Larry T.Brown

Larry Thomas Brown was born in Inkster, Michigan, the son of Mattie Lewis Brown and Nander Brown, a mechanic and a preacher. He grew up in a household that understood both how an engine runs and what keeps people going.

The family moved to Detroit, and Larry came up through Chaney Elementary, Condon Intermediate and Western High School. In the Motor City, the automobile was never just an industry. It was the rhythm of the whole town, and it was already shaping the road in front of him.

In 1965 he joined the United States Air Force. He served four years and earned the stripes of a sergeant, and the discipline he built in uniform became the chassis for everything that came after.

He came home to Michigan in 1969 and went straight to work at Ford Motor Company. At the same time, he went back to school. He took classes at Wayne County Community College, earned his Bachelor of Science from Wayne State University in 1973 and, while still working at Ford, completed a Master of Arts in management and supervision at Central Michigan University in 1979. He married Angelina D. Brown in 1971, and they are still married today.

Nobody handed him the credentials. He earned every one of them with a full load on the road.

Through the 1970s, Larry worked in Ford's Dealer Computer Services, learning the business from the inside out and seeing exactly how a dealership runs. In 1979 the company moved him into the field as Chicago South Market Manager, putting him face to face with the dealers who moved the product and the customers who drove it home.

He completed Ford Motor Company's Dealer Training Program, the proving ground for the people Ford trusted to run its stores. By 1985 he had logged sixteen years inside the company. He knew the business at every level. He was ready to own a piece of it.

In 1985 Larry left Ford and opened his own store, Ottawa Ford-Lincoln-Mercury, Inc. in Ottawa, Illinois, and he ran it until 2009. In the years that followed he also owned Landmark Ford of Niles in Chicago's northwest suburbs and Star Toyota in Merrillville, Indiana, and served as president of Kia of Ottawa.

Four franchise brands. Showrooms in two states. Payrolls, service bays, inventory and whole communities that counted on the lights staying on. That is the kind of mileage no classroom can teach.

He did not stop at cars either. In July 1990 he moved into real estate investing through Samoht, Inc., his middle name spelled backwards, building a second engine while the showrooms ran. And in 2007, more than twenty years into ownership, he went back to the classroom at Babson College in Massachusetts, because the man who already knew the business still wanted to know it better.

Larry built all of it in an industry where Black dealers were few and the road to ownership was narrow. He did not just walk through the door. He went to work widening it for the people coming behind him.

He served as president of the National Association of Minority Automobile Dealers in 1993 and as its chairman from 1994 to 1995, and he was still serving on its board more than a decade later. He led the Ford-Lincoln-Mercury Minority Dealers Association as president and chairman, and he also served as its vice president of the Ford Division, vice president of the Customer Service Division and treasurer.

Then he took a seat almost no one who looked like him had ever held. Larry became one of the first two African Americans to serve on the board of the National Automobile Dealers Association, the national voice of America's franchised new car dealers. He did not treat it as a ceremonial chair. He went on to lead four of its committees.

• Chair · Dealership Operations
• Chair · Industry Relations
• Chair · Executive Board
• Chair · Public Affairs
• Member · Executive Board

He also served with the NADA Ambassador Foundation, holding six ambassadorships that all went to charitable giving, and he has spent years speaking at career day events, telling young people what the road actually takes.

Going first is heavy. He carried it anyway, and he held the door for whoever came next.

Most careers would have parked right there. His kept rolling. In 2009 Larry opened Ottawa Auto Spa, a car wash and detailing business in Ottawa, Illinois, where he serves as president. He brought his dealership experience to Northwest Indiana as owner and general manager of 3A Automotive.

Today he is a social equity partner in Blounts & Moore, the women-founded company behind Market 96 and a part of Illinois's licensed cannabis industry.

His story is also part of the permanent record. In 2005, The HistoryMakers, the national video oral history archive of African American leaders, recorded his life story for its collection.

The odometer is still turning.