Pub. 54 2013-2014 Issue 2

24 How did you become a car dealer? Did you always aspire to be part of the auto- motive industry? Our family has followed a similar path in business. My three cousins and my brother are now dealers here in San Antonio and Boerne. We were born into this business. Our grandfather James “Big Jim” Cavender bought an Oldsmobile dealership from E.A. Kinsel in 1939. His boys were my father Jimmy and my Uncle Billy Cavender, identical twins who came in to operate the store. We all grew up loving the car busi- ness and being involved in all operations. Gradually, we all stepped up to become dealer principals in our operations. Do you have family members in the auto industry, and any children that work with you or have dealerships? Yes…many! We are totally accessible and actively involved. Our customers can typi- cally find one of us in our respective stores at any one time. In fact we have a saying, “As long as the Cavender name is on the store, there is at least one Cavender on the floor.” My brother Stephen is dealer at Cavender Toyota and FIAT. He is also past Chairman of TADA. My cousins are dealers as well. Billy Cavender, Jr. is running Cadillac and Land Rover op- erations, Bobby is leading the two Buick GMC stores here, and Stuart is in charge of Cavender Chevrolet in Boerne. It is great to also have the fourth generation of our family joining our operations. WB Cavender, Billy’s son is working at Land Rover and Lee, Stuart’s son is working at Chevrolet. These two young men are also actively involved in the Texas Dealer Academy at TADA and have graduated from the NADA Dealer Academy. Both my daughters have worked here at our Audi store as Customer Relations Assistant and Delivery Specialist. Describe your education background. What did you study in college? Have you always lived in Texas? Actually, my path to the car business was not completely predetermined. In the years that I attended the University of Texas at Austin, we had only the Oldsmobile deal- ership. It was a very successful operation that in one year sold over 3,000 cars. And there were five Cavenders working there including my grandfather, father, uncle and two cousins. So I began to take some pre-law courses to prepare for law school. I graduated from UT with a Business Administration degree. By good fortune, my Dad and Uncle were approached to buy a Cadillac Dealership in San Antonio owned by Mr. Frank Late. When the store was purchased, they flipped a coin and my Uncle took his two sons over there. That simple action left the Oldsmobile store opportunity open for me. I began in 1980 after working summers since high school in service and parts operations. My first role was Service Advisor, which to this day is An Interview with Rick Cavender