The Family Story of Our Managing Partners
We know there are a lot of choices when it comes to car dealerships out there, so we wanted to take a moment to tell you our story. Hopefully our story will show you why Odo Cars, LLC (DBA Bedford Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram) is different!
Our story starts back on June 8, 1966. This is when the original founder, Livio Odoardi (and family), came to America. He and his family immigrated here from a small town in Italy called Cugnoli/Alanno Scalo. This area is a commune and town in the province of Pescara in the Abruzzo region of Italy. While residing in Italy the Odoardi family were farmers. They lived a very modest life in which they worked their land and cultivated their own food. His parents Pasquale & Concetta had seen very rough times and dreamt of a world of opportunity in this magical place called America. They scrounged up everything they had and took a leap of faith to up and move here in search of a better life for their children (and grandchildren to come). So, they arrived in America with their clothes on their back, empty pockets and not able to speak a lick of English. Upon arrival, they lived with Pasquale’s brother, Benito (who spoke to them of what America had to offer). Pasquale worked in construction in Yonkers, NY and Concetta sewed in a factory. They saved every penny they could until they could afford their own place.
Livio had a tough time in school at first and had to learn the language. Luckily, there were some other Italian Immigrants that were in the same position and they looked out for one another. Livio knew that there was opportunity in America and that believed he’d be successful if he hustled hard. He didn’t quite know what that path would be, but knew he had to work hard, save money and he’d figure it out. As soon as he was able, Livio began working in restaurants and became addicted to the cash opportunity from tips. He worked his way from bus boy, to assistant waiter, to waiter, to head waiter. He recalls often changing in his car on the way from school to work nights in the restaurants. Upon graduation from trade school, he decided he needed to find a way to earn money during the day because his restaurant shifts were at night. He secured a job at Mackenzie Motors, in the Bronx, NY, as an entry level Parts Driver. His job was to gather vehicle parts in the Parts Department and deliver parts ordered to Body Shops the dealership did business with. He quickly became a stand-out employee, delivering almost double the stops of the other employees. It wasn’t long until he was promoted to a stock boy, then a parts counter person. He then was offered another opportunity for a small increase in pay at Yonkers Avenue Dodge. While all this was going on, he didn’t want to give up his hours at the restaurant so he could “get ahead”. At the new dealership, he was promoted to Parts Manager and made the decision to commit to the auto industry.
This was a hard decision to give up that extra income, but knew he wanted to start a family with his wife Filomena. Filomena came from an almost identical Italian family upbringing, also being the 1st generation of her family in America. No stranger to hard working men, she always supported Livio in everything he did. Livio ultimately made the decision work in the Automotive field because there was advancement opportunity and the dream of being the Dealer himself. He also knew that he’d be able to see his children at night (two boys eventually), eat dinner together, get health benefits, and many other things the restaurant business did not offer.
As expected, he excelled as a Parts Manager and grew with the auto group. He eventually was named Parts & Service Director of 5 of the auto group’s stores. Things were going great in his departments and Livio was content with the progress he’d been making in the auto industry. After 15 years of service, one day in 1999, one of the owners of the group asked for a meeting with Livio. The owner was absentee but would come in occasionally to get an update from his managers. Livio was prepared for the business update meeting, coming prepared with notes and reports. The owner told him (undenounced to Livio) that the store was bleeding money and that he had no choice but to let him go. Livio was shocked but told the owner not to be upset because he’d be fine and hoped that they would turn it around. The owner told him he was so sorry, but he had to cut the two top salaries (being Livio and the GM). Livio was shocked, but shook his hand and went on his way.
This was another turning point for Livio and his professional career. He decided that he wasn’t going to do this again for someone else, but to refocus on his goal of being a dealer principle himself. The only phase of the dealership he didn’t yet know was sales. That was the missing piece. So, Livio rolled up his sleeves and walked into Central Avenue Chrysler to apply for an entry level sales job. He met with the owner who asked him if he was sure about the position being that he was a high-level executive. Livio told him he needed to learn this so he could one day get his own store and didn’t want any special treatment. After his 1st month, Livio sold 28 cars on the sales floor. He did this for about 6 months until an opportunity arose from the owner’s sister store, Rockland Auto Plaza. The store was failing, bleeding cash and needed an operator.
In 1999, Livio and the owners met to work out a deal for him to buy in for 50% equity. The owners knowing Livio’s drive and work ethic, decided to hold the loan for Livio’s equity purchase in the store. Livio had to go all in and put every last cent of his family’s money as a down payment. Livio never wavered, knowing that he had to take risks to get to his goal…being a car dealer. With his two boys in mind for the future, this was his opportunity to live out his dream.
The store was in bad shape and Livio knew he would have to “get back to basics” and make some hard decisions. He needed to stop the bleeding, so he attacked expenses first. Livio worked tirelessly to get things stabilized and installed true leadership in the store. When everyone had given up on the store, Livio knew that he would turn it around with true grit.
Rockland Auto Plaza sold Chrysler, Plymouth (no longer exists), Jeep, Mazda and Hyundai. At the time, Chrysler Corporation (now FCA – Fiat Chrysler Automobiles) was making a hard push to having all of their brands solely under one roof. Livio’s wheels started turning on how he could use this to his advantage and put the store on the right track. He was able to strike a deal with Chrysler to acquire Dodge and Ram in exchange for selling off Mazda and Hyundai. He also leveraged this to get some financial assistance from Chrysler to redo the building and make it in line with the image Chrysler wanted their flagship stores to have. Along with upgrading the facility and making Chrysler happy, Livio saw another opportunity. If he could sell Hyundai and Mazda at a good price, he might be able to buy out his partner and take full 100% ownership. That’s exactly what he did…
In 2004, Livio became sole owner of what was now called (and still is), Rockland Chrysler Jeep Dodge Ram. Although this was a huge milestone, Livio was not out of the water yet. He still needed some more cash to grow the store in line with his vision. He partnered with his cousin, Dino Odoardi, for some cash infusion and gave up some equity shares in exchange. This is a cool part of the story because Dino was the son of Benito, who had helped Pasquale when they first got to America. The store wasn’t bleeding anymore, but it wasn’t quite optimized yet. There was still a lot of work to do but the store was slightly profitable.
Livio’s oldest son, Vincent, attended Yorktown High School as part of the class of 2001. From there, he graduated from Siena College with a BS in Marketing & Management in 2005 and came to work full time at the dealership. No stranger to the business, Vincent was fully immersed in the dealership life early on. As a child, he would always ask his father to go to work with him and was fascinated by both the business and his dad. There wasn’t a school break or summer off that Vincent wasn’t working at the dealership through his school years. In high school, he would go to work immediately after school at the dealership when he wasn’t playing sports. He would wash cars, file, sweep the floors, etc. During the summer breaks he would work in the Parts Department delivering parts, stocking shelves, doing parts inventory and eventually did counterman duties. During his college years, Vincent was learning sales. He recalls sharing a desk with another salesperson most times while learning sales because he was only there during school breaks and summers. After college graduation, Vincent attended classes specific to the Business Manager position. Upon graduation of those classes, he was an assistant Business Manager and shortly thereafter dropped the “assistant” tag. The family business was starting to make a small profit…then 2007-2008 hit...
This was a very dark time referred to as the “Great Recession”. Just when things seemed to be going well for the family business, the financial crisis happened. This wasn’t isolated to the car business, but more of a world crisis. People were deathly scared of losing it all and many did. Chrysler went through a “surgical bankruptcy”, in which they used this opportunity to eliminate some dealers to increase throughput. The Odoardi’s will never forget the conference call in which Chrysler attempted to justify what was about to happen. They were going to send out a piece of certified mail to every Chrysler dealer, on the same day, informing them whether or not they would remain in business as their franchisee. The new franchise would be called FCA (Chrysler as we know it today), also known as Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. In order for the brands to stay in business, they needed to take on Fiat as a partner and get some governmental financial assistance.
The Odoardi family anxiously opened the certified mail and made the cut. Now how were they going to make it with a business that just started to be profitable and taking this massive blow? People everywhere were scared and afraid to spend money on new cars. Banks weren’t lending money and getting away from lending anything to do with the automotive industry. Consumer confidence was at an all time low and we had 90 employees. Things got really tight.
Livio had a difficult meeting with all of his managers and gave them a choice. They could either cut several people in their respective departments, or we could do a 15% cut across the board (including ownership). They overwhelmingly voted to all participate in the 15% pay cut. The team rallied together and stuck it out for a little over a year. The dealership didn’t lose one employee. The Odoardi’s remember this as a proud moment of the family atmosphere they always strive for. Family doesn’t quit on one another in tough times.
In 2009, Livio decided to make a change in the Sales Department. He decided to promote Vincent to General Sales Manager. Vincent remembers being overwhelmed at that time and asking his father how he knew he was ready. Livio told him, “If I didn’t think you could do it, I wouldn’t have put you here. I’m here to help you and you’re going to make mistakes. That’s ok, but you need to correct them and get better every time.” So that’s what Vincent did. He revamped the whole sales process and completely redefined the marketing strategy. Vincent made it his mission to get rid of the “old school” car business mentality in sales and focus on customer experience. He also was one of the very early adopters of digital marketing. Vincent remembers many dealers not even having a website back in 2010 and dealers believing the internet was just a fad in the auto industry. He remembered thinking that was a ridiculous thought and stayed the course to digitize. By 2015, the majority of the marketing budget was dedicated to digital advertising. Coupled with more effective, trackable marketing and a focus on the consumer experience…This is when the real growth started to happen.
Dante Odoardi, Livio’s youngest son, also went through the Yorktown School District and graduated with the 2005 class. He attended Marist College from 2005 – 2009 and graduated with a BS in Marketing and a minor in Advertising. Similar to his brother, while attending college, Dante worked at the dealership part time in a number of different positions. He first started in the Parts Department stocking shelves and delivering wholesale car parts to neighboring shops and gas stations, then moving into the sales department as a sales professional for a few years. He began his sales training on the road as a BusinessLink road sales professional selling Dodge Sprinter vans, and then transitioned into the traditional floor salesperson, selling Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep and Ram products.
After a few years on the sales floor, Dante took over the internet sales department to handle the increasing demand of online customer being driven to the store from their new marketing. He later became a Sales Manager for a short while, managing the sales floor and working car deals. Then, from 2013 to 2016, Dante moved to the next step in the sale and became a Finance Manager where he was responsible for closing out paperwork on car deals, as well as reviewing and selecting protection plans with customers to protect their investments.
From 2016 until 2019, Dante saw an opportunity to grow the Pre-Owned Department at the dealership, so he took over the wholesale and retail operations of pre-owned cars. In this position, Dante was in charge of buying pre-owned inventory for resale to the public, appraising customer trade-ins, marketing the pre-owned inventory, and also selling non-retail vehicles to the wholesale market.
During this same time period, Dante attending a dealer development program hosted by both FCA and NADA (National Auto Dealer Association). This program gave him a more well-rounded look at the auto industry at a dealer level. He got more involved with the fixed operations of the dealership, which is the “After Sales” part of the relationship with our customers – more commonly known as parts & service. Knowing that this was something that his father Livio was an expert in, Dante relied heavily on his father’s guidance in learning the responsibilities of how to properly run service and parts operations. By learning this end of the business and being involved in the daily operations, Dante was able to improve some processes and increase the efficiency and the Customer Experience for the dealership’s customer base.
During the stretch from 2015-2018 the Odoardi family really hit their stride in the car business and ran it like a true family business. All three Odoardi’s had their own special part in this growth and focused on their area of responsibility. They recorded month-over-month and year-over-year sales and service increases crushing all the store records. The store was selling over 300 cars per month and doing 900 vehicle repair orders monthly. With this business doing well, they decided to start looking for another store for continued growth. They worked with an amazing Merger & Acquisition firm called the Dave Cantin Group (DCG) to help them find new opportunities. Dave Cantin worked with them directly. He was able to find them a store in Westchester, NY, where they live , and selling the same brands!
The name of the store was called Arroway Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram in Bedford Hills, NY. It had been in business for 5 years, but never profitable. This seemed like the same story all over again and the Odoardi’s were able to strike a deal on the store. The purchase of this store, now called Bedford Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram was a messy, difficult deal at times and without the consummate professional, Dave Cantin, at the helm it would have blown up. The Odoardi’s and the previous ownership group had an accepted offer on this new store in April 2018. There were a lot of speedbumps in this deal and it ended up taking a long time to complete. During that time another opportunity arose.
Dave Cantin called the Odoardi’s in August 2018, while they were on a family vacation together and told them about a new ownership group that really wanted to buy Rockland. The Odoardi’s initially told him it wasn’t for sale, but they ended up making them a great offer. The new owner group was looking for a “plug and play” store as their first of many acquisitions. Based on the success and operation the Odoardi’s had, the group was willing to make the deal worthwhile for the Odoardi’s to say yes. After putting pen to paper, the Odoardi’s made the decision that by executing this move Livio could slow down a bit and start enjoying retirement. The hardest part for the Odoardi family was leaving behind the work family that they had been apart of for so many years. There were so many relationships that came about over the years and it was difficult to not be a part of that store anymore. However, this move would allow the Odo boys to spread their own wings and grow a new business following the foundation their father had laid out over the years.
The Rockland sale was completed by November 2018, yet the Bedford deal was still pending. It was an emotional staff meeting, but they were all supportive of doing the next best thing for our family. Finally, the last week of 2018 the Bedford deal got closed. It was a marathon closing spanning over 4 days. At times, it looked like the deal was going to dismantle. The Odoardi stick-to-itiveness persevered and they got the deal done.
Vincent currently runs the sales department along with all of the marketing, social media and digital responsibilities. Dante oversees fixed operations and pre-owned sales. Together, Vincent and Dante have a complete grip on the daily operations of their car dealership. Cooperatively, they fully encompass the inner workings of the store and are able to maximize the Customer Experience, which is the main goal that they have in selling and servicing Fiat Chrysler automobiles. Livio is still involved on a part time basis and is always a phone call away if needed. The Odo boys are so very happy that they can continue to live out Livio’s legacy and can contribute to his future retirement.
The Odoardi’s are excited to be back in their hometown community of Westchester, NY. Bedford Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram is much closer to home, where all three Odoardi’s still live. They are all local to the area, so they live and shop at the same places their customers do! This is the Odoardi family’s American Dream.
