Pub. 54 2013-2014 Issue 3

30  A TIME TO REFLECT — CONTINUED FROM PAGE 29 board made up of individuals who had no ties to the industry. I was run over like road kill on that one, including by my friends at TADA! Pretty soon my efforts with respect to board representation, was to hold it to a manageable number. We settled on nine board members with two from the public and the rest from different parts of the mo- tor vehicle industry. For the first time ever, anywhere, a member of law enforcement, an elected tax-assessor collector, two fran- chised dealers, only one of which could be a new vehicle dealer, an independent dealer, a trucking company operator, a manufacturer executive and two public members would sit in governance over their own industry. Could it really work? The answer was and remains a resound- ing yes. Getting a large, diverse group of strong-willed and capable leaders to reach consensus is very challenging. Being pretty or unanimous in decision making does not matter in my book. What does matter is that they challenged the staff of the agency to do all it can to serve its customers – the businesses the agency oversees are its cus- tomers. The board continues to serve this invaluable role today. All of us have the state associations to thank for that. The state associations were and remain a great resource for their members. The unlikely ally from the manufacturing world was Ken Roche from Gulf States Toyota. Ken has my everlasting respect and friendship for seeing TxDMV as an opportunity to be nurtured as opposed to a challenge to be eliminated. Initially, the manufacturers were unanimously cool to the creation of the TxDMV. The historical bad blood between dealers and manufacturers over differences of opinion regarding the franchise laws, cloud every action in Austin. In many ways, this cloud has gotten worse since 2009. In one way, thanks to Ken, it has gotten better. Ken convinced all concerned, including the other manufacturer representatives, that setting up advisory committees to provide direct industry input and counsel to the agency before they made major decisions or instituted rulemaking on a given topic was worth the risk of supporting the new agency. The advisory committees would provide all the industries, not just the manufacturers, with the proper forum to cover in detail the matters that a board could not. The advisory committees were to have a legislatively mandated role in providing advice and council to the board and staff. It took more than a year after the birth of the TxDMV to really jump-start the advisory council process but Ken hung in. We are all the better for his work. The staff of the department was and re- mains the fuel that makes TxDMV work. They are really no different than those that work in our dealerships. They need the proper tools and vision to succeed. If we give them these tools, look out because the sky is the limit on what they can do for you at TxDMV! It took time and effort but a culture has taken hold in the department that is committed to customer service, attention to the industries it serves, and the TxDMV’s special brand of economic development. TxDMV is helping the pri- vate sector grow its business as opposed to mindless regulation.