Four locally owned car dealerships combine for more than 200 years of history in Southwest Florida, and four of the leaders behind them have held about 40 various jobs among them.
It’s a long way to the top if you want to sell some cars.
Robert Galloway at Galloway Ford in Fort Myers; Richard DeVoe at DeVoe Cadillac, Subaru and GMC in North Naples; Trey Ward at Val Ward Cadillac; and Tim Zellers at Tamiami Ford and Hyundai in Naples are carrying on family legacies.
They have continued and thrived, while many other family-owned stalwarts across the region have sold to corporate behemoths or out-of-town companies over the past five years.
Not every family has the desire, strategy or financial ability to pass the torch, said Alan Haig, president of Haig Partners, a brokerage firm that facilitates the buying and selling of car dealerships. These are often multimillion-dollar, nine-figure deals.
“It’s not a dying breed, if you will,” says Haig, who brokered the recent Galeana transaction — a $33.74 million real estate deal for the land off U.S. 41 in south Fort Myers, where Frank Galeana’s family had been selling cars for 32 years.
It’s not a dying breed, Haig said, because another family bought the Galeana dealerships.
Bill Nero owns Universal Nissan, Universal Hyundai and Universal Genesis in Orlando, with assistance from his son, Austin Nero. They bought the two adjacent Galeana dealerships in September, doubling their company’s dealerships from two to four.
Nero said the private business transaction and land acquisition combined for about $145 million.
“Austin was very much a part of the transaction,” Haig says. “He was there prior to closing. He pulled together the numbers behind the final closing statement. This is a father-son combo that will continue to grow.
“Families are in the car business. But what’s been hard to do is transition a business from father to son, because the value has gone up so much. It’s hard for the kid to buy out the dad.”
The Zellers family carries on a multigenerational auto legacy. Tim and Shelia Zellers, vice president of Tamiami Ford, pose with their son A.J., general manager at Tamiami Ford. Their daughter, Joy Rautenkranz, operations manager at Tamiami Hyundai, is not pictured.
Brian Tietz
THE BIGGER DEALS
More common in Southwest Florida are families selling to large corporations with regional or national profiles.
Scanlon Acura and Lexus sold its south Fort Myers dealerships for $37.3 million in May, property records show, to Group 1 Automotive. That Houston-based company owns 259 dealerships, according to Automotive News. The Scanlons had been in the market for 44 years.
O’Brien Auto Group, which owned the Fort Myers Hyundai, Subaru and Mazda dealerships off Colonial Boulevard, sold those for $26 million in 2020. Tampa-based Morgan Automotive Group, which owns more than 70 dealerships in Florida, still owns and manages them.
The O’Briens had been in the market for 22 years.
O’Brien Auto Group sold its Fort Myers Hyundai, Subaru and Mazda dealerships for $26 million in 2020. The locations remain under the ownership and management of Tampa-based Morgan Automotive Group, one of Florida’s largest dealership networks.
Brian Tietz
Haig got his start in this transactional arena in the mid-1990s. In 2011, he brokered a $31.5 million deal when the Templeton family, which had owned Fort Myers Toyota for 23 years, sold to AutoNation Inc.
“I wrote the original business plan for AutoNation’s new superstore concept,” Haig says of his role back in 1996. “Wayne Huizenga was the majority owner at the time. He hired me to write a business plan on the new-car side. At the time, I had no experience in the car business.”
AutoNation went from zero to a peak of 454 dealerships.
“It has shrunk since then,” Haig says, noting the number is now 267, per Automotive News. But along with Group 1 Automotive and CarMax, AutoNation remains among the nation’s top 10 car-selling companies with presences in Southwest Florida.
General Manager Mike Spinazze has steered Nissan of Fort Myers for nearly three decades, helping Krause Auto Group expand its Southwest Florida footprint while preserving a family-first approach.
Brian Tietz
KRAUSE BECOMES NEW FAMILY IN TOWN
Krause Auto Group is family-owned by Vernon Krause and headquartered in Georgia, where it owns 10 dealerships. It has grown to have a large Southwest Florida presence, having acquired Volvo and Nissan of Fort Myers, Nissan of Cape Coral and Fort Myers Genesis in recent years.
“I’m basically the operator-owner, and Vernon Krause is the silent partner who helps me pay for all the things I can’t pay for myself,” says Mike Spinazze, general manager at Nissan of Fort Myers, with a laugh.
He has worked there for 27 years, having previously worked for the Sutherlin family. When repeat customers visit, Spinazze said, he knows them on a first-name basis.
“Being a family dealership versus a corporate dealership means I don’t have to go through suits to make decisions and budgets. You can do what you want to do. It’s a lot easier for the employer, and it’s a lot easier for the customer.
“If one day corporate pushes all the private dealers out of the market, it’s going to be horrible for the consumers.”
WHEN A FAMILY BECOMES CORPORATE
Larry Morgan’s auto empire isn’t the typical family-owned car business. Unlike Galloway, DeVoe, Ward and Zellers, Morgan can’t appear in each of his 77 dealerships every day.
“Statistically, we’re a family business,” Morgan says, although Redwood Group, a private equity company, owns a large stake. “Operationally, even though my son and I are it, we’re a family business. But we’re a big corporation. Our sales will be $11 billion this year. In the Tampa Bay market, we’re the second-largest company next to Publix.”
But Morgan Auto Group started, as family businesses usually do, with just one store: Toyota Tampa Bay.
“It gradually grows,” says Morgan, whose attempt to retire after selling the 630 Tire and Auto Centers he owned two decades ago failed because he began buying car dealerships. “Four or five stores, it’s probably not that much different from one store. It all came about kind of slowly. I’ll give you an example: In the banking world, we had one bank that we did our business with, that we borrowed money from. We did that for, say, five years, maybe.
“And then we kind of outgrew one bank. Then we found another bank, so we dealt with two banks. That went on for another five years. Then we got what’s called a bank syndication.”
The bank syndication was a tipping point for Morgan Automotive Group, he said.
“They all take a piece of our business,” Morgan says of the banks. “And they kind of compete for it, if you will. I think today our bank syndication might have 20 banks in it. And then we went from bank syndication to just selling bonds. We’re in the bond market. That’s just kind of an example of how we’ve matriculated from a small, one-store business to a 77-store business.”
Morgan’s mother used to ask him, “Why do you need so many stores?”
Carrying on his grandfather’s 1968 legacy, Richard DeVoe has worked nearly every job at the family dealership, gaining hands-on experience from the sales floor to the service bay.
Brian Tietz
“I could never answer her question,” Morgan says, although he added that he loves the thrill of the hunt. “Most people don’t understand. They think I’m a workaholic and I’m crazy. But my son, Brett, and I enjoy what we do. We like to be good. We like to have customers who are happy. You do all those good things, you take care of your employees, you’ll make some money along the way.”
Morgan Auto Group now owns eight Southwest Florida dealerships: Honda, Hyundai, Mazda and Subaru of Fort Myers; Naples Mazda; Naples Chrysler Dodge Jeep; and Kia of Cape Coral and Port Charlotte.
Morgan’s Kia dealerships were once owned by the late Billy Fuccillo, who died in 2021 after owning about 25 dealerships in New York and Florida and becoming one of Southwest Florida’s most visible personalities, with his catchphrase “Huuuge!” reverberating across numerous television ads.
Growing bigger means Morgan can create corporate efficiencies and support for the dealerships.
“A lot of businesses and industries have consolidated over the years,” Morgan says. “The same’s true for the car dealer world. The public companies came in, and they made a very aggressive move and bought up a lot of mom-and-pop businesses. And they’re still doing it. There’s benefits to that. If they’re running their stores well, the more stores they have, the more money they’re going to make. And the stockholders get a return. So that’s kind of the motivation.”
Like those public companies, Morgan has created internal efficiencies, but he doesn’t answer to shareholders.
“Accounting is a big area,” Morgan says. “We’ve consolidated all our accounting work. Information technology is another area that’s consolidated. Human resources is consolidated. We have our own in-house lawyers. That’s consolidated. And we have a support team that works with our stores to improve their performance. Health care — we buy our health care for all of our stores. Our benefits are consolidated. There’s just a lot of things like that.”
LAST OF THE HOMEGROWNS
As Morgan attested, DeVoe, Galloway, Ward and Zellers can do some things he cannot.
“There’s a lot of good single-store operators,” Morgan says. “Galloway’s a good example. They’re happy with the number of stores they have. They’re outstanding citizens in their community. My son and I can’t belong to every Rotary Club in Florida. We can’t be on the board of every community bank.
“One thing that’s an equalizer is we pay the same price for cars that they do. A one-store outlet in Cape Coral will pay the same for a Nissan that one of the public companies with maybe 25 Nissan dealerships will pay.”
That means the family-owned business, without a corporate apparatus or support system, might have to work a little harder — or not.
At third-generation, family-owned Val Ward Cadillac in south Fort Myers, General Manager Pete Weidner said the staff includes salespeople who commute from more than an hour away just to work there.
“It’s just a wonderful place to work,” Weidner says.
But unlike almost all its counterparts, Val Ward Cadillac is closed on Sundays. That’s about 52 days a year — almost two full months compared to its competitors — of not selling cars. On New Year’s Eve, the last day of the last month of the year, the sales crew often goes home early to be with their families. That’s the Val Ward way, Weidner said.
President Trey Ward is the third generation running that dealership.
“This is something you can’t get in a corporate-owned store,” Weidner says of the atmosphere. “And we feed off that; the hours, the culture. The way I look at it, he’s here every day. It’s that personal. Our theory is simple. All you have to do is be nice to people.”
Like Ward, Rich DeVoe, Robert Galloway and Tim Zellers never wavered from wanting to carry on the traditions started by their fathers and grandfathers.
That’s why when their fathers paid them, for example, to wash cars during their teenage years, they did it.
“I was cleaning the floor as a kid,” says Zellers, 67, whose father bought Tamiami Ford in 1973. Zellers took over for his father in 1992, and his father died in 1998. “I’ve been in just about every department. I painted in the body shop. I worked in the shop. I worked in the parts department. I was in the accounting office for a while. And in the sales department, as well, obviously.
“What I’ve got now — it was (President Harry) Truman who said that the buck stops here — that’s the downside.”
Galloway and DeVoe told similar tales.
“I started washing cars,” Galloway says. “Literally. I’ve worked in every department in the store: detail, service, parts, sales departments. And that’s all of us — my brother and sister and I.”
Robert Galloway runs the Fort Myers dealership opened by his grandfather in 1928, when Thomas Edison lived in Fort Myers and Henry Ford himself was a next-door neighbor.
Robert’s brother, Sam Galloway III, manages the Estero Coconut Point Ford dealership. Their sister, Katherine Dougherty, is the vice president of operations.
“My brother, sister and I, it was almost a foregone conclusion that we were going to get involved,” Galloway says. “Dad was always very sensitive to the fact that he didn’t want us to do something we didn’t want to do. But I know he was very excited when we chose to stay. I got a degree in marketing — automotive marketing, of all things.”
Richard DeVoe has held 15 roles at his dealership and worked each one for at least a couple of years. His grandfather, Dick DeVoe, founded the dealership in 1968 and died at age 94 in 2023.
“Salesman, service adviser, marketing, accounting, internet manager,” DeVoe says, listing from memory. “I was a cashier and the line attendant. Washing the cars. Keeping the cars organized. Just doing miscellaneous tasks for the sales manager. I believe I was making like $9 an hour.”
THE NEXT GENERATION
Brett Morgan and Austin Nero are beyond the apprenticeship phases of their auto dealership days. They are well on their way to someday supplanting Larry Morgan and Bill Nero.
Ward, the Galloways and the Zellers family are at earlier stages of preparing their next generations for success. DeVoe, 38, doesn’t have children, but his company is one of 280,000 using the Entrepreneurial Operating System, or EOS.
“We have created, with the help of EOS, a long-term vision for DeVoe Automotive,” DeVoe says. “We plan on being an integral part of the Naples business community for many years to come.”
At Galloway Ford, several family members already work behind the scenes.
“The next generation is involved as we speak,” Robert Galloway says. His nephew, Evan Dougherty, is a service manager at Sam Galloway Ford. His son, William Galloway, recently started in the service department. His daughter, Olivia, works in the accounting office.
Zellers has two grown children in prominent management roles in his company. His son, A.J. Zellers, is general manager at Tamiami Ford, and his daughter, Joy Rautenkranz, is operations manager at Tamiami Hyundai.
Zellers is also in the process of building Genesis of Naples, a 30,000-square-foot store at the northwest quadrant of Interstate 75 and Pine Ridge Road.
“It’s going to be the biggest Genesis store in the world,” Zellers says. It should be open by early 2027.
LOOKING BACK
Joe O’Brien, 75, a part-time Captiva Island resident, sold his family’s Fort Myers auto businesses to Morgan Auto Group in 2020. He’s out of the business in the area, having signed a noncompete agreement, but he still follows the market.
“The Morgans gave us an offer we couldn’t refuse,” O’Brien says. “It was timing. We’ve bought and sold many stores over the years. We’re in the process of building Genesis dealerships in San Diego, California, because we have the opportunity to be the Genesis partner there.”
The industry has been kind to O’Brien and his family. He and his wife own a 240-acre horse farm in Kentucky, where his wife trains and breeds horses.
“To get her off the farm is sort of an act of God,” O’Brien says. “But one of her favorite places to go is Captiva.”
Hurricane Ian ruined their Captiva home, but they are finally nearing the end of refurbishing it. One of his companies, Parkway Properties, paid $1.2 million in July for a Captiva property called Nani Li that has been razed and will be rebuilt from scratch into three units.
None of that would have been possible without building an auto empire that once had 17 locations and 39 brands and now includes eight, with two more in development.
“My business model has always been having operating partners — general managers who could earn equity,” O’Brien says of the same approach now being used by Nero. “That’s sort of been the business model. Back then, I had an operating partner. And I was a friend of John Scanlon’s prior to this. John contacted me that he was going to sell Mitsubishi, and that’s really how I got into business in Fort Myers. We had a number of dealerships in other parts of the country, but not Florida — even though I’ve been going to Captiva since ’74 and owned a home there since 1990.
An aerial view shows the former Galeana Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram and Galeana Kia dealerships in Fort Myers. The properties changed ownership in a major 2025 transaction involving Orlando-based Universal dealerships.
Brian Tietz
“I love Southwest Florida. I ended up dealing with the Germains in Naples and buying Mitsubishi from them, and later acquiring Hyundai, which had an open point.”
O’Brien sold the Naples Hyundai in 2008 to Zellers.
“Tim and his wife are just great people,” O’Brien says. “The Hyundai brand has continued to grow, and the Mitsubishi brand has sort of died. It’s not what it was. And the Genesis brand is the new up-and-comer.”
O’Brien’s son died 18 years ago, and his three daughters weren’t interested in the car business. But he has 14 grandchildren — and one of them is learning the ropes. O’Brien’s legacy just might skip a generation.
“My first grandchild is in the car business,” O’Brien says. “He’s working in Illinois for one of my operating partners, who is quite a star and quite a trainer. My partner has held off promoting him, just so he can go slow and learn. He’s got a lot of talent. And I have other grandsons and granddaughters behind him. We’ll see.”
Success means leaving a footprint and opportunities for others, O’Brien said.
“We’ve been in business over the years in Illinois, Wisconsin, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, California and the state of Washington,” O’Brien says. “I’d love to tell you it’s been a strategic business plan — but it’s not. It’s just been a lot of fun. It’s a wonderful business. It’s a great way to develop people.
“Today, entrepreneurship in the automobile business is really sort of declining, because of the public companies, as well as these very large dealer groups. The young, talented individual in the car business never really has an opportunity at ownership. Our business model is one where we instill support for the young entrepreneur who truly wants to be their own boss and own their own company someday. I hope that never goes away.”
Costs create challenge, drive creativity
Inflation, tariffs, supply-chain woes … all have combined to drive up the average price of a new automobile over the past five years. Now, that price has for the first time eclipsed $50,000.
The milestone means new car dealerships will have to come up with incentives to move more vehicles, said Mike Spinazze, general manager of Nissan of Fort Myers at 13985 S. Cleveland Ave.
It also means used car dealerships will face challenges in acquiring used vehicles, as competition to buy and sell them rises among competitors, said Kyle Lee, owner of Lee Auto Group in south Fort Myers, off Alico Road at 8181 Mainline Parkway.
“We’ve been seeing it for two and a half to three years,” says Lee, a lifer in the car business. His father sold his Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram dealership in south Fort Myers to Frank Galeana in 1983, which in turn changed hands earlier this year to Bill Nero’s group, based in Orlando.
Southwest Florida is a unique market for dealing cars because of the seasonality of a large portion of its residents. This created some car-buying trends that persist to this day, Lee said.
The biggest such trend is the rise in new car sales across the region in the weeks leading to Easter.
“People from Iowa, people from Ohio, people from Michigan, they didn’t have a dealer in their small little town in the Midwest,” Lee says of seasonal residents. “So, they would drive their car down. Get the season out of it in Florida, and then they would go and trade it in. Most of that was because they didn’t have the selection back home that they wanted. Down here in Florida, we had more inventory.
“That was a thing, and it still is.”
In recent years, used dealerships have found it more challenging to gather inventory, Lee said. “What we’ve seen since COVID-19, and even more so in the last 18 months, is there’s less and less used cars at the auction,” he says. “Because these new car dealers, they’re keeping them and reselling them. They kind of had to do that. They learned how to take a used car and recondition it. They learned that through COVID-19, during inventory shortages. It’s really trickled down. It’s made inventory scarce.
“I used to be able to buy as many cars as I needed at an auction. Now I’ve got to go to four or five auctions just to get my needed inventory.”
Lee said there are two buyers in the market, a new car buyer and a used car buyer. They typically cross over — and become one and the same — about 20% of the time.
“Those numbers are up to over 50% now,” Lee says. “When somebody comes in to buy a new car, they get sticker shock. And then they come to us.”
Cars once slated for the scrap heap are now being reconditioned and sold — and not just by Lee Auto Group. “Back in the day, a 100,000-mile car was a throwaway,” Lee says. “Now, it’s a good price point for the mass of customers. When I go and buy a car that has 90,000 miles on it, it’s costing me more money to recondition it. Brakes, suspension work, etc. It’s going to cost more for the buyer.”
An aerial view shows Nissan of Cape Coral and surrounding dealerships. Family-owned and corporate-owned groups continue to compete in a consolidating Southwest Florida market.
Brian Tietz
Of about 500 cars on Lee Auto Group’s lot near Alico Road, about 100 of them have reached the 100,000-mile threshold. “I try not to buy cars at 100,000 miles,” Lee says. “But it’s such a good price point for the masses.”
Another factor in the $50,000 average price of a new car: creative financing.
“I think the manufacturers are going to have to come up with special incentives to move those cars,” Spinazze says. “Like, interest rates. Zero percent or 0.99%. If they’re not selling, that’s what they’ll have to do.”
The length of loans also has been rising as the prices have. “It went to 60 months, then it went to 72,” he says. “Then the past three years, they’ve come up with 84 months of financing. Some banks are even doing 96-month loans.”
Luxury car makers, such as Mercedes, are coming out with entry-level prices, $58,000 for a C-class sedan, for example, that’s not far from that average new car price. “They’re making more entry-point cars for luxury,” Spinazze says, which is one of the reasons why that average price keeps rising.
But it’s also why a brand such as Nissan can still thrive. “Your starting Nissan is in the $22,000 range,” he says. “Your starting luxury car is in the $52,000 range. It’s good for us, because we’re one of the few manufacturers that are going to be lucky, because we still make SUVs that are still in the $30,000 range. I think we appeal to a wider spectrum of people. I’ve got luxury offerings for Nissan, too.”
Family-owned dealerships still dealing
Lines can be blurred regarding “family-owned” car dealerships, in that a family can own a dealership but not be present for day-to-day operations. Gulfshore Business is highlighting Southwest Florida dealerships where family members preside over business decisions on-site and in person.
Here’s a look at the top 25 dealerships for new-car sales in Southwest Florida. The local, family-owned dealerships are bolded. Ten of the area’s top 25 new-car dealerships, in terms of volume sold, still have family members working at them.
New-car sales were calculated from January through August 2025, with data sourced from the AutoCount Trend Report.
AutoNation Toyota Fort Myers 2,768
Germain Toyota of Naples 2,439
Tesla Florida 2,077
Honda of Fort Myers 1,747
Sam Galloway Ford 1,589
Hyundai of Fort Myers 1,484
Airport Kia of Naples 1,277
Estero Bay Chevrolet 1,264
Kia of Cape Coral 1,190
Galeana Kia* 1,169
Dixie Buick GMC Truck 1,039
Gettel Toyota of Charlotte County 1,036
Rick Hendrick Chevrolet Naples** 924
Germain Honda of Naples 921
Tamiami Ford 903
Victory Layne Chevrolet 821
Cape Coral Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram 790
Galeana Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram of Fort Myers 773
Naples Nissan 760
Kia of Port Charlotte 735
Germain BMW of Naples 732
Nissan of Cape Coral 727
Tamiami Hyundai 695
Nissan of Fort Myers 683
Mercedes-Benz of Bonita Springs 654
* Galeana Kia was sold from one family-owned company to another in September, with Orlando-based Bill Nero purchasing it.
** Rick Hendrick Chevrolet Naples is part of Hendrick Automotive Group, founded and led by Rick Hendrick. While not locally rooted, the group remains family-owned and separate from private equity-based organizations.