salesmen than me, who are better at all kinds of things than I am, and in some cases, even smarter than I am. As a dealer and a leader, you’re just a cheerleader and a coordinator. You’re not selling 150 cars; you’re cheering on those who are. When you mentor others, what advice would you share? The most important thing in life is family. The car business is not our life. Our lives are at home and consist of those who look up to us and watch us while we shave and wave goodbye when we get to get in the car to go to work. This job is an engine that helps drive the financial needs of our lives and keeping balance in our lives is vital for the people who are at home. Think about others. We have the opportunity every day to change somebody’s life as we’re dealing with a customer or another employee. We don’t always know what’s going on in their life, and we can turn around a negative circumstance and make things a little bit easier for them by simply doing the right thing. What career accomplishment are you proudest of? We have accomplished a lot over the years. We have won the Nissan Award of Excellence a number of times. But what I’m most proud of in my career is during the financial crisis in 2008 and 2009, we didn’t lay anybody off. And then again, when we had the severe disruption due to COVID, we didn’t lay anybody off. We struggled, and it was tough, but our goal was to take care of our people, they are our work family. Their families are counting on them, and we were committed to not letting them down. Any last thoughts? There is strength in numbers for GADA, and everybody needs to participate. We have a lot of members, but we need a lot of active members. When members are active and engaged, the more input we have, and that broadens the base. That is where we find success. Bo and his wife, Kristina, have three amazing adult children: Holden, Clayton and Abbi. They have nine adventurous grandchildren. Bo and Kristina enjoy playing with their grandchildren on Tybee Island and making magical memories with them at Walt Disney World Resort in Florida. 9 THE GENERATOR
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