Business View Magazine | April/May 2022

89 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 9, ISSUE 4 CHAMP ION CHEVROLET Champion Chevrolet’s history speaks volumes; a story of tenacity and unwavering devotion to serving customers the right way. These values reflect those that founder, Stanko Sr., picked up while working in the auto dealership industry for decades. He recounts, “I was born and raised in Youngstown, Ohio and when I graduated high school at age 17, I got a job at a dealership right next door. I was paid a dollar an hour to do various things like sweep floors and jockey cars.” He ended up being a service advisor and shortly became the dealership’s service manager. After working there for nine years, he went to a Buick dealership as a new car salesperson and worked there for about three years. “They owned the Chevrolet dealership up the street,” says Stanko Sr., “and I set up there as general manager in 1970 and stayed for 12 years. After that, I went to Albuquerque, New Mexico as general manager of a large Chevrolet store and spent six years there. We had a gentleman there whose brother-in-law owned this dealership in Reno and was looking to retire, and at the time, I was also scouting for a dealership to buy. I bought 25 percent of the business and paid the remaining 75 percent in 48 months.” Although the journey to owning his own dealership went as planned, Stanko, Sr. quickly points out that things have changed a lot these days, and the path to owning a dealership is not easily accessible anymore. “Back then, I was able to use my savings to purchase this dealership,” he says. “Today, with real estate prices at an all- time high, it is nearly impossible for the average person to pull off what I did.” Champion Chevrolet currently has 135 employees who work out of its 80,000 sq ft facility in Reno. Among this number is Jack Stanko Jr. who, much like his father, has worked in the dealership since the age of 16, working his way up from washing and moving cars around to becoming the general manager today.