The Car Dealer Who Caddied for Presidents and Sold Everything to Save the Business

If you have a home in Florida, a lake cottage, you sell everything. You do everything you can to generate as much cash as possible to survive. That's going to be a time where unless you [music] are convicted and unless you find the passion, you're going to give up. We're going to run down the fairway board the president of United States. And I don't know who the hell you are, but you must be one hell of a caddy. You also ended up getting into [music] Indy Car.

Yeah. How did that story transpire? From South Bend to Evansville and everywhere in between, this is Get In, the show focused on the Hooser State and the incredible stories happening here today. I'm Nate Spangle, founder of Get Indiana, and I will be your host for today's conversation. Before we dive into today's episode, a quick shout out to our friends at NCW, the team that's been building one of the fastest growing staffing and recruiting companies in America for over 25 years. They specialize [music] in the skilled trades.

But here's the thing, they're also growing their own internal team. If you or someone you know is interested in recruiting, sales, or just making businesses run smoother, you'll want to check them out at teamncw. com. [music] This isn't just another job pitch. NCW has been voted a top workplace by the indie star, landed on the IBJ Fast25 list, and made the Inc. 5000 list multiple times.

I'll tell you, I've got plenty of friends who work there and they all love it. Go check out teamncw. com. Now, let's get into the episode. My guest today is Tom Kelley, and he is the president of Kelley Automotive Group, a family-owned dealership business founded in 1952 by his father, Jim Kelley. He joined the company in 1974 after earning a business degree from IU Bloomington.

And he [music] has helped grow Kelley Automotive Group into a multi-brand regional leader, and under his leadership, the company has maintained a strong focus on service, community involvement, and long-term employee relationships. I'm so excited to dive into all the stories. I mean, we've been h hanging out here for like 15 minutes and I've already heard about taking a helicopter into the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on race day. I've heard about caddying for George Bush Senior and like all sorts of crazy stuff. And again, I've only known you for exactly 13 minutes and 5 seconds. So, I'm excited to see where this conversation takes us.

Tom, welcome to the show. Thanks, Nate. I really appreciate it. I love what you do for Indiana. Thank you very much. Uh, I was going to say we've had two, again, we've had two, uh, guests from Fort Wayne, both avid fans of helicopters.

So, this is going to be a fun conversation. Obviously, you and and Chuck Surak, uh, both done incredible things in the Fort Wayne, northeastern Indiana, like kind of corridor up there, and I'm excited. This whole journey started in 1952 on your birthday. Actually, your first your the day of your birth was born. like not like your birthday, the day of your birth in 1952 when your dad opened his first dealership. Right.

So my dad was uh a flight instructor during World War II and so he could not go to the go to fight in the European theater because he was working for the Air Force. He was too too important teaching guys to fly and he also worked at GE in Fort Wayne as a toolmaker. So he started a flying business after World War II and uh there was a guy in Indianapolis by the name of John Ramp who was a Dodge dealer and John called my dad and said I got to go to Detroit for a meeting. So my dad flies down to pick him up and as they're flying over Fort Wayne, this would have been probably June of 52. He said hey by the way this Dodge dealership in Fort Wayne's available you can buy the whole thing for $25,000. And uh he said you could do that.

You'd have no problem being a car dealer. So they meet the Dodge guy in Detroit that day and he says, "Okay, Jim, I'll just approve you right now. Go buy it." So my dad bought this Dodge store in Fort Wayne, knowing nothing about the business. He's signing the paperwork and my [snorts] mom's up in Michigan somewhere on vacation. Said he called him up and said, "Hey, my water broke.

My baby's coming a month early. I guess I've been impatient my whole life, right?" So he flies up and picks her up after he signed the papers and flew her back to Fort Wayne in the afternoon. I was born at Lutheran Hospital. So, I mean, I got exposed to the car business and flying the day I was born. Wait, your dad signs the paperwork to be to buy or just Yeah.

buy his first dealership in the day that you're burn born in Detroit in Fort Wayne. He signed the paperwork in Fort Wayne. He signed the paperwork in Fort Wayne. Flew then to Michigan, picked my mom up and then brought her back to Fort Wayne. Fort Wayne and I was born that afternoon. So, his sister Ruth was a nurse.

So, he said, "You better come with me just in case." So, She went with him and they got back and my dad says there's no way you're going to be born in Michigan, be born in Indiana. So, so your mom's water broke and then he gets her into the plane. [laughter] Oh my god. Hang on. I'd have that thing.

I don't know if planes have like a gas pedal, but I would have that thing through the floor. Holy smokes. Okay, so then you grew up in Fort Wayne. You go to IU Bloomington, get a business degree, and was it the same year? Did you immediately join the family business? So, I uh I played golf in in college and uh I had some tournaments that I'd qualified for and he said, "Look, you can play those."

And I started August 23rd, 1974. So, I played golf. I for a couple months. Now, in the summers, I normally would work for my dad either at the dealerships, golf courses, whatever. Uh but he gave me those two months cuz we'd won the Big 10 championship and we did well in the NCAA's and so I personally qualified for some in tournaments I went to play in. Were you like on the cusp of potentially like being able to go pro or like get on the like on the actual tour?

You know, uh back in those days, uh there was a guy in Indianapolis, a good friend of my dad's, Ed Pelweiler. He owned the Cadillac store here in Indianapolis, and he was a great golfer. And I was at a junior tournament, uh maybe the summer before I graduated from college. And Ed just went through why it's it there's a lot of options other than being a professional golfer. Because back then, a professional golfer traveled every week. They made maybe a $100,000 a year and it was not not the life you see today with private jets and trainers and you know all these people like with uh with Bryson like chipping balls over his house for like a million dollars a day.

So uh he just said you know my dad said you got a bright future in the car business. You could play golf. You could play golf at your choice with some tournaments but why don't you stay in the car business? And so I did and uh I'm glad I did because I've enjoyed it. I've got to play, you know, US amateurs, British amateurs overseas. As I said, I've got to meet some really interesting people through golf.

And so, I'm really glad I chose the career path I did. I mean, especially this would have been the 70s, the 80s, the not like I mean, even today, lots of business gets done on a golf course. So, like knowing your way around a set of clubs never hurts, you know? The biggest thing I think it does for you is that it gives you an entree to people that are usually fairly successful. Because if you go to a meeting like uh one of the times I got to play with George Bush, I was at a Buick meeting and uh I was the best golfer of all the Buick dealers in the country at the time and they said, "Hey, we'd like you to play with George Bush in this little golf game you're going to have this afternoon." And and I'd already met him, but I got to play with him again because of that relationship.

And you know, I can't that Bobby Knight used to call me all the time cuz I got to know Bobby. I was at IU and I think I might have been a sophomore and we're on the first te going to play a practice round or whatever at the IU golf course and here comes this huge guy in this floppy hat. Hey boys, I'd like to play with you today. I said, "Okay, you know, looked up at this guy's like 280 and 66." He goes, I'm Bob Knight. I'm the new basketball coach here and I want to play golf with you guys.

So we play and after about four holes, he's over there all pissed off. You know, he weighs 150 pounds more than any of us, but yeah, we're all out driving him by about 100 yards, right? and damn it, I want to hit the ball further and this and that, whatever. But that's how I got to know Bob Knight. So, he would call me up and say, "Hey, uh, can you and your airplane go pheasant hunting this weekend in South Dakota?" I said, "Sure, coach.

Where do you want to go?" We would we would go feasant hunting. No way. And, uh, he'd have a couple days off between practices and we'd find a spot and go and, uh, I had a lot of fun with coach. He played golf with him quite a bit. Um and uh just a really interesting interesting guy to get to know as a friend because he would talk about a lot of stuff that was really cool and the discipline in life and you know you could take some of those lessons and you know forget some of you know nobody's perfect right but you take some of those life lessons a guy like Bobby Knight talks about discipline and sticking to your game plan and not wavering.

You get down by 10 points you don't start throwing it up from outside the three-point line. Right. Well it's true in business. I mean, you know, you have a bad month, a couple bad months, you want to do crazy stuff and you go, "No, I'm gonna stick to my game plan. Stick to what I how what got me here." And that's one of the things I learned from Bob Knight was, you know, discipline and stick to your game plan.

Well, you talk about, you know, the the tough times, you know, we're going to get to it later in the show, like the GM bankruptcy and like there were a few tough times to be in the automotive business, trust me. And, you know, being able to like weather the storm, stick to your game plan. I'm excited to get to that a little bit later in the show, but I want to know when you joined the business, what was the size and the scope of it in 1974 when you joined your family business? So, what's interesting back in those days, the manufacturers, the domestic manufacturers still were sort of king Kong in the United States, right? And they would not let you own other dealerships. So, we had a Buick store in Fort Wayne that did very well, but we couldn't go buy a Chevy store.

Now, we could buy a Ford or a Dodge or whatever. Um, wait, explain that. So GM would not let you buy another GM store. Now I'm not saying that's legal, but that was their policy back in the ' 50s, '60s,7s. Huh? And so finally in about 82 or three, they relaxed those rules.

And why didn't they want you to have another GM? They were afraid dealers would become too uh too big, too have too much power. They love being able to tell you, you're going to do this, okay, you're going to do this, okay? So when groups get as big as they are today, the manufacturers can't really tell Roger Pensky or some of these people, hey, you're going to do it this way. No, we're not. We're going to do it this way.

Now, they follow the rules and they do the right stuff, but still, uh, the big auto groups have a lot of sway in what goes on in the automobile business. Wow. Okay. So, they start to relax those rules in the 80s. So, you had the Buick dealership in ' 74. That was the only one.

Yep. Until about 1983. My dad had uh actually in 1959 uh the Chevy dealer in Fort Wayne Ray Beater got killed in a car wreck. And so my dad went over his widow called my dad and said, "Hey, would you buy our store? I need somebody to come." So my dad went over to buy it and it take a manager by the name of Bill Hefner.

And General Motors called said, "You can't do that. You can't have more than one store." So he helped this Bill Hefner guy buy the store. Uh and then in 1982 roughly, he called me up and said, "Hey, I want to talk to you." And he go, "This guy, I'm scared. Like this guy's really big and powerful, important."

He goes, "I want to sell you my store." You know, your dad helped me get it. My only son passed away, so I have nobody to leave the store to. So, one thing led to another, and my dad ended up buying the Chevy store, and I ended up getting the Buick store. He said, "Do you mind if we swap these?" I said, "Dad, I don't have two nickels to rub together.

I'll take whatever I can get." Right? So, I bought the Buick store and he took the Chevy store. And then we started growing the business from that point on. But that's when they sort of relaxed those those rules. Okay.

So, what does the business of growing dealerships and bringing on new territories and different manufacturers and brands like? How do you even start to think about like Chevy versus Buick versus Pontiac versus Saturn versus whatever and where to put them like geographically where to to have stores? So, in a market like Fort Wayne, you want to try to add brands that don't totally cannibalize your current brand, right? So, we have Chevy, Buick, GMC, and Cadillac. And mainly because uh we have all the GM brands because there's a big GM truck plant in Fort Wayne. So GM is a critical player in in our Fort Wayne market.

And then we've added uh BMW, Mini, we've added Vavo, we've added Jaguar, Land Rover, we've added Ford and Dodge because we have a fairly big fleet business. And you know GM may say during CO especially, hey, we don't have the 200 trucks a month you need. We so we had to get Fords or Dodges. We had to go anywhere we could. So, we have those brands primarily because of our big fleet business. We do about 6,000 fleet units a year.

Oh, wow. Uh so, it's important to have the the options, but in a market like that, you want to grow intelligently. Now, if you want to grow outside of Fort Wayne one, you're going to need the people to run the stores. So, you have to have what I want to call sort of a bench. You have a little bit of a war chest so you can go out and do these. Yeah.

And you have to have a game plan. And and you know, if we came to Indianapolis, for instance, we would eventually want more than just one store, right? You want to have enough stores that you can sort of share some costs and share some expertise and share people. Well, you did grow outside of Fort Wayne through the '9s and 2000s, right? Like where where was the largest geographic spread that you guys, you know, Atlanta? So, we we had uh two different Buick stores in Atlanta.

We had Saab in Atlanta. We had Saturn in Atlanta. We had like six stores there. Why Atlanta? That was just a guy called me one day and said, "Hey, I'm getting ready." Now, back in these days, Buick was still a very strong brand.

Uh he called me said, "I want to sell my Buick store. Come down here and talk to me." So, I went down there and talked to him and you know, in 10 minutes, I said, "Okay, we'll buy it." Um, so then 10 minutes. Yeah. I I mean, you know, my dad, like I said earlier, my dad's favorite expression was, "If you're going to make a mistake, don't waste all day doing it, right?"

So, we did that and then uh Saab came to me. We had Saab in Fort Wayne and did really well with it. and Saab was a good brand back then and said, "Hey, we, you know, we've got a couple Saab dealers that want to get out. They're not doing very good. Will you just take all the Saab stores in Atlanta?" I said, "Sure."

So, we had four Saab stores in Atlanta. And then Saturn came along and we we ended up with three Saturn stores in Atlanta. Well, then fast forward to 2010 and GM decides that, hey, we're going to pull the plug. They did away with all the Saturn stores. So, we lost those three stores. We lost the the three Saab stores we had and we end up with just Buick in Atlanta.

How does that message get relayed to you 2010? Like is this an email? Is this a phone call? Is this like they send a a person? Unfortunately, it all was in the press before I mean we could read it live as you know GM goes through bankruptcy and basically the federal government um and I'm not telling any stories out of school here, but the federal government came in and told the guys at GM that basically we're going to loan you the 50 billion you need, but you're going to do some things that we require. One, you're going to get rid of Hummer.

Uh, we don't like Hummer, it was the Obama administration, it's not green enough. We're we're going to get rid of Saab, Saturn, Pontiac. Um, and even though GM pushed back some and said, you know, those divisions are profitable. They said, "No, we we made that decision. We'll give you the money, but the public are going to demand that you show some pain and your dealer shows some pain in this process." So, that was all public.

And then GM comes along and says, "Okay, you know, we've got these various stores and we're going to give you some pittance like $200,000 to close a store that cost you millions." And we had to just figure our way through it. So like, yeah, what do you like? You go down to Atlanta then to your Saturn or your Saab dealership or whatever it might be and you like walk in and say, "Hey, we got to shut this place down." basically, you know, they knew it was coming because it was public, but you have to go in and say, "Look, we're going to pay you very well to sell the rest of our cars to help us close the store. I mean, you had to spend money to do it correctly.

Otherwise, [clears throat] it just imploded on you right there in the spot." And so, some of the play like Fort Wayne, we had probably 60 employees at Saturn. We were able to repurpose those people to other dealerships, all but about four that wanted to retire. Yeah. So, we said, "Hey, we'll find you a spot in the company some because they were good people." Atlanta, we were able to repurpose some of those people, but unfortunately in Atlanta, we lost more stores than we had.

So, we couldn't, you know, three Saturn stores were probably 250 people. Uh, we didn't have really anywhere to put 250 people. So, it was just tough. And and did you have like in Fort Wayne you have a name and a brand and people know that you're like in Atlanta did you have the same reputation or were you like this outsider Indiana guy like well most by the time we were in Atlanta there were a few people that had been around a long time but a lot of people were newer like there'd been Penske had started to come into Atlanta and buy BMW stores or other people coming into Atlanta so it wasn't like the family businesses were all there for the last 60 70 years. Fort Wayne, you know, we rallied the circled the wagons basically and and uh worked with the banks and got through it and it was not easy. Uh we had to really, you know, figure out what to save and what not to save, but we got through it.

We had some great employees that stuck with us. So, yeah. And you were in Atlanta and then were you in other markets as well? Clearwater, Florida. And prior to 2010, I had a partner who had brought from Fort Wayne and uh made him an option to buy the stores over a period of time. So, eventually we exited out of Clearwater.

Mhm. Uh, we were in a small town [clears throat] called Miami, Miami, Oklahoma. We exited out of there. Why, you know, that's a dang good question. Um, [laughter] I don't know why we bought that store, but um, you said one store in Oklahoma. We had we ended up with a couple in the small town and, uh, one of we had a Toyota store there.

We bought Toyota thinking that would help us some other Toyota stores. Well, at the end of the day, it didn't. So, we exited there. Uh but when my father passed away in '05, I really had to, you know, concentrate our efforts on the stores that that I owned and help get rid of some of the ones he owned. And that was just a interesting lesson in how to transition through a very tough time. Yeah.

What that always does interest me from the side of you're kind of I mean you're grieving, you're going through a big life and personal change and then all of a sudden you have whether it be lawyers or business people or employees asking like hey what's going on here? Do you have any siblings? I have [clears throat] two sisters, two older sisters that were not in the car business. Yeah. But you know my dad had other assets as well. So I was the executive of the state and I had to go through and say, "Okay, how do we how do we save the businesses like our Chevy store, my dad most of that, Kelley Chevrolet, a store in Decator, Indiana.

How do we save those?" We had three golf courses. Um what's our game plan? Because I can't, you know, logistically save everything with we had to sell some business. So we had to sell the golf courses eventually. We built the Sycamore Hills Golf Club in Fort Wayne and Nicholas Golf Course.

So, I got some guys to help me stabilize that and then eventually found uh some friends of mine that had sold their business and they bought it which turned out really well and I sold the two public courses we owned to various people. But I mean it was you spend 75% of your time dealing with these estate issues that if you know estate laws were perhaps a little bit more lenient. It wouldn't take as much of your time. Yeah. It took a [clears throat] full-time job to like sort all sort through all that. My question is on the economics of car dealerships, right?

How does like if you were to explain to me because it's not like you go out and have to have okay, let's say you put I don't know how many what's the average amount of cars on a lot at a time. It depends on the volume. So if you have a store like our Buick GMC store will sell 150 to 250 cars a month. You're going to have probably 400 3 to 400 new vehicles. We have across the lineup, we have about a,000 new vehicles in inventory at any one time. At any one time and probably, you know, 7 or 800 used vehicles at any time.

Okay. So, let's just say you have 300 cars on the lot at a random dealership. Like, do you have to come in and like get financing and you know, like like how does that whole thing work? If I wanted to start a car dealership tomorrow, so you have to have a bank that's certified by the manufacturers to do what they call floor plan. So, you'll go in and say, "Okay, we're going to need 50 million hundred million dollars worth of floor plan of cars. Yes.

And they will they will they will give you a note that says, "Okay, your Buick GMC store gets this much, your Chevy store gets this much, each store gets this much, but we'll blend them to some extent if if one goes over or under." And so you I mean you have at any given time, you know, $und00 million worth of cars. And even if you had the cash to pay for those cars, they still require a bank to wire them the money. The minute they send you an invoice before you get the car, you have to pay for it. So, you're paying for all those cars in advance. Um, and so some of the cars, you know, some we don't floor plan our whole inventory, but you have to have the bank pay for each cars that comes off the line.

So, your used cars normally you own those, right? Those are in your inventory. But again, you have millions of dollars tied up in used cars and you want to make sure you move those and sell those and turn those over. Yeah. Well, that's like the age-old like wives tale kind of of finding the sweet spot of like how long you've been sitting on it. It's like if they've if they've had this car on the lot for 21 days like they have to sell it today or they're losing.

Like is there is there substance? Is there truth to any? We in the beauty of today's internet, right, we can pretty much tell what any car market value is based on on all the metrics of the car. We can search if you have a six-year-old Chevy Malibu for [clears throat] you can search within 150 miles, there's 600 of them for sale. Yeah. Your cousin Kelley, you know, started the blue book, right?

Well, I wish. Right. Um wish it was my nephew or whoever, right? So I get the money. But um so you can pretty much tell what you'll sell the car for, right? So every week we look at the pricing of every used car and we go through and say what's the market value of that car and price it at that number because it doesn't matter what you have in it.

You're only going to sell it if you have it priced right. Especially with the internet where people can just look through all the inventory. You're not going to fool anybody anymore. It used to be when I got in the business, you might have a car in your lot and four blocks away there's one just like it and they're priced $1,000 different because nobody knows any better. We don't know any better. They don't know any better.

But today with the internet, it's very transparent and I like that. It keeps it keeps it it helps the consumer make better decisions. I was going to say if a consumer out there was cuz I will say buying your first car from a dealer, it's intimidating, right? like you got to go in there and you got to have your eyes peeled a little bit like where where am I about to get fleece? Where do I start? Right.

Well, that's that's why you know we have tried really hard to maintain the family uh business attitude. So, the very first car I sold in 1974, this couple came in and as I said, my dad worked at General Electric during World War II. These people come in like a four-year-old Buick and they said, "Hey, we worked to your dad during World War II at GE. we want to buy a new Buick. So, we went out and walked the lot and picked out a car. We test drove it and they came back and looked at each other said, "Okay, we'll take it."

They go, "Well, I haven't given No, we trust your dad. I haven't given any numbers. I think no, we trust your dad. He'll make us a fair deal." So, I went to my dad and he was walking around doing something. I said, "Hey, the Smiths or whoever here and oh yeah, I know them."

And he said, "Here's what the car is worth. Here's what we need to make. Here's the discount." And he hands me the sheet of paper. And of course, I went to leave and he didn't let go of the paper. And he I looked him right in the eye and he said, "Tom, if you just treat every customer as if they are your best friend, you'll be okay.

You don't need any fancy calculations." He said, "You'll sell a lot more cars in your lifetime if you treat everybody fairly." He said, "I never want a widow who's 70 years old wanting to buy a new car to come in and have to bring her son-in-law with her. I never want some gal that just graduated college, she's going to buy her first car. I don't want her to have to bring her dad or her boyfriend in to make sure she gets a fair deal." said, "When we've done that, we've succeeded as a business."

Because there is that, you know, uh, stereotype of the used car salesman, right? Throw the keys on the roof of the building, you know, whatever, and do all that crazy stuff, the slick back hair, the whole nine yards. Um, so I do appreciate that, especially, you know, if you come in there and are genuine, and I think people can tell, especially today, you can tell if someone is genuine and like it will not take advantage of you. And then, you know, 5 7 8 12 years, however long it is, when you need another new car, you're going to remember, oh yeah, it was an easy experience. I felt like I paid a fair price for a good vehicle. Like the whole nine yards there.

Repeat business is the lifeblood of our business and referrals. So, you can't ever sell somebody a car and try to, you know, do whatever you do to them so that they never come by their car from you. You know, you might get away with that in Atlanta or New York or some humongous market, but we can't do that in Fort Wayne. I mean, I I give people my business card with my cell phone on. I said, "If you need to call me, you call me. Now, if they call me, I'm going to fix the problem, whatever it is."

So, I tell everybody at our dealership, fix it at the first potential time to fix it because it's the easiest time to to take care of a problem. Yeah. Uh and in Fort Wayne, you can do that. I mean, I know majority of our customers, I've either met them or or know their relatives or their friends, whoever sent them in, and I think probably 80 85% of our business is repeated referral business. Yeah. I mean, incredible.

So while you were, you know, building, you guys were going to Atlanta or Clearwater and Oklahoma and small towns. You also ended up getting into Indy Car. Yeah. How did that story transpire? So been in the aviation business all my life and Tony George and I have been friends since he was probably 12 or 13 because his grandpa Tony Hullman was a good friend of my fathers and Tony would come up and play in a golf tournament in Fort Wayne and he brought Tony with him a couple times. So, I would hang out with Tony while my dad and Tony Hullman were playing golf and we became good friends.

And so, in 90 I'm going to say the this would have been probably the fall of 96, Tony says, "Hey, I'm looking at buying a new airplane, a Citation 10, and I'm going to go fly to San Diego to look at this guy by the name of Billy Boat who's running Silver Crown races. Maybe want to come to Indy Car. You want to go along?" I said, "Sure, I'll go along." So, I ride with Tony out there. We watch Billy.

We hang out for three or four days. On the way back on the airplane, Tony says, "Hey, I need a favor." I go, "What?" He goes, "Well, I'm trying to help Riley and Scott get in foothold in Indy Car building cars and I need somebody to front it for me. I don't want to front everything." So, he said, "Would you consider buying three cars and I'll make sure you don't get killed on them and all this stuff?"

I said, "How much are those?" He said, "They're probably 200,000 a piece." Said, "Okay, I'll I'll help you do that." So, I agree to buy these three cars that aren't even built yet. And uh we have this press conference and so you know we have these three cars coming with no intent to do anything right like you just are buy like it's not like you're going to race you're just three chassis I'm buying three chassis and what I'm going to do with them we have no idea right but we're going to do something with them but they aren't going to be here for a year or whatever but anyways uh I had grown up being great friends with Scott Braden and [clears throat] I knew his dad really well Lee and so Lee called me in like March of 97 and says hey you got these cars coming. You know, you're probably going to need an engine or two cuz you can't sell a car without an engine.

And back then, you just bought engines from either Chevy or Nissan or whoever. I said, "Okay." He said, "Well, why don't you order two engines?" Said, "Fine. I ordered two engines." Well, as we get closer to Indie, there's a huge engine shortage cuz they're blowing up all the time.

And so, this guy calls me and says, "Hey, I got a Delara chassis and you've got an engine that might be here by Indie. You want to try to put something together?" I said, "Well, sure. Why not?" you know, and so um we we ended up partnering with PDM Racing, Paul Dialovich, and uh we're going to try to run a car and Mark Disore called me one day and said, "Hey, I'd love to try to run that car for you." He said, "Fine, let's try to put something together."

And I never forget, we all met at Rick's Boatyard Cafe. We flew into Eagle Creek Airport and my dad's sitting there with Paul and Mark and everybody in this little project of ours to run Indie Only. And dad goes, "You guys can do this, but it better not cost me a 100red or 200 grand by the time you're all done." So I said, "Sure, no problem." So we ran Indie and uh Mark got taken out by Steve Kzer, but we had a pretty good showing. And uh then we said, "Well, we might as well go to Texas."

Well, then we went to Texas and then we ran the rest of the season. And then my dad was sort of always gave me a hard time about the Indy Car program, but he loved it as well. So then we decided, okay, we're going to do this full-time. So Delko at the time uh approached me cuz we're GM dealer and I knew the guy ran Delko and then it became Deli said, "Hey, we'd like to have you sponsor. We'd like to sponsor a car with you and we've sort of picked out Scott Sharp to be a driver." So Scott drove the Deli car and then I found sponsorship for Mark.

And so we ran Mark and Scott 98, 99, 2000 all the way up and then 2004 my dad got sick. And I told Tony, I said, "Tony, I got, you know, I'm running 18 races a year. I'm gone. my dad's got some issues. I've got to start running my business. And Tony says, "Okay."

He said, "I'll buy your team." He said, "You've done a lot for the Rit League." So, in end of 04 season, Tony bought Kelley Racing and started Ed Carpenter Racing. He bought bought our shop on Kaufman Road, bought our cars, bought our pit equipment, bought our buses, he bought everything. Um, and uh so Tony took that over. I mean, and I've missed it.

I mean, there's nothing like running Indie. Uh I I wasn't thrilled to go to Nashville sometimes and some of these other places. Nashville though was Was it at the Super Speedway or was it downtown? It was the Super Speedway. Okay. Yeah, it was an oval.

We just had we just had Christian Lunard and he was talking about when they ran Nashville like the GP through the streets and it's like that one is pretty like right down Broadway is sick. Yeah. And I think they're going to try to do that. For some reason it didn't get done this year so they had to run the oval. I went down there at Labor Day for that race. But um anyways, you know, we had a lot of fun doing it and uh but I just had to attend a business and then my dad died in '05.

So I I was busy and I wouldn't have had time to I mean yeah, guys like Chip Ganassie and some of these that's their full-time business. Now Roger is unique. In fact, I just saw Roger earlier this week, Monday at a Jaguar Land Rover meeting in Chicago and Roger phenomenal. I said, "Roger, when I'm 87, I'm not going to these meetings. I can promise you that." But Roger's there.

He's 87. I think he is. Yeah. and but he looks I mean he's he's sharp, he's amazing and uh you know Roger's one of the few guys that have really run a worldwide business and racing but racing has been what got Roger where he's at that made him famous right and he's done a phenomenal job of leverage le leveraging that but I had a great I met a lot of cool people I became friends with a lot of neat people because of racing had a lot of fun learned a lot I mean if I could go back and do it again I' i' you know you need somebody to run the team that really is phenomenal to to do the stuff cuz I can't be there every day. I'm, you know, like an almost an absentee owner. What was your uh what was your guys' best finish at Indie?

You know, we should have won at 01 when we had the poll. Uh we had every car covered that year and unfortunately Scott crashed the first lap and Mark was leading with about 50 laps to go and a gearbox failed. You talk about the agony of thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. Oh my god. Where would you be at during the in the pavilion? In the pit box?

No, I was in the pit box. I was calling So I called Mark's races for about the first couple years. What do you mean call? I would I would talk to the engineers and I'd say, "Okay, we're going to pit on this lap. We're going to do this. We're going to How are you?

How do you know when to pit?" Cuz I' been being told that I have guys right beside me and said, "We're got fuel for this many more laps." No way. Or the car would not be great. And you would have to uh make changes to it. So, but you tried not to pit at Indie until you needed fuel.

that just uh the tires would last, you know, a little longer than a fuel stent, which is like 30 laps depending on what when you're running what year. Uh so you would try to manage that and you'd try to make minute changes to make the car better and better and better through every pit stop. Yeah. But I would be the one now it's usually uh like one of the team managers does it. Some of the owners still do it, but like Chip doesn't do it. I don't think Roger does it anymore, but back then we did it.

We called the race. That's pretty sick. I I think we did that because nobody else wanted to assume the responsibility if they made a mistake and cost us the race. Looking for a new place to call home? JC Hart Company has been helping Hoosiers find their perfect fit for 50 years. From Hamilton County to downtown Indie to Bloomington and everywhere in between, they've got over 30 communities, plus seven brand new luxury spots.

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[music] Clearly seems like you found yourself in some interesting [clears throat] places from playing golf with the president to in the pit box of a of an Indy car at the Indianapolis 500 calling the race. Like where in this crazy journey have there is there a moment that sticks out where you just like looked around and thought like how in the heck did a car salesman from Fort Wayne, Indiana end up here? I might have told earlier the story about getting to know George Bush and and playing golf with him. I mean, you know, and then he called me after I got to know him well. He called me after he was out of office and he said, "Uh, I need to buy a new Suburban." This was Valentine's Day night, so February of like 94, I'm going to say.

And he said, "Uh, tomorrow I wish you were cing for me tomorrow." And I go, "What are you doing tomorrow?" And he says, "Well, I'm gonna I Bob Hope has been bugging me. So, I finally agreed to go play in the Bob Hope Desert Classic with him, sitting President Bill Clinton, Gerald Ford, and uh Bob Hope and then Scott Hook was the defending champion who I knew well. And I said, "Well, I'll fly out there and meet you." And he goes, "Well, let me call you back."

So, he called me back and said, "You got to be at the airport at 8:30 Palm Springs time, so you can write in with me otherwise, it's going to be really complicated because there's all the security." So, I called the airport and our lur jet was gone on a trip. side, take a King Air, which is slower, [clears throat] and I had to stop in Pueblo, Colorado for fuel. So, I called my assistant. I said, "Hey, I'm going to be about 45 minutes late." And whatever happens happens, but I'm a I'm a soldier on.

So, I land and this California patrol car pulls up in front of the airplane. This guy gets out, looks like a drill sergeant, right? He's about 50 burr haircut, tougher nails. Are you Mr. Kelley? Get in.

You know, so forth. So, we're driving to the golf course and we're doing like a 100. We're passing all these people. and he looked over at me and he said, "I don't know who the hell you are, but you must be one hell of a caddy." [laughter] That's crazy. So then we get to the golf course and this Secret Service agent, female, grabs my hand and says, "Under no circumstances, let go of my hand cuz we're going to run down the fairway toward the president of United States and that would not work well if you let go of my hand."

So Fuzzy Zeller's on the team. I've known Fuzzy forever. And Fuzzy goes, "Tom Kelley, what are you doing here, son? Caddy." And he goes, "Well, that's below your pay grade. I'll never forget that."

So anyways, we run down the fairway and I get with Bush and meet President Clinton and President Ford and Bob Hope and everybody and we're playing and Bush notoriously never hit enough club on a hole. So on this par three, I think it was like number seven or whatever, he and I are arguing about what club to hit. And I finally just said, "You're going to hit a seven iron, not an eight iron. Here's a seven iron." He goes, "Okay." So he hits a seven and somehow he's like a 20 handicapper.

He pulled off this great shot and there's 100,000 people there and they're all screaming and hollering and all this. And so Clinton looks over at me, says, "Well, Tom, what should I hit?" And I look at Bush and Bush Bush goes, "He is the president. I would help him if I were you." So, but then afterwards, I as as I might have said, we're sitting in the locker room, me, George Bush, Bill Clinton, Gerald Ford, and Bob Hope, and we're all having a beer. And Bush says she just can't take any pictures.

I would love to had a picture of that. I mean, that's like one of those iconic shots, too. But but a mental picture. It was amazing. I mean, here I am with the you the power most powerful person in the world and two guys that used to be the most powerful people in the world and Bob Hope who was my dad's idol, right? And I'm just but I'm just like one of the guys having a beer.

Hey, that was a great round this and that, whatever. And never said anything about, hey, what'd you do this? What do you think about this or that? Nothing political. We just talked about golf and you know. Well, and I'm sure they appreciate like getting to have like a normal friendship or a normal conversation, you know, and not talk about work.

Like sometimes it's just nice to talk about golf and drink a beer and hang out. Well, you know, the the former presidents have some life, right? But if you're president, you have no life, right? I mean, there is never a moment and and those some of those moments have been exposed, I guess, unfortunately, for some of these guys. But there's never really a moment when you can just sort of let your hair down and just be a normal person. I mean, there's somebody watching you 24 hours a day.

I know. Like I literally before this I just saw a tweet that came out uh which I mean this might be a little controversial or whatever but mayor of Indianapolis Hogset uh was like leaving the liquor store with like like just picking up some booze and people are like filming him getting into his like month of May Corvette like indy car all decked out and like there's already all that drama and it's like anywhere you go you can't just like walk into a place and be norm like and that's just the mayor of Indianapolis let alone the president of the United States. Like I always think about imagine someone like Caitlyn Clark if you loved jogging and like when you were you know when she was in undergrad or maybe she was in high school like you could go out for a five mile run somewhere and be totally fine. Now it's like you can't get on the Mon Trail and run through Caramel like there's just no chance you won't get swarmed.

That would be tough. Well, and I see it, you know, having been a golfer, I see it with guys like Rory and Tiger and and all that. And, you know, when Jack and Arie and these guys played that that there was no social media, right? So, they people didn't follow your life 24/7. Well, today everything is on the front page. Yeah.

And and I could see why some people would would retire and get out of the sport at some point and want privacy or you like Tiger says, "I don't want a driver cuz I don't I I want my life private." Well, whatever. That seems like a bad idea. Yeah, trust me. [laughter] Oh, well, I do want to talk a little bit about Okay. This this stretch you had from, you know, you talk about when your dad gets sick in ' 04 and then through the stretch in 2010 when GM files bankrupt.

Like that seems like a pretty defining decade in the Kelley Automotive Group history. You think about, you know, you have to get out of Indy car, you have to focus on the business, and you know, your mentor, your father is no longer around to help out there. How did that stretch go? And and like, how did you guys make it through? Were there times you thought like, "Oh gosh, I don't know how we're going to do this." Do you think about giving up?

No, that was not an option. Um, I was going to go down in flames if I had to. But what one thing that that you know my dad had taught me was that when you have a problem, you don't stick your head in the sand and try to ignore it and hope it goes away. You react, right? And so the first thing that we started to do is, you know, I had some houses and some things. I sold everything to generate cash to try to save off, you know, any issues, right?

And I had employees that would come to me and say, "Hey, I don't need four weeks vacation. I'll work an extra two weeks just to help out." out and I had customers call me and say, "Hey, would it help if I bought a new car?" I mean, it was amazing and it was very tough. And this is like in 2010. This is like 2010, 29, 10, 11, right?

When all the bad stuff happened with GM and we lost all the franchises. I mean, I was dealing with my dad's estate and then that happens and then you have to go to people and say, "Hey, this dealership's going to close." like give us a rough sense cuz you know I uh a lot of the listeners are probably maybe a little bit like they weren't in their formative years when when that was coming around. Like what was the like how would you measure what things were like in before that versus that experience? Like are we talking a 10% 20% decrease? Like what did it look like?

Well, it's like a tsunami because one you never in your wildest dreams would you think that GM would go bankrupt, right? Yeah. That they would take dealerships and just okay we're going to close. I'm not going to say at the time that that's like today that would be like Apple or Facebook or someone like that going bankrupt. You never thought it it was possible, right? And so it it was just traumatic and you know you you see your life flash in front of you so to speak but you know what you you you just say look I am going to do everything I can to save what I can.

Yeah. And we were able to save the key stores and like how many? So, we ended up with the Chevy store, the Buick GMC store, the Cadillac store, the Vavo store, the the store we had in Decar, Indiana, which had uh Buick and Chevy at the time, and Ford. And we got rid of the all the stores in Atlanta. We got rid of the stores in Oklahoma. Prior to that, we'd gotten rid of the stores in in uh Clear Water.

My dad had three golf courses that uh I So, you probably went from 15 to seven or eight, something like that. Yeah. That's a haircut. Well, and also you you get rid of everything that you have of any like if you have a home in Florida, Lake Cottage, you sell everything to move into the cheapest house you can find in Fort Wayne, you do everything you can to generate as much cash as possible to to survive. And you and and I I have the greatest family in the world. They supported me 110%.

and they were there when you needed that backbone that when you're making life-changing decisions and you have to tell somebody that's been with you 20 years that the store they're working at in Atlanta is going to close and you don't have anywhere in Atlanta to move them to. I mean, that is heart-wrenching. But what advice do you have for hard conversations? Be honest and be upfront and don't BS anybody. Just be and and try to have as much empathy and compassion as you can and don't make any decisions that help you and hurt them. In other words, if if there's, you know, money left on the table, I give as much to the employees as we could without going out of business, right?

And try to The last thing you're going to do is say, "Well, I'm going to still live in my $2 million house while you're losing your job." No, you you have to be the first one to make the sacrifices. Yeah. To show to them that you're you sacrifice first. Yep. And you do everything you can to help them and everything you can to help them find another job.

Where was the floor? Like where was the moment where you maybe took a look around? Let's say the was the opposite of playing golf with George Bush. The moment where you were on the floor and you're like, I don't know how it could get any worse than what it is right now. Well, I would have to say about probably right after GM went bankrupt when all the banks were wanting to pull in their line lines of credit that um that we had with banks. We were we were on time.

we were making our payments, but they just decide at that point in time that car dealers weren't their best bet. Okay. So, so they could actually call you and say, "Okay, you know, that $60 million line of credit you have to pay for all those new cars you lot, you got 60 days to pay that off." Things get rough with GM. Obviously, maybe you're not selling as many cars, but you know, in the long run, we're going to sell cars. That's how we'll, you know, pay back whatever it is.

And then all of a sudden if your credit starts to shrink or they call that note, then you don't have the capital to get new cars to sell the cars to make money. So it's like, well, and then here's the other problem. If you lose your financing, totally lose it. The manufacturer can just take the franchise away from you. They can just say, "Okay, you're no longer the Chevy dealer in Fort Wayne." Oh god.

So you have to scramble. So did you get one of those calls where they're like, "Hey, no, but I I wasn't going to let that happen." So we were able to we brought some partners in which is not easy when you own a company for 50 years. And like when you say partners, you know, financial people to come in and buy part of the business. Yeah. So you have to be willing to take a backseat to some people for a while in the business that has your name on it.

Yeah. And eat some humble pie that your dad started. Yep. And so you do but you do what you have to do to survive. You have to survive. You have to Yeah.

Your every breath you have to survive. And so you just go to your people and say, "Look, I'm going to suck it up. I'm going to make as many sacrifices as I possibly can personally. No corporate jets, no helicopters, no anything. And uh get rid of everything and ask that they do the best they can to help the company survive and you'll take care of them." And we did.

You know, we got through it. And uh we're back to where we own the company ourselves now. We were able to expand in Fort Wayne, build some new buildings. But it was I mean it's hard to believe that was you know 16 years ago. Um but we were we went from being virtually broke on paper but we weren't we were still there to where we are today. I mean the the amount of people that rolled their shirt sleeves up in our business the friends like Chuck Surak and people said hey if I can help you I'll help you.

Because you'd always you know if you treat people well right and do the right thing no matter what you're doing in life that comes back at some point. You don't know when. You don't know why. But um and I think it hadn't been for that I wouldn't we wouldn't be here. But we had people step up and say we're gonna help you. We're going to figure it out.

Is that something special about Fort Wayne in particular? It's unique. So what what makes Fort Wayne so unique is there are a group of people like Chuck Surak and other people that care deeply about Fort Wayne. And when we need to get something done, we rally that 10 or 20 people group and say, "Okay, we got to get this done. How do we get this done?" Like it's still small enough that you know a couple dozen people can move mountains in Fort Wayne.

Absolutely. It's big enough that there's a lot going on, right? And that's the sweet spot about sweet spot about Fort Wayne. Maybe even the hidden gem of Fort Wayne is this group of people that that you know that have spent billions on investments in downtown Fort Wayne of their own money that have supported like when we redid the GE project that was a $400 million renovation of the former GE factory and there was a lot of naysayers and we fought that and fought that and fought that and finally got it done. I It's still like you know obviously building more momentum and more steam at electric works but it's sick. I like worked there for a day.

Like I went up there and I was hanging out in Fort Wayne and I went there and worked. It's a really cool spot. That's where my dad worked during the war. No, I I went in the building on the floor where he worked during World War II and it's still there now. It's been remodeled, right? Yeah.

Yeah. But that was just someone's probably selling like a a fancy juice or something. Whatever. Right. But uh a Panera Bread, whatever. But um what's really cool is that I [clears throat] I was able to rally some really cool guys.

as you know, Mark Millet, president of Steel Dynamics, Mark Music Musk, owner of Ruof Mortgage, Chuck Surak, Tim Ash, Ash Brokerage, and myself, and we met with the mayor every week for about 60 days until we got the thing across the goal line. Now, we had state money, federal money, we had all these players, but there was dysfunction and we just kept fighting until we finally got everybody to agree on this, but everybody could agree on something, right? We found the common ground and we got it done. I mean it was the impact of that project. Purdue Fort Wayne uh did an economic impact study and it was 105 million a year in economic impact to Fort Wayne if the if the project got done and it was zero if it didn't get done. 105 million per year for infinity.

I mean that seems like a pretty big pinnacle like legacy project to get to the goal line. It was uh very rewarding. Like I had no money in it, but that was like a rundown part of town, right? Oh, it was it was decrepit. Yeah. And I mean, and and so that's the West Central neighborhood where all the cool homes were built in, you know, 1900, 1920, and these homes are now being revitalized.

People are living downtown. Chuck [clears throat] Surak's building a grocery downtown now, a cool downtown grocery. He's done the Pearl Arts Center. I mean, people want to be downtown now. He is just so interesting. Oh, I love him.

Yeah. He'll just I mean I think that I asked him cuz so after he sold, you know, like that majority stake in in his business, I was like, "What gets you up in the morning?" Like like what do you He's like, "Oh, I have like 21 new ventures from helicopters to grocery stores to the whole nine yards." Like he's just a truly interesting cat. He does not and I truly believe it. Obviously, you know, so I think the last thing that I saw was Sweetwater makes over a billion dollars a year.

like they grew into a huge company. Like he does not care about profits. Like truthfully, he did not seem like a profit money oriented guy. He just seemed like he cared about customer service, like being the most knowledgeable person in the space and profits kind of followed there. What's what's interesting, I have a good friend of mine, Chris Kennedy, [clears throat] who went to high school with my son Jim, and he's in the oh, investment business, let's say, and he knew that Chuck was sort of maybe shopping this company because he didn't know what to do with with it. His kids weren't interested.

And he wanted to sell part of it. And so he said, I think it was perhaps uh Michael Bloomberg's family officer, somebody said, "Hey, we're going to talk to this Chuck Serak guy. We'll let you know how it goes." And they, this guy calls it, "Holy crap." up. He said, "We expected some buffoon from Fort Wayne, Indiana, cuz we all think everybody in Fort Wayne are buffoons."

Uh, and this guy was unbelievable. Before he left, we internally agreed, we got to do this deal. This guy is that good. They were blown away with his knowledge of the business and how to grow it and how to get that extra level of satisfaction to each customer. you go in his business, he's got representatives from every vendor on site that if you're calling in, he'll say, "Nate, hey, hang on. I'm going to hook you up with a Yamaha rep that's sitting here.

You're asking about speakers here. Talk to him right now." And it's amazing. And and who you're talking to is probably a classically trained musician from like Los Angeles or Nashville who the team at Sweetwater convinced to Indiana bags and come to Fort Wayne. Crazy. It is wild.

But but I do think and I'm curious to see Mike Clem. He's also been a guest on the show. So I actually I have three Fort Wayne guests. Mike's also uh been a guest and I'm excited to see you know how they take Sweetwater, you know, into this postchuck era. But like his conviction around what they were doing, incredible. And I mean I've never met anybody that was more knowledgeable and he's not a geek.

He's a little bit because he plays a saxophone, right? I couldn't play a piano with any help in the world. But he is amazing and he knows that business. And yet, as you would say, if you and if he and I were having lunch somewhere, right, you would have no clue the guy's a billionaire or whatever, right? I mean, you would have he never acts like it. He doesn't he comes buy cars from me.

Uh he's got his own uh sweet cars, which he sells high-end cars, but he still buys cars from me just cuz he's my friend. And he goes, "Well, I'll buy a BMW and I'll buy a Range Rover and I'll do this cuz I appreciate what you do for Fort Wayne." I mean, he's just that kind of guy. And I'll call him, say, "Hey, you want to buy this car?" Well, he said, "Do you need to sell it?" I said, "Sort of okay, I'll come buy it."

I mean, it's just that kind of guy. What a guy, Chuck Serak. What What else is special about Fort Wayne? Why do you love Fort Wayne, Indiana so much? Indiana's sort of the crossroads, right? And so, Fort Wayne is sort of that same What's unique about Fort Wayne?

I mean, Fort Wayne is sort of an island by itself. I mean, you got, you know, Toledo's 80 mi away and Chicago's 150, Indy's 120, and we're sort of on this island, but we have a unique um work ethic and ethos about the people that have been successful in Fort Wayne that they want to pay back and they want to reinvest. Like when I Rudy Mahar and I started the Boys and Girls Club 35 years ago and just because I I knew these kids, you know, our dealership was in downtown Fort Wayne. My dad supported the inner city communities. So, I was very familiar with the black community in Fort Wayne and knew everybody and just saw this need for underprivileged kids that need some help. And I I mean never really had anybody say no.

When I said, "Hey, we got to raise $9 million to build this new building." Chuck and I were on the committee and we we would talk about the fact that, you know, nobody really said no. And then uh we got this idea that that kids in in high school really don't have a game plan, right? because, you know, less than half of our kids graduate high school and go to college or have a career pathway. And I said, "That's ridiculous. We need these kids to have a pathway."

So, we started the Jim Kelley Career Pathway Center. And that basically takes every seventh and eighth grader out of Fort Wayne Community Schools, largest school system in the state through a center that shows them potential career opportunities. And it has simulators and and all kind of Oculus classes where they can do simulators on how to weld and how to work on cars and how to do all kinds of cool stuff at trying to give these kids an idea of what you can do when you go to college. So you get out of school and you've got a job, right? We raised we had to raise like $6. 5 million and I made like 10 phone calls and had like $4 million.

And it was amazing the people that said, "Hey, if you think this will work, I'm all in." Well, I mean, a piece of that that is so one, incredible, and two, a lot of um people, you know, maybe they grow up in households where they don't come from skilled labor, they don't come from careers, they come from people who have jobs. So, being able to see what a welder, like getting exposed to what a welder looks like, what a banker or what, like any of these things. And when you have a when you're like have a sight and a mission and a goal now you know what you're chasing versus like wandering aimlessly like okay I'm going to graduate high school and then then life's just going to tell me where I'm supposed to go. I suppose the sad [clears throat] thing is there are great programs where these kids can go like for instance we we initiated a program and we work with IvyTech and now uh we take kids in high school that come to work at Kelley Chevrolet or one of our dealerships as a junior and they work part of the time there and they take classes part of the time and when they graduate high school we hire them as full-time technicians.

These kids are 18, 19 years old and we have since hired we about 25 kids have now half these kids when we met them as juniors did not have driver's licenses because I asked these kids the first time I met the group I said hey you guys need a driver's license to be able to drive cars and this kid looks at me says Mr. Kelley, we never thought we'd be able to afford a car. And I just It's like somebody slapped me across the face and I said, "Are you kidding me?" And so it really awakened me to the need. And these kids are phenomenal. Yeah.

They didn't know what they didn't know. They didn't know that they were going to be good at this. They didn't know that they could make a good living. Yeah. And they'd have no debt. And now, you know, they get out of school and here in a couple years they're they own their own home.

I have an apartment. They've got a car. They help their mom out, you know, with some money from time to time and it changes lives. And so we we working with GM right now at the GM plant to try to get a group of kids coming in so they're prepared to go to work. And believe it or not, I mean, there is not an overwhelming supply of people that want to go to work at places like GM. They just don't they're not qualified.

They're they they aren't educated about it. And so we're working really hard with the companies in Fort Wayne to try to make these opportunities available and show these kids find like the key is finding out what they are passionate about because when I talk to kids in business schools, they say what should I do and this and that and how do I do a business and all that. I said, "Look, whatever you do, you better be really passionate because there will come a time when you run out of money and you want to quit. And there will come a time when you're out of time in a day to get a job done and you want to quit. And unless you're passionate, you'll quit." Yep.

And I'll never forget, and I got to remember, I think it was Bernie Kosar went to University of Miami, transferred to Miami, and he was like the fourth quarterback. He goes to uh the coach and he goes, "Hey, I you know, I'm I don't see a pathway to start. You know, I'm a sophomore and there's three guys, four guys ahead of me." And he goes, "Look, anybody can quit. If you quit right now, you regret the rest of your life, but if you buckle down and work, you will know you gave it your best. And whether you become starting quarterback at Miami or not, you'll know you gave it your best."

Well, he ends up winning two national championships and going to play for the Cleveland Browns because he had this talk with the coach when he was going to quit and the coach said, "No, you don't quit. You give it everything you got." And that changed. I mean, amazing how stories like that you hear those. But you you try to find what these kids in seventh and eighth grade are passionate about and they might have some hidden skill. And I think that there's like an intelligent passion, right?

That's like figuring out whatever the thing that really gets you up off the couch and makes you want to, you know, what work and then what's the business model? Like how are you going to, you know, figure that out? Cuz I mean, a lot of people are passionate about sleeping in until noon. You know, a lot of people are passionate about whatever it is. But you're right, like when times get tough and you're out of money and you're out of favors and you're out of this and you got to sell your house and the car and the whole nine yards, like that's going to be a time where unless you are convicted and unless you find the passion, you're going to give up. And I think that's just that's a great like mic drop at that point of the show.

Holy smokes, this has been so fun. And and you know the other thing you if you read I love audio books about true stories, Sam Walton and everybody, right? And almost anybody that's been successful has failed numerous times before they hit the one thing, right? I mean, FedEx, Fred Smith wrote a paper at Harvard and got an F on the on the FedEx business model. That's Isn't it? Isn't FedEx also the ones that they were like down to 30 grand or whatever.

He went to Vegas, make payroll. He put it all on like roulette or something and got it. That's how he made his payroll to keep the business going. But that's that's the epitome of passionate and don't give up. I love it, man. This is incredible.

We've come to the end of the show where we get to talk all things Indiana. Uh, this question is brought to you by our friends at JC Hart. They're a leader in creating enjoyable living experiences at apartment communities all across Indiana and beyond. Check them out at homejart. com. My question for you, Tom, why do you call Indiana home?

One, I love the people. I love the the people that live in Indiana. They're genuine. I mean, I get people come here from the east coast, west coast, whatever, and say, "Boy, you know, it's amazing." you actually say hi to somebody and they say hi back and the opportunity I think Indiana is a great place that allows without a lot of red tape, you know, a person wants to start a business, they might want to start a podcast, they might want to go in the car business, there's not a lot of barriers to entry. You hit the nail on the head when you said people don't say no.

Like they won't necessarily like it won't be easy. It's not guaranteed, but you don't have a lot of people in your face saying don't do that, you can't do that, blah blah blah. It's like, oh, like good for you. You should go do that. And then as you start to get momentum, people see it and are willing to help. But, you know, if you want to start a business or the podcast, like no one's going to look at you and say, "That's a stupid idea.

You shouldn't do that." They might let you kind of figure it out on your own. And what what was this quote? Yeah. If you're going to fail, if you're going to make a mistake, don't waste all day doing it. Don't waste all day doing it.

Um, I love that. That That's a That's a good mantra to live by. I do have to know best golf course in Indiana and the most under the radar golf course in Indiana. Well, I'm prejudice because my dad and I built Sycammer Hills Golf Club in Fort Wayne. And when we built it, were the ranked number two in the of new courses, only second to Shadow Creek. And I accused Steve Win when I talked to him one time.

I said, "Steve, we don't have gambling. We don't have casinos. We didn't have pretty women in Fort Wayne. That's the only reason you beat us out." Uh, and he laughed. Uh, but I would say, you know, and Crooked Stick's great and uh there's a lot of great golf courses.

Like if you could only play one for the rest of your life. I'd play Sycamore Hills cuz I have I I walked it with Jack when we built it. I It's like a child, right? It's, you know, if you have when push comes to shove, I'm going to defend my kids versus anybody else. So that sycamore is like a kid. Underrated courses.

You know, I tell you, being an indy car fan, owner, whatever, I love the Brickyard because there's nothing like playing that golf course when there's cars going around the track. Um, and when I was an owner and we'd have an event and I'd see the caution come out, I go, "Oh crap, I hope it's not one of my cars." But, um, it it's just unique to be able to play a golf course inside the Nept Speedway. I feel like they start running cars sometimes like in late April they'll have some tests and stuff and it's still not super packed at that point like getting a tea time is still like possible and I think it was last year I had to play on opening day of the brickyard and it's so they were running some cars and I'm like this is so cool you had three holes in the center I know amazing it doesn't matter where you're at the golf course you can hear the cars oh it's so so great must visit spots in Fort Wayne if there were just a few iconic spots to Fort Wayne people are going to visit What do they need to check out?

Well, I think downtown is amazing. The riverfront development. We have three rivers that meet in Fort Wayne. Um, the St. Joe, Mommy, and St. Mary's, and we've we've really spent hundreds of millions of dollars doing that riverfront and making it a great place to congregate.

There's phenomenal restaurants downtown. Is that like the Landing that area? That whole area. But it's huge now. It's big and it's amazing the number of Yeah, we have Ruth Chris. Uh Chuck just opened a Mory, which is a phenomenal authentic Italian restaurant downtown.

There's a lot more like that that are just oneoffs, family-owned entrepreneur running it himself or herself. Uh and I would say a mustave would be visit some of the restaurants in downtown Fort Wayne and the in the riverfront property. It's there's a lot of other cool things to do. We have a great baseball stadium, great team. We have a lot of cool things, but the riverfront is really special because of all the things you can do and not have to drive somewhere. Yeah.

And then after you get like, you know, your your traditional Italian, you know, your authentic Italian food, you can stop by and get a coney dog. Oh, yeah. Coney dog. So, I remember one time my wife and I were on a Sunday afternoon driving through Fort Wayne and she goes, "I want a con dog." Said, "Great." So, we stop in there and I get like eight to go, right?

And I'm on Main Street and I go about six blocks to make a left to go to Jefferson to go back to my dealerships and I'd already eaten five of them. I mean, they're a little moist and you can just slam those things down. And I had five con dogs driving the car and I went through like six stop lights and they're all gone. There you go. I I love that. And one of the oldest restaurants in Indiana, the Oyster Bar.

Yep. Still there. That's one of the top five oldest restaurants. That's right across the street from the Buick store that I started at in 1974. right across the street. There you go.

Unbelievable. And it was probably 100 years old when you started. And it looks it but it's cool. A lot of tradition. I love it. And the red and white chcloths, right?

Yeah. That's how you know it's you know it's classy. If you could wave a magic wand and add one thing to Fort Wayne, what would you add? I would bring the Pistons back to Fort Wayne. So the Zer Pistons were the original basketball team. Fred Zer owned a company made Pistons and so he started the NBA was started in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

He had a guy uh that worked for him that Carl Bennett that organized the first the NBA as it is today in Fort Wayne, Indiana. And the Pistons were one of those original teams. The Minneapolis Lakers, right? The George Mikin. I don't remember all the other teams, but they played their first games in North Side High School Stadium. And in the late 50s, they built the Coliseum in Fort Wayne for the Pistons.

And then when TV came out, they had to move them to Detroit. But if I could do one thing, I would bring the Fort Wayne Pistons back to Fort Wayne. Wait, the first NBA games. Wow. 1948, 1949, when the Fort Wayne Pistons owner, Fred Zer, Zner, brokered the merger of the Basketball Association of America and the National Basketball League. Wow.

in Fort Wayne. This the the crucial secret negotiations of this merger took place at the kitchen table of former Pistons executive Carl Bennett. Yeah. At 2920 Alexander Street in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The NBA was formed in Fort Wayne, Indiana. No way.

And isn't the first professional baseball game also in Fort Wayne? First night baseball game in Fort Wayne. Yeah. Well, and the what is the um Kikiangas? Maybe. The Kikiangas.

Yeah. Yeah. Uh so Shane, he works uh for us. He's out in the center. He was the director of comms for the Indianapolis Indians for a bunch of years. And he told me the first professional baseball game like organized whatever was in Fort Wayne with the Kikias.

Is that a that So we had Indians with the Kikiangas were some of the Indian tribes that lived in the area, Miami Indians from Fort Wayne area. Uh but yeah, so when you say that if I could wave a magic wand, I would bring the Pistons back to Fort Wayne. Yeah, I mean that's where they started. Yeah. The Fort Wayne Kikiangas were a professional baseball team, most notably winning the first professional league game on May 4th, 1871. I didn't get to see that one.

[laughter] Well, and I'm sure they went to the Oyster Bar after for dinner. Exactly. There you go. Wow. Professional sports started in Fort Wayne, Indiana. That's wild.

Okay, we've come to the end of the show where we ask the same three questions all about the state of Indiana to every guest that comes on. So, first thing, you've played golf with presidents. You have been in the pit box at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway running your own race car there. You've been all around. If you could scream it from the rooftop so everyone could hear, what's one thing the world needs to know about Indiana? Sports history in Indiana is incredible.

I mean, people don't think about the the motor racing really started in in in the States in in Indiana with the speedway. Yeah. and uh you know the the vision to test cars and all that kind of stuff. So it it's just it's inbredad in you to be part you know I went to my first Indy564. I mean it's just part of the culture in Indiana. We have all these dirt tracks, all these short tracks around the state of Indiana.

It's really per capita probably one of the best racing states, you know, going back years and years and years of open wheel racing. So that's the one thing I would say is that people just don't understand the culture. Yeah. I mean, and it's a crazy thing from Carl Fischer started like, you know, building up the track and how it almost moved to Cincinnati and like the Indiana, the Indiana, the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce like raised the money to like save the speedway and keep it here. And it's crazy the whole story and then shut down during the war and Eddie Rickenbucker, you know, I think sold to Tony Hullman and you know, Tony Hullman getting involved and putting the money. I mean, and then of course I'm I'm on the Indiana Motorsports Authority and we were the ones that loaned the 100 million to the Speedway and then of course Tony and I talked a little bit when he was going to sell it and when Roger's name came up I said Tony I said Roger has got to be the guy.

He is the perfect person. Uh and I remember talking to Roger and Roger [clears throat] knows I'm a very avid golfer and I said Roger this is phenomenal. You know he goes Tom let me tell you this would be like you being able to buy Augusta National. This is what it means to me. To you would be like if you could buy Augusta National, the home of the Masters as a golfer. That's like going to heaven, right?

I said me being able to buy the Nemo Speedway is like me buying Augusta National. And that's how you use the right guy. Absolutely. Incredible. All right, next question. This is your opportunity to shed some light on part of the state that more people need to be talking about.

What is a hidden gem in Indiana? Well, I really like to say the northeast part of Indiana because it's sort of, you know, we're not part of Indie. we're we're sort of forgotten about, but it's amazing the stuff we've got done in Northeast Indiana and as you and I talked in the show earlier about some of the reasons why stuff gets done fairly quickly. Uh I mean I've talked to the governor, I've talked to Todd Houston, speaker of the house about it, Rod Bray, prom of the Senate and they always say, you know, you guys get stuff done in Northeast Indiana and it's somehow someway you get Democrats and Republicans to work together and and we always have. That's four ways. Uh, and that's what makes the state, that's what makes Indiana what it is.

But makes Northeast Indiana special is that we we figure out a way to get stuff done and make a better place for people to live and raise their kids. Heck yeah. Okay, final question for you. This is where we source new guest ideas and hear about other people in Indiana or with ties to Indiana that are doing incredible things. Who's a Hooser we need to keep on our radar? Someone who's doing big things.

Talked about my friends in Fort Wayne, right? So, you got Chuck Sarak now. One guy that that is sort of below the radar is Mark Music that owns Ruof Mortgage. Now Mark, you know who does the Ruf uh music center which used uh was, you know, just north of Indianapolis. He sponsored a car that won the Indy500 and I gave him a bunch of crap. I said, "You spent 300 grand to get your name on a car.

I've spent millions and haven't won the Indy500." I said, "That's not fair." But I think Mark is amazing. He's building, you know, he started the Fort Wayne Football Club. He's building a phenomenal stadium in Fort Wayne with his own money to to have professional soccer games there and really elevate soccer in the state of Indiana. Mark is incredible.

He's very quiet. He doesn't to his own horn, but Mark is a guy you need to talk to. I mean, he the stuff he's involved in and the reach he has from Indianapolis to Fort Wayne to around the country with his offices around the country. He's just he's does a lot of great stuff that not many people know about. Mark music. Yeah.

Not tied to Sweetwater. You might not in the music business. Rudolph Mortgage. Yeah, we're going to have to get him on as a guest. You need to cuz everybody knows about Ruof, but they don't know that Mark Music is the driver. I got to know where that name came from, too.

Like the whole nine yards. Um, spectacular. He's good friends of Chuck, though, so maybe there's some connection. There we go. I'll I'll uh we'll work our way into that. Tom, it has been a pleasure to sit down and learn more about the incredible history and incredible future of Kelley Automotive Group.

From your dad starting it on the day of your birth in the 50s to growing it to then the hard times, the fun times, the crazy times to catting for George Bush Senior. You have done some incredible things and it was an honor to share the mic with you. Uh keep up the good work. It's because of people like you that don't say no. So, it's people like you that get stuff done that the state of Indiana continues to thrive. So, I appreciate all the hard work that you've done, particularly up in Northeast Indiana.

And maybe we'll see you at the 500 this year. You got it. And Nate, I appreciate what you do promoting Indiana. I think like you said earlier, there's just a lot of really cool stuff that people just don't know about. And the more people that visit Indiana, that come here from the East Coast, West Coast, go, "Wow, I didn't I didn't know Indiana had all this." But it's neat.

And thank you for pro promoting Indiana. Love it. All right. Well, we'll talk soon. All right. Thank you.

This show is made possible by our friends up at Sweetwater. Whether you're looking to start a podcast or take your content to the next level, click the link in the description to see all my gear recommendations at Sweetwater. If you want a behind-the-scenes look at everything we're doing across the state, make sure you follow me on Instagram and Tik Tok, Nate Spangle. Thank you [music] so much for listening and being a part of what makes the Hooer State great. We'll see you next time here on Get