Pub. 54 2013-2014 Issue 4

12 Chairman’s Address: Rick Cavender T hank you for allowing me to preside as your Chairman. I know what you’re saying…here we go again “tee- ing up” another Cavender just three years after you had a healthy dose of my little brother Stephen! I hope I can walk tall in his shoes and also in the shoes and boots of my advisors and friends, David Alderson, Stacey Gillman Wimbish, John Zwiacher and my good friends of the TADA staff. I had the great honor to spend a little time with them in an orientation that has now become a wonderful tradition down at Jim Janke’s beautiful ranch. I quickly learned that the incoming chair and staff go straight to work while the past chairs go out to play! But I also took a great deal of their wisdom and support away from the weekend. And I’m not saying we didn’t play a little too! This is a great honor for me especially because this has become a proud position of honor for my family! My father and brother have served in this honored role previously. Don’t want to scare you but there are five Cavenders active in this association. Our family has been involved with TADA now for four generations. I am especially excited to see Lee andWB Cavender now entering our operations and becoming active in the Texas Dealer Academy. I recall those early years when I first came in to our business, meeting lifelong friends in our Future Dealers Organization of TADA. Glad to see them both taking leadership roles within this great new association within TADA. Pretty exciting to see this orga- nization grow to over 57 strong. Thanks to T Harper for chairing and of course to Tim Crenwelge who has worked tirelessly here. If you have a family member or key manager between the age of 20 and 40 please let Kathy Sims know and she will get them signed up! Stacey GillmanWimbish said once, “To lead you must be accountable, involved and engaged, and you must surround yourself with great people.” Yes, accountability is still alive and well in our stores and it started a long time ago. I’ll never forget growing up in my early years. In fact, I remember returning frommy F&I training when I was right out of UT Austin. I went to work and recall my grandfather walking back and forth across the open door of my office while I was assisting some of my first customers. He poked his head in finally and said, “Hi folks, excuse me but Ricky do you know what you are doing?” Since those days, I have been accountable to my family especially, our employees and our customers. I am very happy to say that I am surrounded by great folks both at my busi- ness and at TADA. And it is a pleasure to serve in this role with the great people who guide me and inspire me on a daily basis. Being engaged, accountable and in- volved has been a critical task for me because it sets up a very important re- sponsibility as your Chairman. I was a little nervous to tell you the truth when I recognized the grand scope of the work and protection that TADA affords us all. Some 1,200 members across 300 cities and towns all are being served and supported by the great work TADA does. And how impor- tant is our industry to Texas: $63 billion in retail sales, almost 90,000 employees are serving within our dealer facilities with an annual payroll of $5 billion. 16% of all Texas retail sales comes from car and truck dealers. And we are a bread winner for our state’s tax base by paying in 6% of total receipts! One of my goals as your Chair this year is to acknowledge all the great work that Dealers are doing for their communities. A new Program has been developed and we call it “Dealers Who Care.” Many of you responded to my letter by telling us the great things you are doing for your community! TADA also is an active voice in communities inspiring youth education through our AYES program developed to find a solution to the national shortage of young automotive technicians. Our Autocap program is a free, easy-to-use, public service designed to allow dealers and customers to mediate effectively to handle disputes resulting from sales and services. A few weeks back on April 8th, we were also very proud to support our Wounded Warriors Project here in San Antonio by From the Annual Convention in San Antonio