Automotive News Canada - December 2019 - 22

22

* D E C E M B E R 2019

Why retire? Parlay all that knowledge into a new career
By JIL McINTOSH

TORONTO CORRESPONDENT

AL COULAS

40 YEARS IN SERVICE HELPS
DEALERS WITH THEIR SERVICE

AFTER A CAREER SPENT
helping dealers reach their
goals, why not do it all over
again? After retiring from
FCA Canada's head office, the
next step for Al Coulas was
founding Coulas Automotive
Service Solutions, based in
Mississauga, Ont.
"I'm involved in analyzing,
providing training, and I have
assisted with
development
of new dealer
departments,
in personnel
plus bricks
and mortar. I'm not
in the sales
end, because
lots of people
do that, but
there's nobody doing this in
service."
Coulas, 61, began as an
auto mechanic. It took eight
years, but he worked his way
up to fixed-operations manager at Cooksville Dodge in
Mississauga, overseeing parts
and service. He took a oneyear contract as a professor at
Toronto's Centennial College,
which included writing a textbook for automotive students
in the Far North with limited
access to trade school. Then

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VALUES FOR THE FUTURE

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time to retire.
"My phone starting ringing before I retired, because
you're at the prime of your
intellectual life where you
know the most and have the
most to offer."
Coulas's business hinges on
the concept that "dealers don't
know what they don't know,"
and he said it's because most
come from the sales side rather than service.
"Essentially it's vehicle
flow, designing the shop so
that space and equipment are
used effectively. I'm a good
communicator and can convert what I see and think into
a plan for dealers to get their
problems corrected."

MICHELE KLOESEL

IT'S 'NO DEAL' FOR A DEALER
UNTIL THE PAPERWORK IS DONE
DEALERSHIPS AREN'T
just built of bricks and mortar, but a lot of paper, and
that's what being the manager of retail agreements for
Nissan and Infiniti involves.
"I'm responsible for the
creation and management of
all dealer documentation,"
Michele Kloesel said.
"That includes onboarding new dealers, managing the

Al Coulas's phone was
ringing before he retired,
"because you're at the prime
of your intellectual life where
you know the most and have
the most to offer."
PHOTO VIA AL COULAS

LAS VEGAS

EXPO

BRIAN MURPHY

EMAIL YOUR PICKS

Chrysler hired him.
"My first 15 years [with
Chrysler] was managing parts,
service, service contracts and
warranty expense at the dealer level in Ontario."
He won Chrysler's
Excellence Award, the highest
level of management skill, for
eight consecutive years.
"I then moved to fleet,
where I managed sales to
police agencies across the
country, and the pool stock,
which is heavy-duty trucks
that non-franchised dealers
stock to upfit for end users.
From there, they made me
the national service manager
for fleet, until I decided it was

*

SATURDAY-MONDAY February 15-17

In the relationship between
Nissan and Infiniti and their
dealers, Michele Kloesel's
role is to ensure all the i's
are dotted and the t's are
crossed.
PHOTO: NISSAN CANADA

process of selling and buying
new dealerships and terminating them."
Always interested in business, Kloesel studied commerce at the University of
Toronto. One summer she
took a temporary position at
Nissan Canada.
"I went to Nissan and I
never left."
She spent 10 years in discounting, which lends money
to dealers in exchange for
their lease and loan contracts,
and became the department's
manager. After working as
a financial-services manager, she transitioned into sales
operations and dealer networking.
"I don't have a typical day.
We have internal meetings,
and we meet with the regional
managers within our department. About 70 per cent of it is
getting the paperwork done."
This can involve everything from a dealership that's
starting from scratch, to
amending records if something changes at a store, such
as a new manager. Kloesel has
to follow up if a store is built
to Leadership in Energy and
Environmental Design (LEED)
environmental standards to be
sure all conditions have been
met, while dealers who handle
electric vehicles have to satisfy requirements and fill out a
separate addendum issued by
Kloesel's department.
The automaker is rolling
out a retail design strategy,
and when dealers sign up for
the program, Kloesel checks
that the documentation is
complete and that the store is
progressing on the timelines
set out.
"I've been in this position
for more than four years [and]
our dealer network has grown
by over 12 per cent. It takes a
lot to make it happen smoothly behind the scenes."

THE AUTO INDUSTRY
would no doubt love to have
a crystal ball, but he might be
the next-best thing.
As vice-president of
research and analytics at
Canadian Black Book, Brian
Murphy is responsible for setting current wholesale values
on vehicles, as well as forecasting up to five years from
now.
"We touch almost every
vehicle transaction at some
point, whether it's new, used
or written off, because we also
have insurance companies
as clients," said Murphy, 51.
"And dealers can use us as a
resource at auction, to give an
idea of how much to bid."
Murphy combined his business education and MBA with
a love of cars he had since
childhood and believes that
someone who's a "car person"
will be happier and more successful in the industry.
That's why, after initially working in marketing and
product management at communications companies Nortel
and Bell Mobility, "I realized
it wasn't the car business, so
I went to work for Subaru as
the manager of product planning for pricing and market
research."
From there he took a similar position at Nissan before
moving to J.D. Power, where
he worked with Canadian data
and then on global automaker quality. He joined Canadian
Black Book four years ago and
now heads a team of nine people.
"Forecasting is a lot of analytics and deductive reasoning, plus looking at how an
automaker's vehicles normally age, and what the segment
usually does. We get a lot of
data directly from manufacturers, and we have surveyors
who visit the auctions. The big
difficulty is making sure you
have the best available data
for wholesale values.
"I love every aspect of it,
and how it's an integral part
of our economy. As the economy goes up and down, so does
the car business." - ANC

Brian Murphy's value forecasts
can range from vehicles in
showrooms to those two or three
years away from launch if an
automaker makes the request.
P H O T O : B O B H AT C H E R
http://www.quorumdms.com/NADA2020
Automotive News Canada - December 2019

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