June 12, 2024

Tonya House has been the owner of Beartooth Ford in Columbus, Montana, for the past 22 years. Her tenacity and drive have made her a trailblazer in this male‑dominated industry.

Ashley Wolfe is a fourth-generation owner and operator of the Wolfe Automotive Group. In an industry historically dominated by men, Ashley is one of only a handful of women who operate an automotive dealership, let alone an automotive group.

The Montana Motor Vehicle Division’s (MVD) implementation of the Credentialing and Registration System (CARS) is part of a multi-phase, multi-year effort to improve customer service and efficiency for Montanans. The first two phases — online scheduling and driver services — have already been rolled out, and the results are incredible. The feedback from the 76,000+ customers is overwhelmingly favorable.

The event that began 28 years ago with Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry has moved into the 80s and 90s with Sugar Ray. McConkey Auction Group announced the iconic international headliner will perform during DAA Northwest’s July 17-18 Rock & Roll Sale. The private event for customers and guests has featured The Doobie Brothers, Heart, Barenaked Ladies, and many more on the DAA Stage.

To see the award winners: https://enter.amcpros.com/marcom/winners/

The battle lines are being drawn across the nation in the ongoing kerfuffle between the OEMs and the dealer body over the use of the dealer’s retail labor time guide for warranty work.
“The bill is going to create hundreds of millions of dollars in costs every single year. That cost is going to get passed on to consumers.”
— David Bright, Alliance For Automotive Innovation, is quoted in a March 29, 2024, New York Focus article by Chris Bragg and Julia Rock about a pending bill allowing the use of the dealer’s retail LTG for warranty work in New York.

Fellow dealers,
During the course of 2023, while serving as NADA vice chairman, I was very fortunate to have gotten the opportunity to visit many states and engage in discussions with many dealers and dealer representatives about both the national and individual state-level issues they were facing.