Franchise History: 1979 Through 1994 (The R.S. Ford Years)
The exact timing in late 1978 or early 1979 of when Russ Warner, Bob Ring and Jerry Storm began negotiating initial buy-sell terms and reached final terms is uncertain. However, the articles of incorporation of Ring and Storm’s new Company – RS Ford, Inc. – dated August 20, 1979 and approved by the State of Ohio on August 21, 1979 imply final terms were most likely agreed to by 2Q1979. Bob’s spouse, Rita Ring, recalls that the total price of purchasing the franchise from Warner tested their ability to raise the necessary capital to acquire the store; Ring was responsible for contributing slightly over half of the acquisition capital for a 51% stake in the new Company, while Storm would raise slightly under half for 49%. During his ten years of serving as a Field Representative with Ford Motor Company, Ring maximized Ford’s Employee Stock Ownership Plan and Ford’s stock match incentives on nearly every paycheck from Ford, eventually yielding roughly half of his initial capital investment needed to fund his stake in the new Company. To make up the difference needed for the funding, Bob and Rita Ring double-mortgaged their home, received support from Rita’s father William Robinson (Cincinnati-area CPA), and borrowed from Bob’s older brother Conrad Ring, Jr. (NYC-area FBI Agent). Rita recalls that Jerry Storm had similar methods of raising the capital needed for his stake in the new Company. To state that Ring and Storm had “bet the farm” on the success of their new enterprise would be an understatement.
Ring and Storm signed the official Dealer Agreement with Ford Motor Company, their previous direct employer, on September 18, 1979. They opened to the public as “RS Ford” the following day – September 19, 1979 – which has since been the date the Company recognizes and celebrates its milestone anniversaries.
Although Ring and Storm had achieved quite a substantial accomplishment by receiving approval by Ford Motor Company to operate one of its franchises in a top 25 major metro city, the first several years of their franchise ownership was extremely economically challenging, as previously predicted by Russ Warner.
Lloyd “Rocky” Ridener, who was hired by Russ Warner around 1977 as a Lot Technician and went on to work for the franchise for over 45 years under Ring’s ownership as the eventual Parts Department Manager, recalls how especially challenging 1980-1981 was for Ring and Storm. Ridener recalls that upon acquiring the franchise, Ring and Storm announced that they wanted the entire team from Warner Ford to “stay on” with RS Ford, so they extended an across-the-board raise in wages for all employees. However, in the midst of the crushing 1980 recession and paralyzing interest rates above 20%, Ring and Storm had to place their wage raises on “temporary hold” less than 6 months from when they were announced; Ridener remembers the increases were eventually honored after the business established sound footing after the 1982 recession ended.
At the time Ring and Storm opened RS Ford in 1979, there were fewer than 10 full-time employees, the count of which included Ring, Storm, and Ridener. One seasoned Sales Consultant – Jim Vineyard – stayed on with the store despite the challenging consumer environment, with Sales Manager Wendell Morris, Ring and Storm complimenting the Sales Department for the new store. Three service technicians were retained, including Jim Frederick, who served as the Service and Parts Manager. Jean Jones, the Office Manager, also stayed on with the store to assist with transitioning the books.
During the depths of the 1980 challenges, when asked during a 1999 video interview to recall what he thought of the 1979 ownership transition at the time, Jim Frederick stated: “I thought I’d have a job for about six months before we went out of business. Warner would come in and tell us all the time: ‘You’ll last six months and that’s it, you’ll be done.’” During these challenging times, Frederick suggested that Warner made several offers to be brought back into the operation through a buy-back arrangement; Ring and Storm declined his offers, with Rocky Ridener recalling that Storm politely and with good humor invited Warner to begin his return to operations by “cleaning the toilets.”
Jean Jones recalled in a 1999 video interview that the transition between Russ Warner’s bookkeeping and Bob Ring’s accounting was a memorable task. Ring’s formal accounting education was limited to one or two accounting classes he attended while securing his Undergraduate Bachelor of Arts Degree in History from the University of Richmond during the years of 1962 to 1966. Ring paid for his degree through a football scholarship as a starting Tight End for the then Division 1 Richmond Spiders competing in the “Southern Conference” against the likes of West Virigina University, The Citadel, College of William & Mary, and George Washington University. Ring later recalled during a 1999 video interview that he was having difficulty closing out his first monthly Financial Statement due to balancing issues; on his return flight to Cincinnati from visiting Ford headquarters in Detroit, he purchased an Accounting 101 manual in the airport to refresh his basics. He was delighted to discover his issue was related to an inventory double entry and although he was slightly delayed in submitting his first Dealer Financial to Ford Motor Company – all recorded by-hand and submitted via manual paper before the dawn of computers – he survived the initial trial by fire and went on to thrive as the preparer of the monthly RS Ford Financial Statements.
Ring’s determination to better himself through enhancing his abilities, beyond simply accounting skills, and challenge himself with demanding new experiences speaks to his self-made heritage from meager beginnings and an entrepreneurial spirit that echoes from his forebears. Ring was born in 1944 in Front Royal, VA to modest origins; his father, Conrad Ring, Sr., was a factory manager for Rayon products, especially Rayon parachutes that were utilized by paratroopers during and after World War II. Conrad’s father, George Ring, was a celebrated entrepreneur in Edinburg, VA that operated a notable flour and grain mill during the early 20th century until The Great Depression; George “losing the mill” to bankruptcy during The Great Depression left deep scars on Conrad that could have motivated him to seek adventurous business propositions, like when he relocated his family – including Bob as a small child – to Chile for several years during the late 1940s for a Rayon Factory expansion management opportunity. The Edinburgh Mill, originally built in 1848 by Major George Grandstaff, is one of the few buildings in the Shenandoah Valley area to survive strategic burnings during the American Civil War; it operates as the “Shenandoah Valley Cultural Heritage Museum” today and provides visitors to the area a treasure trove of historic objects and stories.
Although there were many trials and uncertainties during the first three years of ownership, Ring and Storm eventually began to prosper after the 1982 Recession ended. As referenced earlier, they went on to satisfy the full terms of Warner’s installment note for the property in 1983, eliminating the stresses of paying rent to a landlord. They also were able to hire some additional personnel, relieving Vineyard as the sole Sales Consultant and expanding the technician core from three members to four in 1983.
After three years of increasingly profitable operations, tragedy touched the RS Ford family in December of 1986 when Storm was diagnosed with leukemia after the Christmas Holiday. In his youth at around seventeen years of age, Storm had been diagnosed with aplastic anemia and predicted to have less than two years of life remaining. Storm carried a fighting spirit and was an avid baseball player; he went on to defy the doctors’ predictions by graduating from the University of Cincinnati with a bachelor’s in business, playing second base on the UC baseball team from 1964-1966, and co-captaining the UC baseball team his senior year in 1966 (“Jerry”, 9). After 20 years of remission, Storm fought the disease at the Cleveland Clinic and University Hospital during the first half of 1987 but tragically passed in the summer of 1987.
Storm’s RS Ford family sought to honor his memory and legacy by continuing on the operations of the dealership he helped secure and shepherd during the final eight years of his life. The late 1980s and early 1990s were filled with creative ways the team sought to grow and differentiate themselves from the competition. Kathy Kien, who joined the team in 1987 and served in the role of Office Manager, fondly recalled in a 1999 video interview her two favorite marketing campaigns that the store adopted during the late 1980s. The first included an elaborate promotional display through a partnership with a local country music radio station – “WFTK Beaver 96.5” – that featured displaying a 36-foot-tall inflatable beaver wearing a cowboy hat on the relatively space-constrained parking lot of RS Ford.
The second creative marketing campaign of note to Kien included a “Derby Days” promotion around the time of The Kentucky Derby each year, when Sales Consultants would dress as horse jockeys and – upon request from customers – perform simulated races on the show room floor by riding wood stick horses commonly associated as children’s toys. Ring tried to keep employee morale high by encouraging a light sense of humor and team building exercises that included a famed ping-pong table adorned in the very center of the showroom floor.
Less than five miles away from RS Ford, larger local market forces were developing that would forever change the trajectory of what was often described as a “quaint country Ford store” in the quiet streets of Loveland, Ohio. In the early 1980s, the President of Automanage, Inc. – Michael “Mike” Dever – had turned an eye to real estate acquisition and development with the formation of a real estate arm branded “Devco Properties Inc.”; Automanage, Inc. served as Dever’s holding company that owned and operated more than a dozen assorted single franchise dealerships in Cincinnati (“Auto Supermarkets”, 17). In 1985, Dever had plans to develop a pending 50-acre land development in Warren County into one of the nation’s largest “Auto Malls,” a concept that had recently gained industrial fame and success in California. By early 1986, Dever secured commitments from two local auto group operators, Robert “Bob” Reichert and Ronald “Ron” Borcherding, to relocate or open several new vehicle franchise dealerships in what would soon be branded “Kings Automall” as a reference to the local area’s historic geographic name (Six automobile dealers”, 68).
Perhaps best known nationally for the theme park “Kings Island”, the Kings name harkens back to a gun powder entrepreneur – Joseph Warren King – who in 1877 built the Great Western Powder Works in a nearby “company town” he named Kings Mills; this munitions factory complex would develop into one of the largest in the country and eventually be purchased in 1934 by Remington Arms. Today, the 1918-constructed powder factory structures – known as “Peters Cartridge Factory” under the surname of King’s son-in-law – stands as an impressive development that has been renewed in recent years as a microbrew, restaurant, and over 100 newly renovated apartment living spaces.
When Kings Toyota opened as the first dealership at Kings Automall in May of 1987 – to great fanfare as the automotive legend and Toyota Motor Corporation chairman Eiji Toyoda assisted Reichert with “cutting the ribbon” – the local representatives for other new vehicle manufacturers presumably took note. With Toyota, Dodge, Pontiac, Buick, Chrysler, Plymouth, Saab and Subaru all establishing a presence with the initial Kings Automall planning phase, the local Ford Motor Company leadership undoubtedly began pondering how they would respond and potentially represent in what was shaping up to be a regional auto shopping attraction to draw consumers from many miles away. The geographically closest existing Ford Dealership was none other than RS Ford, which would soon result in Bob Ring being offered one the largest opportunities of his life.
