Harr Motor rolls into a new era
PHOTO/SAM BONACCI
Charles Ribakoff, right, stands with Michael Gross, to whom he will hand over the keys to Harr Motor Group. The two are in a seven-year transition that will shift ownership of the Worcester business.
The Harr automobile dealerships have been a part of Charles Ribakoff's life since his father bought the company in 1948. In that time he has moved up through jobs in various dealerships to management roles, and eventually he bought the business from his father 15 years ago. Now, it's his time to pass along the company.
“I started sweeping the floor here when I was 14, which was more than 50 years ago,” Ribakoff said. “Owner-run businesses get to be more than a business; they are very personal. It becomes like passing along one of your children. You want to make sure it goes to the right place.”
Now that it's time to pass the business on, he knew that neither of his two young daughters nor his son would step in to run the Worcester firm that includes two dealerships, a repair center and loan branches. That's when he found Michael Gross, his new general manager and eventual successor, through a recruiting firm.
Gross had been in the car industry since his early 20s, constantly striving for the next level of responsibility. Eventually, he worked his way to a general manager's position in New York and was looking for a dealership to take over when Ribakoff hired him.
“It's something I have wanted to do for a long time, prior to even wanting to come to work at Harr,” he said. “It was just something I always wanted … I kept always thinking about how do I own my own place?”
For Gross, finding someone with goals that meshed with his was the highest priority in his search for someone who wanted to transfer ownership of a business.
Meanwhile, Ribakoff was pleased to find someone he was comfortable with, whom he could trust and who would eventually run the business even better than he could.
The pair are three years into a seven-year-long transition that will result in Gross' ownership of the company. This transition period, which does not include the six years Gross worked as Harr's general manager, has allowed for a trust to grow between the two.
Many of the recent innovations to the dealerships' business models that have been implemented under Ribakoff's direction were spearheaded by Gross. He also extensively researched the company's recent no-haggle pricing strategy, although Ribakoff signed off on it. This has allowed him to see Gross' style and envision how he will carry forward the business' legacy.
For Ribakoff, the next owner had to be committed to maintaining not only the success of the company, but also its close ties with Worcester. A local owner can better keep that connection with the community, employees and the customers, he said.
“I think we are a good place to do business and a good place to work, and those are important things to pass along,” Ribakoff said.
There's a growing trend in the industry toward mega-dealers with companies overseeing dealerships that are spread across large areas, Gross said. But there's a benefit in a company the size of Harr, in the form of a clearer focus.
“Our industry, as you see it evolving, is more and more becoming these mega-dealers that are owning 20, 30 and 40 stores,” Gross said. “I think it is impossible for that one owner to pay attention to each individual community that dealership is located in.”
Transitions will not always go as smoothly and organically as the ownership change is going for Gross and Ribakoff. Each business and succession is unique, said Gross, and not everything will go as planned.
He has experience in that. Before he came to Harr, Gross had entered into an agreement to take over a dealership in New York. But that fell through when the owner's priorities shifted, Gross said, leaving him looking for another job and another dealership.
“You can't let it get you down and you can't let it send you backwards. You just have to pick yourself up and move forward,” said Gross, who explained that the Harr agreement has worked out better than he could have imagined.
For those looking to sell a business, Ribakoff stressed the importance of planning ahead. Not every transition goes smoothly, and the time for the transition will be upon you before you know it, he said.
“I can tell you from personal experience, you get older faster than you think,” Ribakoff said. “Businesses are legacies and if you want an orderly transition it takes some planning and some patience and some trial and error, and that requires you to take some time to think about it.”
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