Auto Dealer Receives National Recognition for Community Service

The nomination of Marshall Jespersen, dealer principal at Dover Honda in Dover, for the 2016 TIME Dealer of the Year award was announced last week by TIME.

Jespersen is one of a select group of 50 dealer nominees from across the country who will be honored at the 99th annual National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) Convention & Exposition in Las Vegas, NV, on April 1, 2016, according to a press statement. The announcement of this year’s nominees was made by Meredith Long, publisher, TIME, and Tim Russi, president of Auto Finance for Ally Financial.

“The TIME Dealer of the Year award nominees are business leaders and pillars of their communities, who have each given generously to support important charitable causes,” said Russi. “Ally is proud to honor these dealers and to recognize their commitment to making a difference.”

In its fifth year as exclusive sponsor, Ally will recognize dealer nominees and their community efforts by contributing $1,000 to each nominee’s 501(c)3 charity of choice. Nominees will also be recognized on AllyDealerHeroes.com, which highlights the philanthropic contributions and achievements of TIME Dealer of the Year nominees.

The TIME Dealer of the Year award is one of the automobile industry’s most prestigious and highly coveted honors. Recipients are among the nation’s most successful auto dealers who also demonstrate a long-standing commitment to community service. Jespersen, 73, was chosen to represent the New Hampshire Automobile Dealers Association in the national competition – one of only 50 auto dealers from 16,000 nationwide – nominated for the 47th annual award. The award is sponsored by TIME in association with Ally Financial, and in cooperation with NADA. A panel of faculty members from the Tauber Institute for Global Operations at the University of Michigan will select one finalist from each of the four NADA regions and one national Dealer of the Year.

“We continue to work on developing the human capital that is the heart and soul of our company,” nominee Jespersen said. “I have had the pleasure of seeing so many of our people rise up through the organization and really thrive in their positions, while many others have transitioned to positions of responsibility beyond our company.”

Jespersen, a 1961 graduate of Greenwich High School in Greenwich, CT, earned a B.A. in chemistry from the University of Connecticut in Storrs in 1966. He served in the United States Air Force from 1966 to 1974, stationed in Southeast Asia and Europe, and held jobs at Clairol in Stamford, CT, Dow Chemical Company in Tarrytown, NY, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Hubbardston, MA, before becoming the owner of a car dealership.

“My wife had an equity interest in a Honda dealership, but no operational role,” he said. “She received notice in 1988 that the business was going to be shut down, so we entered into a purchase and sale agreement with the managing partner and bought him out.”

With no experience in the retail automotive industry, Jespersen looked for help anywhere he could.

“I joined an NADA 20 group and associated with dealers who were, and still are, operating excellent businesses,” he said. “And I hired the best people I could find to help me.”

He went back to school at age 47 and earned an M.B.A. at the University of New Hampshire Whittemore School of Business (now the Peter T. Paul College of Business and Economics) in Durham in 1991. Today, that one dealership has grown into International Cars Ltd., an automotive group encompassing seven locations in New Hampshire and Massachusetts and employing 250 associates.

Jespersen not only became a successful car dealer, he has also committed himself to automotive-related causes. While a trustee for the Massachusetts State Automobile Dealers Charitable Foundation, he expanded a program to help young drivers by encouraging dealerships to sponsor advanced driver training.

“Data we have collected over the several years the course has been offered shows that the course has reduced the incidence of accidents among new drivers in the first two years of driving by 70 percent,” he said. Jespersen received the Peter K. O’Rourke Special Achievement Award from the Governors Highway Safety Association in 2007 for his efforts.

He also currently serves on the board of the New Hampshire Automotive Education Foundation, a group within the New Hampshire Automobile Dealers Association that promotes careers development in automotive technology, including a pilot program at the Seacoast School of Technology in Exeter.

“One of our core values is to be a contributing member of every community in which we do business,” Jespersen said. “We have contributed money, personal labor and fundraising events to many organizations.”

Those groups include Emmaus in Haverhill, MA (provides shelter and job training for people in need); Dover Food Pantry; Veterans Northeast Outreach Center in Haverhill; American Red Cross; Wounded Warrior Project; AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts and the Safe Roads Alliance.

“We’ve contributed literally millions of dollars over the past 25 years,” Jespersen said. “We are proud of this commitment to our communities.”

Jespersen was nominated for the TIME Dealer of the Year award by Peter J. McNamara, president of the New Hampshire Automobile Dealers Association. He and his wife, Elena, have five children and four grandchildren.