Published December
2003
Lane
marks five decades
in auto industry
|
Snohomish County
Business Journal archive
During the past
50 years, Dwayne Lane's presence in the auto industry has grown to
include three dealerships in south Everett and Arlington. |
By
Kimberly Hilden
SCBJ Assistant Editor
When Dwayne Lane
began in the auto industry 50 years ago, he was sure his first day would
be his last. It was December 1953 and Lane, then a high school senior,
was hired to wash cars at Walsh-Platt Motors in downtown Everett.
It was a cold, snowy
day, at the end of which he had to help put the cars away, “because in
those days, they had alcohol, not antifreeze.”
But as he was driving
one of the cars up the ramp into the building, the “gorgeous, old black
Buick” died halfway up. It then slid all the way down, grinding against
the concrete wall along the way.
He looked out the
car’s window only to see a man in a gray suit, with his hands on his hips.
“I thought, ‘It’s
all over,’” Lane said. But the man, Harold Walsh, was impressed with Lane’s
ability to “run” from morning ‘til night.
|
Photo courtesy
of Dwayne Lane
In the late
1950s, Dwayne Lane (second from right on bottom row) was sent by his
bosses, auto dealers Harold Walsh and Frank Platt, to the Chrysler
Corp. Training Center in Detroit, Mich. In those days, Lane said,
there were no auto imports. |
“That’s how I made
it here — I did a lot of running,” said Lane, who began working full-time
for the dealership after his junior year of college, becoming the dealer
at Walsh-Platt Motors in 1969 and sole owner in 1971.
The dealership remained
“Walsh-Platt” until 1987, when Lane built another store in south Everett
for what would become his Chrysler-Jeep dealership, keeping his Dodge
dealership downtown.
“That’s when I changed
the name (to Dwayne Lane), because it’s less expensive to advertise one
name than two names,” said Lane, whose business expanded further in 1995,
when he acquired a Chevrolet dealership in Arlington.
Today, Dwayne Lane’s
Family of Auto Centers includes those three dealerships (with the Dodge
dealership relocated to south Everett), which employ 180 full time and
more than 30 part time. All three dealerships regularly are listed among
Auto Industry Cross-Sell Reports’ top 30 new- and used-car dealers in
Snohomish County.
Since 1997, Lane’s
son Tom has been chief executive officer.
“Tom’s done a good
job,” said Lane, now 68. “He’s been running it for six years, probably
some of the best years we’ve had. The economy helped quite a bit, but
he’s done a nice job.”
And he has a great
team — a key to building and staying in business, Lane said.
No easy task in the
auto industry, a tough business that has seen its share of changes over
the past five decades, the Everett native said.
“When I first started,
there were no imports — absolutely no imports,” Lane said, adding that
the added competition has been healthy for the American auto industry,
leading manufacturers to improve their product and providing for greater
consumer choice.
“Our truck and sport
utility line are as good as anything in the industry, import or domestic,
so we’re lucky there,” he added.
Relying heavily on
repeat and referral business, Lane has learned that most customers reside
within 20 miles of his dealerships, which is where he targets his advertising,
from print ads to the now famous commercials featuring him with one of
his horses.
“Arlington has a
different market than the other two dealerships,” he noted. “It reaches
into Everett, but you also have Marysville, Lake Stevens and Stanwood.”
It’s also the one
that has grabbed the most headlines in recent years, as the company works
to relocate the dealership, now on leased land in downtown Arlington,
to a 15-acre parcel east of I-5 and south of Highway 530 at Island Crossing.
Bought in the mid-1990s,
the acreage is part of 110 acres of land zoned for rural uses that has
been the issue of debate for most of that time, as it has landed first
in, then out, of Arlington’s urban growth area.
Lane has been trying
to get the land rezoned for commercial use ever since, saying that while
it sits on a flood plain, the dealership’s site development and design
would mitigate any potential threat to the environment.
This fall, Lane’s
rezone request was approved by the County Council, vetoed by Snohomish
County Executive Bob Drewel and reinstated as the council overrode the
veto.
In November, Gov.
Gary Locke asked state officials to file a challenge to Lane’s rezone
request. Lane has since begun the process of petitioning Arlington to
annex the land.
Lane remains optimistic
that the land will be rezoned, and a new dealership, one that will be
developed over a little more than 5 acres, will be built.
“We hope to be breaking
ground out there this spring,” he said. After that, well, the longtime
auto man plans to concentrate his time and energy on horsepower — the
kind with four legs, not four cylinders.
“Get Arlington built,
and that will be the end of my run; then I’ll spend more time with my
horses,” he said.
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