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Highlands Today

What Does Alan Jay Have To Say?

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By RICHARD HENSLEY

Highlands Today

Published: August 3, 2008

SEBRING - Coral Gables probably seemed like a million miles away when Alan Jay Wildstein was growing up. South Florida was his home - and it's still where most of his family lives. About 16 years ago that all changed, and he's built a mini-automotive empire here in Highlands County.

Wildstein, 40, who is known as Alan Jay, owns every new car dealership in Sebring and has business interests in a small restaurant chain getting started in Central Florida, as well as other projects in the works.

His face is on billboards, TV and newspaper ads, and his "What do you say, Alan Jay" is a local catchphrase. Although a lot of people know who he is, they don't know much about him or what he does when he's not running his business.

Highlands Today's editor Richard Hensley sat down and talked with him about the "real" Alan Jay last week and the following is an edited version of the conversation:

Q: Isn't the car business in your blood?

A: My father was in the car business and I grew up with it. My mom has pictures of me at about 6 months old, when I could barely stand, with something like a rag on the tire of a car.

I supposed it's something you learn from your surroundings when you're young. When people are doing something around you, that's what a lot of people tend to do.

Q: Did your family always assume you would go into the automotive business?

A: Everybody in my family thought I would pursue law. They said I was very good at arguing. Actually, they did not encourage me to pursue automotive. It was something I chose; something I enjoy.

Q: What do you enjoy most about it?

A: I enjoy the personal interactions associated with the car business. Whether it's with the 300 partners and associates I work with everyday, who are a terrific group of people, or the customers. I enjoy all of it. I enjoy just talking with people in the community. Of course, sometimes you are in the supermarket doing something with your kids and someone will walk up and talk to you about cars. Most of the time it's something good, sometimes it's a complaint. But I like that too, because I can't fix it if I don't know about it.

Q: How did it all begin?

A: My first job in automotive was painting the fire hydrants and the parking stops in the parking lot at Miami Dodge, my father's store. Then I would work in the tent sales because that was big then. Every weekend all the dealers would go to the Orange Bowl and have thousands of cars. It was just chaos, and the next day there were some cars you couldn't find. You weren't sure whether you sold them or someone stole them.

Q: How did you find Sebring?

A: My family at one point owned an automobile leasing company. We had 10,000 vehicles for rent or lease. We had been looking at GM dealerships. My dad and I are best friends and we talk several days a week. We're very close, but I couldn't work for him. He was very difficult to work for and that's kind of what brought everything to a head. I was out of college and working for my father's Chevrolet store.

We were looking at stores to subsidize our leasing company so we could buy from ourselves. We had found a store, and had a contract to buy a store, and the Chevrolet rep said to my dad, "If you love your son, you will not buy this store, but there's a store in Sebring." And that's kind of what happened. We got in a car and drove to Sebring and made our deal.

Q: When you came here, did you have a plan to own more dealerships?

A: No. My family actually had a bet for five or six years on how long I'd survive here. I was 23 years old, the youngest owner of a GM dealership in the country then. The family, and myself, I suppose, thought I'd come here for a couple of years, turn the store around and sell it for a profit, and buy a store in a bigger market. I always wanted to be on the coast, on the water. I thought I'd be in Sarasota or Naples or Fort Myers. I never really thought Sebring was a long-term thing.

It was a big change but the longer I was here, the more I realized I liked the smaller town. I still love the big city and love going home, but Sebring has so much to offer because it's so close to so many big cities. So it's not like it's a hardship to be here. I love it here

Q: Does owning most of the local dealerships cause people to resent you?

A: This doesn't come up so much anymore, but it did. It bothered me because our sales team would bring it up in our meetings. What is a monopoly? If I own 10 Chevrolet stores within an hour of here, I have a monopoly on Chevrolet, but there is another Chevrolet dealer in Avon Park, in Fort Meade, in Okeechobee, in Arcadia, in Lake Wales, in Haines City, in Wauchula.

We have to work twice as hard. We absolute understand the consumer has lots of choices. We all pay the same for the cars. It's just the margin. Who can discount it more than another dealer. I don't think we own a monopoly at all. But we do have a unique situation that we must be cognizant of what our competitors are doing, because there are so many choices for the consumer. I think it is an interesting educational thing. But to say it's a monopoly isn't accurate.

But we have to be careful. I often preach it to our team, that we don't want to ever have the consumer think that or act that way.

Q: Your company gives to a lot of community events and causes. Does that ever become too much? Do you become inundated with requests?

A: From a personal standpoint, it's not an issue at all. From a business standpoint sometimes it's an issue and I'm conflicted because I have had a philosophy that I will never say no to a request. You might ask for $1,000 and I'll give you $100, I can't give everyone what they ask for, but I'll never say, "Sorry, not interested." If it's a local event or local group or charity, I won't do that. To me, that's far more valuable to support this community, because it's a small community. I just think there are certain things you do as a business where you say we're going to sponsor this event because it's a good business decision. But 90 percent of the time, maybe it is a good business decision or maybe it isn't, but it's the right thing to do in a small community.

Q: What do you do when you're not working? Any hobbies?

A: According to some friends, I need to find more hobbies. Right now it's my family. I have three beautiful daughters, 12, 11, 8, and they are my world and the reason I do everything I do. It's the reason I get up in the morning and go to work. We do everything from zip-lining together to roller skating and all the things I'm not very good at. I know that this is the time, 10 years from now when they're in college, they will remember of their childhood. So I'll sacrifice just about everything to spend as much time with them as possible.

But secondary to that, it's mainly the automotive business. I have some collector cars and I go down and wash them and wax them.

Q: Do you have a favorite collector car?

A: I'm a collector of Ferraris. They're not reliable, they're overpriced, but there's just something about the way an Italian car drives. It's just something that I've been fortunate enough to be involved with for the last eight years. I also enjoy Corvettes. It's a phenomenal car.

Q: Any other hobbies?

A: Aviation. I've got a Beech jet and with the fuel prices, we don't fly so much. I'm not a pilot, but I did take off once. The landing part is something I wouldn't do so well.

Q: A perfect day for you is ...?

A: Spending it with family. It could be going to Cypress Gardens and I'm happy. I guess I'm a very public person in the sense that I have to be in a small town, and we're very involved. But I'm a low-key, private guy. I kind of like where no one knows me. As much as it's great to be here, it's nice to get away and not be on display. You don't have to worry about saying something and having it get back to someone else twisted three ways and end up something I never said.

Q: Do you hope your children follow in your footsteps?

A: It doesn't matter. There are two sides to that. Any parent who works hard to build a business has that somewhere in the back of their mind that they hope one of their children will follow, but this is going to be a challenging business. It's going to be for some time. It's certainly a business that's not going anywhere and in our lifetime people will always need automobiles. I see definite talents in some of them. I've never pushed for them to be in this business. I want them to do what they want to do. But I would welcome them.

Q: Are you the type to cash in your chips and retire young?

A: I know people who have sold out and most of the time they're miserable and regret having sold out. My father, even though he doesn't need to work and certainly at times drives my brothers crazy because they are buying him out in Miami, is very active still. I'll be the kind of guy to have a heart attack behind the desk. I don't have hobbies. I don't play golf, I don't do a lot of things that people do when they retire.

I love what I do and the people I do it with, so I'll probably not stop doing it. I think I'll know when it's time. I'm not naïve enough to think I need to be there forever, because we have good infrastructure. But I think I'll always be involved.

Q: Is it a great pressure to have so many employees relying on you making sound business decisions for their own security?

A: It's one of the most difficult things because everything that happens affects them. Now we're forced to make tough decisions due to the economy, not hiring, not filling positions, even a few layoffs, although we've been fortunate to not have to do a lot of that. Everything we do I tie to my employees. It's not just 300 people, it's 300 families, so if you asked people close to me, that is probably the biggest pressure I do have.

For example, I had an opportunity to go parasailing and bungee jumping and I passed on both not because I was afraid to do it or didn't want to do it, but because I said it's just not worth the risk. I could get hit by a car crossing the street, too, but I'm just not going to take risks that are totally unnecessary or irresponsible because first my family, and secondly my extended family. I think about those things.

Contact Richard Hensley at 386-5843 or e-mail at rhensley@highlandstoday.com

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