ORLANDO, Fla., Feb. 13, 2010 – Mike Harper, Dealer/President of Harper Motors, Inc., a Buick, GMC and Pontiac dealership in Minden, La., was named the TIME Magazine Dealer of the Year from Louisiana.
Harper was chosen to represent the Louisiana Automobile Dealers Association in the national competition. The award is sponsored by TIME Magazine in association with Goodyear, and in cooperation with NADA.
“My father was in the business all of his adult life as both a new and used dealer. I started at 12 working at his used car lot in Shreveport, LA, in 1963,” says Harper, a Vietnam War vet who carried an M-60 machine gun and also served as a “point-man” for his platoon.
After his stint in the U.S. Army (1971-’72), Harper attended the University of Louisiana at Monroe and at Lafayette before earning a Bachelor of Science degree in Management at Louisiana State University in Shreveport in 1976. He also graduated from the Dealership Management Development School at GMI in Flint, MI, in 1979. “Over the years,” Harper explains, “I worked part-time during the school year and full-time during summers doing everything there is to be done on a used lot.”
When his father re-entered the new business in 1969, Harper says, “I basically repeated the same activities I had done in the used only business, working in all areas of the dealership. After finishing school in 1976, I became full-time and was the Service Manager until leaving in 1983 to pursue my own store.”
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