By Bruce
Farr Many young, aspiring professionals struggle to find their calling, their career niche. But Anthony “Tony” Batarse knew exactly what he wanted to do from the start.
Now 89 and semi-retired, the hugely successful auto dealership entrepreneur from Hayward, California, says with certainty that he chose his career when he was a young man and has never looked back.
To prove the point, over the past half century-plus, Batarse has built what can only be described as an automotive empire, opening and operating a total of six successful dealerships spread across a wide swath of northern California, as well as in Tucson, Arizona.As Batarse himself describes it, “It’s been a long journey, but I don’t think there’s much that I would change about it.”
College standout
That journey began with his birth in New York City in the early 1930s. Soon thereafter, Batarse’s father got offered a job as a textile engineer back in his native El Salvador, so the family immigrated there when Tony was just two.
“I was raised in El Salvador from that time until I was 14, and we moved back to New York City,” he says. “So, even though I was born in the U.S., my first language was El Salvadoran, and my second English.”
An uncommonly bright young student, Batarse excelled in high school and was accepted at Columbia University, where he studied business. He then applied to the prestigious Harvard Business School, eventually earning a master’s in business administration. With customary humility, however, Batarse says of his early academic achievements, “You see, I’ve been lucky.”Initially, with such impressive credentials, Batarse thought it wouldn’t take him long to find a job in accounting or finance in the banking industry. But he quickly discovered that, impressive as they were, his college degrees proved to be something of a hindrance. He applied for entry-level positions at a number of banks, but in nearly every case they told him he was “overqualified.”
By that time, Batarse had met his wife, Esther, and had moved her and their growing family to California, where Esther originally was from.
“I didn’t know what to do,” he recalls. “I needed money quickly, you see, so I went to work for an auto dealership.”
Batarse began what would become his lifelong career, humbly enough, working as a car salesman at a Chevrolet dealership in the mid-1960s. He held that job for a couple of years, learning the ins and out of the business. But all the while, he withheld from his employers that he had college degrees from two of the most prestigious universities in the country.
“I wanted to remain humble,” he says, of his decision not to disclose his background. “In some ways, having those degrees was an impediment for me.”
Two years of hard, dedicated work reaped some rewards for the young salesman. Batarse’s boss recognized Batarse’s drive and talent and promoted him to sales manager. “I’m a people person,” he says, “and it paid off for me.”
Fate comes knocking
That might have been where Batarse remained, but fate has a funny way of inserting itself into the mix of work and life.
“Somehow, one day, I got a call from a man named Lloyd Wise, who was a well-known Oldsmobile/GMC car dealer from Oakland, who had been in business since 1914,” he explains. “Lloyd was getting old, and he told me that he was looking for a partner to grow with him. He said, ‘Why don’t you come to work with me and if I like you and it works out, I’ll make you a partner.’ And that’s exactly what happened.”
It was 1967, a great era for the growth and expansion of American automobiles. “I took the job to heart,” Batarse says. “I wanted to do a good job.”
Not long thereafter, Wise passed away and his family offered Tony the dealership. “Mr. Wise had communicated to his family that I was a good person, so when he died, they invited me to buy the rest of the business, so it became a sole proprietorship.”
That development was the springboard for the rest of Batarse’s career. With the Olds/GMC dealership under his control, he began building and acquiring other automakers’ dealerships, eventually owning and operating six of them that, in total, employ more than 1,000 people.
Batarse is the first to admit that the automotive sales business was a lot more difficult in the early days of his involvement. “It was much harder to be a car dealer in those early days,” he recalls. “Back then, every sale involved a negotiation. Cars had a sticker price, but it was common practice for every car buyer to negotiate a discount. Nowadays, it’s different. It’s one price, the MSRP, which is the price that’s advertised and paid.”
Today, Batarse operates his dealerships in partnership with another self-made automotive businessman named Rami Yanni. But Batarse says he still makes sure to train his employees to use the same formula for success that he did when he was starting out.
“I’ve always instructed my employees to follow my lead and become ‘people-persons.’ I tell them to never argue with a customer, even if the customer is wrong. In the end, it helps all of us develop a good relationship with the communities that we do business in.”
As to his personal code of ethics, Batarse is straightforward: “I was fair. Fair with people and with my employees, and I never played favorites. I guess that’s been one of my keys to success—to treat everyone who worked for me fairly, and not show favoritism to some of them. I’ve always tried to do a good job, and that’s been how I’ve operated throughout all the years.”