Following in the footsteps of a father and grandfather can be daunting. But Ray Huffines, the third-generation owner and CEO of Huffines Auto Dealerships, never gave it much thought. He was confident that he wanted to continue down the path his grandfather J.L. Huffines Sr. set in 1924 with the company’s first location in Denton. “It’s rare for a family-owned business to survive for 100 years,” Huffines says. “You must have an heir who is both capable of taking over the business and willing to do so. They could be capable but not willing. Or willing, but not capable.”
A young Huffines spent summers working at the dealership his father, J.L. Jr., operated in Commerce, selling his first vehicle for $600. He became a dealership owner at an early age, like his father, who did so in 1950 at age 27 after serving in the U.S. Army during World War II. Ray briefly pivoted from the family business in the early 1980s to work on Ronald Reagan’s first presidential campaign before becoming the personal assistant to former Texas Gov. Bill Clements at the governor’s request.
“I didn’t ever see my career as government or politics,” Huffines says. “But to be with Gov. Clements as his assistant, sit in on meetings, and travel with him while he was a businessman with the largest oil drilling contracting firm in the world was a great experience. I was with him every day for two years, and I learned a lot by watching someone of his ability manage and lead.”
In 1984, at the age of 31, Huffines took over his second dealership. Running the Chevrolet store in Plano was an experience that he admits was a lot to absorb at the time. “It was pretty overwhelming,” Huffines says. “I didn’t know a lot. There are so many things you learn by doing. It was the time when computers started to run things, and so business became more automated. We’ve been blessed because we could have been a Saturn or Oldsmobile dealer, and we’d be gone.”
Today, there are 10 Huffines dealerships throughout DFW that generate a combined $1.1 billion between the service, parts, body shop divisions, as well as fleet, preowned, and new car sales. The entire operation and its 900 employees are under the direction of its third-generation owner. Huffines is also overseeing significant renovations and expansions at multiple dealership locations over the next two years to the tune of $37 million.
The CEO says several factors are necessary to be successful in car sales. “The one thing that comes to mind is the integrity I saw, which was an important part of how my grandfather and father operated,” Huffines says. “That was the foundation. And then the relationships with people. It’s a people business. When the company was much smaller, there were relationships between my grandfather and his employees, customers, and manufacturers because we’re, in a way, partners with them.”
Huffines is not quite ready to pass along the empire he has helped build but says a capable heir is in the line of succession. His son Sam, general manager at the Chrysler Jeep Dodge Ram dealership in Plano, is set to step in as the fourth-generation owner. “When he was at Texas A&M, he was hired to sell Infinitis in Houston,” Huffines says of his son. “When he came back to our operation, he had credibility not just because of his name. The elder Huffines says there’s no set time for the transition. “I’m not going to walk away until he’s ready and willing to take it on,” he says.
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