Think running a family business is difficult? Try running a business with two families, each owning a 50-percent share in the company. That’s how the Carters and the Mitchells have been managing the Carter Auto Group since 1990. Founded in 1963 by Howard Carter with a single dealership, the auto group now numbers five dealerships throughout Metro Vancouver. In this Make It Business interview, matriarch Marnie Carter, son James and Bill Mitchell discuss the successes and challenges of their unique enterprise.

What is the history of Carter in terms of the year it started and your husband’s involvement?

Marnie Carter: Howard and I were originally both from Winnipeg. Howard’s father was a car dealer in Winnipeg and he and his brother were working in the dealership. It was evident that both of them didn’t really need to be in that business, so we had in our mind that we would look for a small business that we could afford to buy. So we did: in 1963, Howard found a bankrupt business in Kerrisdale, Phillipson Motors. He made the instant decision that he’d like to purchase it. He came out to Vancouver in April 1963, and I followed him as soon as I sold the house. That’s how it all started.

One of the people he hired was Joe Mitchell, Bill’s dad. Joe came in as service manager. It was obvious from the very beginning that the area in Kerrisdale was too small.

How many employees to start?

Marnie: I can think of a few of the core guys. Maybe 25 or 30. Howard dreamed up a change in terms of land. So, in 1968, after many a Sunday afternoon drive we found this piece of land (the current home of Carter GM at Lougheed Highway and Willingdon in Burnaby). There was nothing here except bush with a stream running through it.

Bill: And cows.

So there was great foresight in choosing the real estate?

Marnie: Yes.

What was it like growing up with car dealers as parents? Was it in your mind that you would work for the family business?

James: I don’t know if it was in my mind. I spent a lot of time in the dealership growing up, and coming out with Dad on Saturdays.

Did you wash cars?

James: (laughs) Sometimes! When I was younger I’d hang around and have fun, bring a friend sometimes. We used to sell motor homes, so we’d go play in them. It was fun. As I got older, I would be put to work picking up garbage or washing cars, and then as I got even a little bit older, into the teen years, I would work here in the summers in the parts or the service department. So I guess Dad had in his mind that I would work for the business. It was kind of on-the-job training as we were going forward. As I got older I had decided pretty much that I wanted to go into the car business.

Marnie: Not without a foray into the music business.

James: Well, I did that first because I knew I wanted to go into car business. I did university and a music degree, and then came back.

Was it always your intention even in university to come into the car business?

James: I guess there were times when I thought “no,” but as I got closer to the end of university I pretty much knew that I wanted to do it.

Did you feel pressure from your family?

James: No, there was no pressure at all. I think they were quite clear on saying that I could do whatever I wanted to do. I think my father was quite ecstatic when I actually told him I wanted to go into the car business, but I don’t think he really knew which way I was going to go. I had already decided, but I guess I never told him.

What about you, Bill, what was your experience growing up?

Bill: Similar. There was no pressure to come into the business; in fact I started in Safeway. I worked at Safeway through high school and after high school for a bit, and then had to decide what I was going to do. I knew packing shelves wasn’t going to be it, long-term, so I went to the BC Institute of Technology after high school.

I had worked part-time on and off in the auto business since I was 16, basically, and had decided that the auto business was something that I wanted to try. I was fortunate actually to start at Carter’s, and started at the bottom. I started washing cars, and then Howard came to me one day and said, “You’ve washed cars long enough. Now you’ve got to drive a parts truck.” I got to work every position in the dealership, and have probably had about six months’ experience in every job position in the store.

And what is the exact nature of the partnership as it stands today between the two families?

James: 50-50 between the two families. 

Bill: Howard was sick, and he knew his fate, so he had time to plan. The Mitchell-Carters ended up as 50-50 partners in 1990.

What was the thinking behind that?

Marnie: I think Howard wanted some reassurance. I have to give Joe credit because he’d been very responsible and had extremely important experience working with Howard; they complemented each other very well. Howard was a risk-taker, a little bit more flamboyant, very positive, almost visionary. Bill’s dad was very practical, very down-to-earth, very focused on the business side of it. Very hands-on. They certainly balanced each other terrifically. When Howard died at a very young age, 59, neither of the boys (Bill or James) were ready to take over the empire, so to speak. And neither was I – though I knew more than I thought I did.

How many dealerships are under the umbrella?

James: Five auto dealerships, so we have three General Motor dealerships, the Dodge dealership, the Honda dealership and then we have Honda Motorcycles, which has at this point in time three locations.

Marnie: And then there are some subsidiary companies that are all under the same umbrella. One is Howard Distributors, which works with professional vehicles. And then there’s the insurance business, called Brentwood Insurance. And Howard Carter Lease. My husband died in August of ’88 and before he died, he was very cognizant of the fact that this was a big business.

How many employees would there have been at that point?

Marnie: Three hundred, probably.

How many do you have today?

James: Five hundred and eighty.

So the management of the dealerships …

Marnie: It very much rested on Joe’s shoulders, and Bill’s shoulders. Without Joe’s leadership, we would not have survived, I don’t think. At that point in time there had been widows who had inherited business and were declared dealers, but the manufacturer became much more stringent; they didn’t want anybody operating their dealerships without lots of experience. So there were lots of dealerships that were “lost,” or resold, when there was a death.

At what point did you guys (Bill and James) take over the leadership of your respective parts of the company?

James: Well, it’s been sort of a gradual thing that hasn’t really come to 100 per cent completion yet, because Joe’s still in three or four days a week. We are a kind of de facto board of directors, I guess, and we all get together and make any major decisions.

So who is in that de facto board of directors?

James: My mother, Bill, Joe and I. With any decisions on dispositions or acquisitions, expenditures of major types of things or major policy decisions, we all come together and make a kind of consensus decision. We’ve never really run into a point where somebody’s had to put the hammer down and make an ultimate decision.

James: No, the challenge is fun!

Marnie: We should mention that Joe has three sons, actually. Jimmy, the second son, is also in the business running a GM dealership now. 

Bill: In our structure, though we do have a board that oversees all the operations, we actually have either a partner or a key manager running each store. We operate each store independently of each other. So we’re truly competitive with one another. Each store has a manager who’s responsible for the productivity and the running of that store. That’s been one of our keys to success, that we don’t really run it as one store.

How has the family addressed this notion of being blood versus competency?

James: I don’t think that’s really been an issue. I think we’ve always tried to find the best person for the job, whether it be family or not family. We all realize that there’s the three family members, so to speak, of the two families, Bill and Jim and myself. Then, once we got outside of having more than three dealerships, we had to find other partners who were competent and who we could trust, and I think we’ve done that.

Is there a formal succession plan?

Bill: James and I are still in our 40s now, so we’ve still go a lot of time to go.

James: We hope!

Marnie: I’m seventy-three! So I’ll just have to interject – you have to realize that in my generation, there was no encouragement from Howard to even consider that our daughters might be involved in the business. Looking back on it now, whether they would’ve or not is something else, but they were both competent. Things might very well be different if there had been any encouragement, but women just didn’t do — well, Howard didn’t believe in women in the car business, and he and I had quite a few arguments about that. Heated arguments, I might add.

How are you equipped to handle the future as a family business?

James: I think, because of our particular structure, we are somewhat diversified in the products that we offer. If one manufacturer is going through some tough times, then hopefully the others can pick up the slack a little bit. As a family business, we’re fairly nimble, so we can react to the marketplace and to the way things are going. We don’t have a big corporate structure that we have to go through to make decisions.

Bill: I don’t know if it has anything to do with the difference between a family business or any other business, but we’re extremely well-capitalized. We’ve been very conservative over the years in our approach to everything.

We own all of our real estate, we don’t really lease anything, and we’ve owned everything for quite a while. So, because of owning our own real estate and being well-capitalized, we have the ability to weather a lot of storms. There are always ups and downs in any business, so we’re positioned to survive during the downturn and prosper during the good times.