WARREN – Diane Sauer never planned to own a car dealership, but the Howland resident owns and operates one of the most successful dealerships in the tri-county area, Diane Sauer Chevrolet.
After graduating from The Ohio State University with an accounting degree in 1976, Sauer, now a parishioner of Warren Blessed Sacrament Parish, took a job as an office manager trainee at Martin Chevrolet here. She became the office manager in 1977 and worked her way up to general manager in 1983.
“Paul [Martin] approached me about buying the dealership in 1993 because he wanted to retire. I took over the dealership in 1994,” Sauer said, noting that Martin Chevrolet was located in the Peninsula area of West Market Street in Warren at the time. (Paul Martin bought the dealership in 1958. His son, Fred Martin, owns the Fred Martin Ford dealerships in Austintown and Barberton.)
Sauer said she thought Paul Martin had a different plan when he retired, and she was surprised by his offer.
“I would have stayed in the business anyway,” she said.
Sauer, 68, grew up in Coldwater, Ohio. Having thoroughly enjoyed a high school bookeeping course, she decided to major in business at Ohio State, with a focus on accounting.
“Female business majors were about 1 percent when I graduated,” she said. “I liked working with numbers. It is logical and makes sense. Two plus two is always four,” she quipped.
Sauer moved to Warren in 1975 after graduating from Ohio State and marrying Kurt Sauer, a Warren native whom she met on campus.
At the time, the local economy was starting to slow down, with the steel mills closing in 1977. Sauer landed the manager trainee position at Martin Chevrolet.
“There is just something about the car business that grabs you and reels you in. I guess because it’s something new every day and you meet all kinds of people. My staff is great and I really enjoy coming to work every day.”
When she took over the dealership in 1994, only 2 percent of car dealerships were owned by women. That figure is significantly higher now.
General Motors has a diversity initiative, which helped, Sauer said. Since 1972, the corporation has focused on diversity, growth and retention of minority and women dealers.
In 2004, as her growing business needed more space, Sauer moved to 700 Niles Road S.E., near downtown Warren. The dealership is now nearly three times larger than the original. Completed in phases, it includes an expanded showroom, service center and offices. A grand reopening took place in February 2007.
Sauer said she got a lot of pushback when she first became general manager – both from staff and from customers – but that made her work harder to prove herself.
A second challenge came when the old location was flooded in 2003 and there was 6 feet of water in the basement.
However, her biggest challenge came during the recession of 2008 and 2009. She said those two years were even more challenging than the last two with the COVID-19 pandemic.
One of the keys to success in business, she said, is having a consensus of opinion among management.
“I feel every manager has to have a buy-in for how the dealership is run and understand why we do what we do,” Sauer said, noting that Diane Sauer Chevrolet is a profit-sharing dealership, which she thinks motivates her employees to perform at their best under any circumstance.
“If an employee isn’t happy, they can’t make the customer happy, and unhappy customers are bad for any business, but especially in this business.”
One of the most rewarding aspects of the car business, she noted, is the longevity of employees.
“It is so rewarding to train an employee and see them prosper in their own capacity. A lot of my employees have worked here for a long time. My general manager, John Maze, started in 1990 as a salesman.
“I have service employees who have been here for decades,” Sauer said. “A former employee once said to me: ‘This is where you want Grandma to buy a car and where you want your daughter to work.’ I took that as a great compliment.”
Diane and Kurt’s daughter, Gretchen Sauer, works for Ford Motor Co. in Detroit. The couple celebrated their 47th anniversary in July and have a granddaughter, Charlotte, two.
She and Kurt have belonged to Blessed Sacrament here since moving to Howland in 1993. Before that, they were members of St. Robert in Cortland and belonged to St. Pius X in Warren for a while.
“It seemed like every church we went to, they were undergoing a building campaign. I told the bishop we were not moving again after Blessed Sacrament had its own renovation project,” she said with a laugh.
Sauer serves on the board for the Youngstown Diocese Foundation and when her children were young, she was a children’s liturgist. Her husband is a lector and is on the parish finance committee.
“I love to bake, so whenever there is a fundraiser or any type of event at church, I bake for it,” Sauer said.
Msgr. Robert Siffrin, diocesan vicar general, whom she got to know from her work on the diocesan foundation, blessed the new dealership at its grand reopening.
She noted that Blessed Sacrament pastor Father Christopher Cicero found a statue of the crucified Jesus that he wanted to put in the church, but its base was broken. The body shop at the car dealership repaired the statue and repainted it.
“That was a first for them, for sure,” she said.
Asked whether her faith influences her business style, Sauer replied, yes, because she always strives to do the right thing for the customer, the employee and the factory.
Her advice for anyone going into business for themselves is to be strong.
“You will find yourself in unbelievable situations, so you have to be true to yourself. You can’t emulate someone else who you think is more successful,” Sauer said. “Oh, and enjoy the small victories. That’s important.”
Most car dealerships are owned by third and fourth generations of families, she noted. That trend for her family will begin before too long. She is now semi-retired and plans to eventually hand over the reins of Diane Sauer Chevrolet to her son, Matthew, who is a salesman at the dealership.
“I won’t walk away cold turkey, but it’s time for me to slow down a bit,” she said.
Kurt is already semi-retired, doing consulting work as a civil engineer.
