Bobby Ourisman wins Northwood Dealer Education Award
Longtime Washington-area dealer Robert Ourisman of the Ourisman Automotive Group in Rockville has been named for the Northwood University Dealer Education Award after being nominated by WANADA. The award is a high honor, awarded to only a small number of dealers from the U.S. and Europe every year at the NADA Convention. It will be presented at a breakfast at the convention in New Orleans, at 8 a.m. Saturday, January 28, 2017 at the New Orleans Marriott Convention Center.
For more than 50 years, Northwood University has sought to recognize individuals in the retail automobile industry who have made noteworthy contributions to education, public or private, on any level, inside or outside the industry. They are people of distinction, and the award is in recognition of substantial dedication over time to the education process and the field of automotive marketing.
Bobby Ourisman, a third generation dealer, has based his eminently successful automobile retail operations on the belief that a business is only as good as the professionals who staff it. That means recruiting the right people and retaining them. That is why education and training are key.
At Ourismanês direction, the groupês fixed operations manager, Dave McFadden, was deeply involved in creating WANADAês Automobile Dealer Education Institute (ADEI) and its industrywide auto technology career training program. ADEIês program is a unique on-the-job training regime that became known as the Auto Technician Development Program. Established eight years ago by ADEI, with a classroom component at Montgomery College, Auto Tech Development has home grown scores of career aspirants into productive line technicians who have gone to work at Ourisman Automotive and other Washington area dealerships.
Before the creation of ADEI, Ourismanês leadership supported the Automotive Trades Foundationês Students Mini-dealership programming through the high school department of Montgomery County Public Schools. When high school students are immersed in an auto technology curriculum designed to mimic a dealership, they acquire not only the skills required for auto technology but also the practical application of their skills to the overall auto retail organization.
Ourisman was also instrumental in creating WANADAês Finance and Insurance Professionals Training Seminar, now in its eleventh year. He and his general manager at the time, the late Dennis Rippeon, identified the burgeoning need for F&I professionals to be fully up to speed on the rules and regulations around vehicle sales to consumers with dealer-arranged credit.
A compehensive, one-day seminar for F&I training professionals was created with the dealer management consulting firm JM&A Group. WANADA now offers JM&A F&I training several times a year, with the content continually updated.
Congratulations to Bob Ourisman on this well-deserved honor!
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