March 2, 2026 • 25 mins
Rita Case is a prominent American automotive executive and CEO of the Rick Case Automotive Group, recognized as the nation's largest female-owned dealer group.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thank you for joining us for CEOs. You should know
I'm Eric Rodriguez. As we celebrate International Women's Day, we're
focusing our series on females who are making a difference
in the business world and our community. Joining me now
is Riad A Case, the president, CEO and owner of
rick Case Automotive Group. So first tell me about rick
Case Automotive Group and its mission statement.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Well, the Rickcase Automotive Group has had this mission station
for over forty five years. Basically, our mission statement is
that we treat our associates as our family, We treat
our customers as our friend, and we treat our community
as our home. We actually wrote a book titled Our
Customers Are Friends.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
When you think about the auto world, a lot of
times you think of it's really a male dominated business.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
But here you are.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
You're the CEO and owner of rick Case Automotive Group.
What inspired you to take on that role of CEO
and what's been the most rewarding part of the journey
so far.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
My parents were auto dealers. So when you are raised
in a family owned business, do you have a tendency
to hang out there and a lot of times you
go into that business. My parents were the first Honda
automobile dealers in the United States, and that was in
nineteen seventy. So I was in high school and I
really liked.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Hanging out at the store. I like to talk to customers.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Cars are so much fun to talk about that I
ended up staying in the business and taking it over
from my father. That's where I met my husband, Rick
was at a Honda car convention, so I was running
my parents' Honda car dealership. He had his Honda car
dealership in Cleveland, Ohio. We ended up getting married forty
six years ago, and together we built the rick Case
(01:37):
Automotive Group. So I'd have to say that, you know,
being a woman in the business, it was of course
very different back in the seventies, the eighties and the nineties,
but being alongside Rick, I always had that pillar of
strength and I never let the fact that I was
the only woman in the room prevent me from growing
(01:57):
my confidence, becoming a worse in the industry, and making
sure that I was making an impact and a name
for myself outside of the rick Case name.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
How do you personally define success as a leader in
this business environment that we have right now?
Speaker 2 (02:12):
I define success for me as creating opportunities for others.
When you think of a car, I say it's freedom.
So when people ask me, Rita, what do you do,
I say, I sell freedom because in America we are
a free country, so we don't have some of the
other boundaries that create the word freedom in other countries.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
Which we're all aware of.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
So here, really the automobile is freedom. You get in
that car, you can go anywhere you want, you can
have adventures, get back and forth to work, go see
your children. So that's what I believe about my mission,
and that is I'm providing freedom, so I do my
very best. To me, success is making sure that everybody
has an opportunity for that freedom, no matter what their
(02:58):
financial situation is, no matter what their payment they can afford,
no matter how big of a car they need, whether
it's their first car, whether it's their last car. So
I think success for me is watching myself impact our
community as well as grow careers and opportunities for our associates.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
You went to college in California, so you basically literally
live from coast to coast. What does South Florida do?
How does it play a role in shaping your organization's mission.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Well, I've been you know, in California up until I
was at twenty three. I married Rick when I was
twenty three, so that was my life as growing up.
Moved to Ohio for five years, and then we moved
to South Florida when we were offered the first Accura
and the first Hyundai dealership in the United States. So
that with that offer, we said, where do we want
(03:49):
to build these new stores? The first Korean brand ever
sold in the United States and the first luxury Japanese
car sold in the United States. We said, we thought
we'd have the best chance in South Florida, which is
a melting pot of around the world.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
That's how we.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Ended up in South Florida in nineteen eighty five. We're
just now celebrating forty years. Accurate is as well as
Hyundai in the United States. I find that South Florida
is a fantastic place to build my own cultural awareness
and appreciation because we are truly a melting pot. Our associates,
(04:26):
which we have a twelve hundred that work here in
Broward County are from all different countries, different languages, and
that's how we see our customer base as well. And
it's changing and growing and becoming more diverse every single year.
So to me, living in South Florida has really been
super fun. It's beautiful here. I always tell people, Hey,
(04:48):
I'm playing in the sun and I'm working in the cloud.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
It's the best place to be.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
What's the biggest challenge you have faced as CEO and
how you work to overcome it?
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Well, when Rick passed away six years ago and I
took the CEO role from the COO role.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
Actually we were partners, of course, but he was the CEO.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
His name is the business and his name is the
one that's most known for the industry. So when he
passed away, even though I had been working with him
for forty over forty years, taking the CEO role was
a bit of a challenge to get accepted more by
the community than it was our associates. Our associates knew
(05:30):
that I worked, They sell me all the time. I
was involved in all the decisions in the company, the growth,
and they saw me certainly as a very much a leader.
But the community, I even got people say, oh, we
didn't know that you worked, reader, We thought you were
just on the commercials with Rick.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
So I had to really play it low key.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Just lost my husband lost who everyone felt was the
leader of the organization, and I softly stepped in to
the role by making sure that we didn't go backwards
at all, and I just became very visible in the community.
I started, of course, doing all the commercials. I brought
in our two adult children so that people felt that
(06:12):
I wasn't alone, and I just made sure that I
went to all the charity events. I was involved with
all the organizations. So I'd say my biggest challenge was
making that transition with the community that Rita Case wasn't
just the wife and just the face on the commercials,
but she was actually qualified to operate and run the
(06:34):
Rick Case Automotive Group successfully for the community and for
our associates.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
You mentioned after the passing of Rick that you had
to make sure that you kept advancing the company. What
innovative strategies have you implemented to keep the organization constantly
growing well?
Speaker 2 (06:49):
When Rick passed away, of course, we were just now
in the middle of COVID, and that was in twenty
twenty when he passed away, and so there were a
lot of challenges just operating the business with COVID with
the chip shortage, with all of the challenges that the
manufacturers were having building cars. It was the whole thing
(07:11):
was challenging for anybody that had a business, and of
course all of our associates and.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
The working class in general, we were all challenged.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
After we got over that hump, which was just like
I said, keeping the business open, providing automobiles, keeping our
people working, I started thinking of different things that I
might be able to add to keep our company growing.
So one of the things I came up with was
one of the biggest aggravations customers have is how long
it takes to buy a car. When we get the surveys,
(07:43):
people say, why in the heck does it take five
hours to buy a car, And it doesn't. It just
takes five hours for everyone to make a decision. Anyway,
I started promotion that says, you know it's called sign
and go, it's sixty minutes or less, meaning that if
you come to the dealership and you're not driving out
in your new car in sixty minutes or less, the
(08:05):
first payment is on us. That was an idea to
drive traffic to our stores so that they would feel
like that time, their time was valuable. That we were
extremely efficient, that we had a process that could get
you in and out in sixty minutes in your new car.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
What's the vision for rick Case Automotive as we goes
to the future, say the next five years, because the
auto industry is so rapidly changing. You mentioned we had
the chip shortage, we have the growth of the electric
cars that's been pushing back a little bit. But where
do you see your organization in the next five years.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Well, when I look out for the next five years,
I see us as a very solid, family owned and
operated automobile dealership, and as these other dealerships around us,
right here in Broward County but throughout the country are
being purchased by large public companies as well as very
very large private companies, accumulating massive number of dealerships. I
(09:02):
just have twelve dealerships. I have five in Atlanta and
I have nine down here in Broward County.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
My goal for the next five years.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Is to maintain a quality experience for our customers, for
our associates, and to provide support to our community. And
I say, no one's walking. So the car business is
a solid business. People need transportation, especially here in South Florida,
(09:31):
where we really have no other mode of mass transit.
We have the Bright Line. We have some buses, but
that's like one percent. Ninety nine percent of the people
need an automobile as a form of transportation for their life.
So I have a solid plan for our company to
remain the size that we are and to continue to
(09:53):
be number one. That was a goal that Rick and
I always have had, and that is what we've strived for,
and that is what we've strived our associates to be
the best of the best, to be number one. And
right now we are the largest volume Honda dealership in
the world, and we have been for the last two years.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
We are the largest.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Volume Volkswagen dealership in the world for the last eight years.
We are a company that you cannot be volume if
you're not a quality experience for our customers and provide
a quality, appreciated career path for our associates. My five
year plan is to remain at the top, number one
(10:33):
and to continue with our mission statement.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Are you currently using AI and how do you think
it's going to impact ry Case Auto?
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Well, AI, it's actually been a lot of fun. We
are experimenting in every way there is not a week
that goes by that I don't get two or three
new vendors because they're popping up daily who want to
get in front of me or our associates and let
them is what they can do to help our company
(11:02):
with AI. I'm absolutely convinced that AI is going to
be a very positive impact on the auto industry and
on all industries. It is not going to replace positions.
It's not going to replace positions in our company as
we're a service company, so we need to have associates
(11:23):
dealing with our clients. But it will make us more efficient.
It's a tool that we have never had in our
toolbox that is going to make us more efficient. Just
one thing, for example, is we are open with AI
twenty four hours a day. Our phone is answered twenty
four hours a day with an answer. You want to
(11:45):
know if your car is finished. It can tell you. You
want to know if you can make an appointment for
your car. You want to know if we have a
certain car in stock. I mean the AI is now
being able to be an answering machine that isn't a recording,
it's actually interactive with the customers questions. I just think
(12:07):
it's going to be truly an amazing technology that it's
rapidly advancing, and it's going to change our business. But
it's going to change in such a positive way. It's
going to give our customers a very consistent answer, a
very timely answer, and it's going to be there twenty
(12:28):
four hours a day. It's also going to bring tools
in our dealership for our associates in the accounting offices.
It can do spreadsheets that our associates with Excel spreadsheet
might take you an hour and a half to put together.
It can put it together in like one minute. It's unbelievable.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
Actually, I think it's going to be great.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
You mentioned a little bit about your importance to the
community here in South Florida, but we haven't gone into
your philanthropy. I know it's so close to your heart.
Tell me about the community engagement that is so important
for you as a leader.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
So when we moved down here in nineteen eighty five,
we were already involved with our Rick K Spikes for
Kids program, where we provided bicycles through the neighborhoods, donating
them to Boys and Girls Club kids that maybe wouldn't
have a bicycle.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
We brought that here to Florida.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Right away, and that's how we really started getting involved
with the Boys and Girls Club. You had a much
bigger organization than we had in Akron, Ohio or Cleveland,
so we got you into that because it kind of
went along with our foundation of the Boys and Girls
Clubs where we were giving these bicycles because we were
big bicycle dealers in Ohio.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
That's a whole nother story, but we really.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Believe that the community is a safe, educated, and healthy
place than our associates and our customers as well as
my own kids and my family is going to have
a thriving, positive life style environment. So that's what we've
always been focused on over the years. Over the last
(13:58):
four decades, we have gotten even more involved in many areas.
But we started off with just the Boys and Girls
Clubs helping young men and women that are born into
communities that couldn't offer the same opportunities that our clubs
could after school.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
We just grew that to.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Everything from the hospital support to the habitat, to educational support,
vocational support, American Heart Association. We're doing it. I'm doing it,
and I've got our associates involved in doing it because
it's the right thing to do. This is our home,
(14:37):
and because it is our home, we need to embrace
it beyond our own front door. It's our neighborhoods and
our towns, our cities, and our schools. So I just
have it in my heart to do it, and it
brings me a lot of rewards to see my impact
(14:58):
over the last four decades make such an impact on
Broward County.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
I've an honorary countless awards, including the Horatio Alder Award,
the Time Dealer of the Year, and Outstanding Woman in
the Auto Industry. Which of all these awards are you
most proud of?
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Oh that's such a good question, you know.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Being selected as Time Dealer of the Year out of
sixteen thousand dealerships, they only choose one person every year
that Time says is the outstanding dealer for the entire year.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
That was a goal to just be nominated for forty years.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
I see the other honorees every year at our national
convention up on the board. There's one from every state,
so there's fifty two pictures, and I would say, oh,
someday my picture is going to be up there. Someday
I'm going to be nominated for Time Dealer of the
Year because I've been a car dealer for fifty years,
so I got to that convention for at least forty
(16:06):
five And when they nominated me, When Florida nominated me
as the Florida representative for all the auto dealers in
the state of Florida to go to the National Time
Dealer Award, and then I was the one selected out
of all of the United States, it made me so
(16:29):
proud of what I have done to show that a
woman can be a successful car dealer because there are very,
very few, and that I had made an impact on
the industry to be recognized at that level, which was
one of my goals way back in the seventies, and
that I had made an impact on our community, that
I would be recognized by the other Florida dealers as
(16:52):
having made that much advancement in supporting Floridians as well,
and not just South Florida, but Floria. So I'd have
to say that that was the biggest honor of my life.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
What advice would you give to someone, especially a woman
aspiring to be a CEO.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
My advice to a woman that's interested in being a CEO,
and that can be a CEO of your coffee shop
with five associates. It can be the CEO of you know,
a giant, giant company that has five thousand Walmart or
Costco or some of these major organizations. It all has
(17:32):
the same and I believe the same skills. The first
skill is you must be knowledgeable on what your field
of interest is. Once you're knowledgeable, you'll have confidence, and
confidence is the key to leadership. With confidence, you create
followers because your confidence is contagious. So if you're confident
(17:56):
in your field of interest, you'll create followers. When you
have follows, you'll be able to do more because you
can delegate to your followers. You get to the top
not by climbing up. You get to the top by
being pushed up by those that want you to be
their leader. So the first thing I would say is
be passionate about what your field of interest is. Then
(18:19):
be as knowledgeable as possible.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
I learn every day.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
There's not a day that goes by that I don't
spend two or three hours reading about the auto industry
to stay up on all of these changes that we
have going on, and we've always had them.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
People say Oh, there's so many changes in the car business.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Right now, with ev with driving them themselves, you know,
automated cars, the tariffs, the Chinese cars.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
May be coming here. I said, it's no, It's always
been that way. I could go back to nineteen.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Eighty and say that there was disruptors. In nineteen eighty
is when Toyota at the time it was called Dots
and now Nissan and Honda were introduced to the United States,
and all the big three, the Chevy, Chrysler, Ford, they.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Were all those dealers were scared. Oh my goodness, the
Japanese cars are coming. What's going to happen.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
So the car industry, as well as most industries, have
been in a disruption, which is growth. If you don't
have any disruption, you're not going to have growth. So
I see that, you know, the future is really really
great for the auto industry.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
What does this year's International Women's Day theme of give
to Gain mean to you?
Speaker 3 (19:34):
And I like that very much.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Give to gain to me professionally, give to gain has
to do with my commitment to our industry, commitment to
the auto retail industry in South Florida, and I need
to give it my all I need to give it
my all by staying ahead of it.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
I need to give it my all by being fair, being.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
An organization that the community believes they can come in
and buy a car and have a great experience that's
honest with integrity, and that our associates follow those same rules.
And with that give of myself to our organization, I
am going to gain a reputation, a respected reputation in
the community that I am a great place to do business.
(20:22):
The only difference in a franchise system, which is what
I'm in. I'm you know, I sell Hondas, I sell
you know, Hyundai's and Kias and Folkswagons. That's a franchise system,
just like McDonald's is a franchise system. The difference in
a franchise system is only the dealer because we're all
(20:43):
selling the exact same product. So you think about a
franchise system, you have to earn the right for a
customer to want to do business with you, because you
are no different than any other Honda dealer selling a
Honda car.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
They're all the same.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
What I give is I want to be sure that
I stay ahead of all the competition as a better
dealer not a lower price dealer, because really people buy
cars from people that they like and they trust. It
isn't always the five dollars payment difference. So my give
is myself and my receive or my gain is my reputation.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Who is a woman who embodied that give to gain message,
that mindset and inspired you by lifting you.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
Up, you know, And I think back when I first
got here into Broward County and I joined the board
of the Boys and Girls Club back in nineteen eighty five,
nineteen eighty six. One of the first people that I
met and that has impacted me and I still go
back to her because she was the major influence on
(21:52):
my education and mentored me on community support, on philanthropy,
on how to choose organization, that my dollars were going
to go the furthest and that my time and my
energy to provide leadership was going to have the biggest impact.
And that was Marty Huzinga now Marty Hazinga, which was
(22:13):
the wife of Wayne Juzinga, who's obviously the most famous
entrepreneur in the United States, the only person to ever
found three fortune five hundred companies and the only person
in the seventy eight year history or so or one
hundred year history of the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of
(22:34):
the Year Award won it for the United States in
the world, in the world only one in all of
those years, only one person has ever won from the
United States Entrepreneur of the World, and it was Wayne Juzinga.
His wife, Marty Hazinga, was forced to be reckoned with
(22:56):
here in Broward County. And when I first got here,
she was on the board of the Boys and Girls
Club and together her and I we just bonded. She
loved my energy, my passion, my work ethic, my organizational skills,
my positive energy, and together we turned the Boys Clubs
of Barard County into the Boys and Girls Clubs of
(23:16):
Barard County. And we converted the three boys clubs that
we had into three Boys and Girls clubs, and from
there we grew to now eighteen Boys and Girls clubs
that serve over twelve thousand youths here in Brod County.
She mentored me, and she has been someone I talked
to all the time. When I'm about ready to give
(23:37):
money or my time to an organization, I say, hmm,
would Marty say this was a good use of my
energy and my time and my resources.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
Is there a final message you want to leave for
our listener.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
So as we approach celebrating International Women's Day, I am
excited to share a message to all of you women
out there that are thinking I don't know if I
can do it. You know, oh, I really have this
passion to own my own business, to be a CEO
of the company that I work for, to move up
into the company that I'm working for, so that I
(24:08):
can be in charge because I know I can do it.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
That is my message.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
You know you can do it. Believe that you can
do it. Don't listen to anybody that says you can't.
All along my road from the very beginning, when I
told my dad I want to take over this car dealership,
everyone said, Rita, you'll never make it. There are no
women car dealers. You're not going to be listened to.
You're always going to be just the dealer's daughter. Then,
(24:36):
of course I married Rick and I became the dealer's wife.
I never let that get into my head. I always
knew that if I was knowledgeable, I was positive, I
worked as hard as I expected all those that were
following me, I.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
Would make it. So go for it and don't let
anybody stand in your way.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Rita, thank you so much for joining me on CEOs.
You should know, and thank you for all you due
for the auto industry, the community and women. That was
readA Case, the president's CEO and owner of rick Case
Automotive Group.
Thank you for joining us for CEOs. You should know
I'm Eric Rodriguez. As we celebrate International Women's Day, we're
focusing our series on females who are making a difference
in the business world and our community. Joining me now
is Riad A Case, the president, CEO and owner of
rick Case Automotive Group. So first tell me about rick
Case Automotive Group and its mission statement.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Well, the Rickcase Automotive Group has had this mission station
for over forty five years. Basically, our mission statement is
that we treat our associates as our family, We treat
our customers as our friend, and we treat our community
as our home. We actually wrote a book titled Our
Customers Are Friends.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
When you think about the auto world, a lot of
times you think of it's really a male dominated business.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
But here you are.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
You're the CEO and owner of rick Case Automotive Group.
What inspired you to take on that role of CEO
and what's been the most rewarding part of the journey
so far.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
My parents were auto dealers. So when you are raised
in a family owned business, do you have a tendency
to hang out there and a lot of times you
go into that business. My parents were the first Honda
automobile dealers in the United States, and that was in
nineteen seventy. So I was in high school and I
really liked.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Hanging out at the store. I like to talk to customers.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Cars are so much fun to talk about that I
ended up staying in the business and taking it over
from my father. That's where I met my husband, Rick
was at a Honda car convention, so I was running
my parents' Honda car dealership. He had his Honda car
dealership in Cleveland, Ohio. We ended up getting married forty
six years ago, and together we built the rick Case
(01:37):
Automotive Group. So I'd have to say that, you know,
being a woman in the business, it was of course
very different back in the seventies, the eighties and the nineties,
but being alongside Rick, I always had that pillar of
strength and I never let the fact that I was
the only woman in the room prevent me from growing
(01:57):
my confidence, becoming a worse in the industry, and making
sure that I was making an impact and a name
for myself outside of the rick Case name.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
How do you personally define success as a leader in
this business environment that we have right now?
Speaker 2 (02:12):
I define success for me as creating opportunities for others.
When you think of a car, I say it's freedom.
So when people ask me, Rita, what do you do,
I say, I sell freedom because in America we are
a free country, so we don't have some of the
other boundaries that create the word freedom in other countries.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
Which we're all aware of.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
So here, really the automobile is freedom. You get in
that car, you can go anywhere you want, you can
have adventures, get back and forth to work, go see
your children. So that's what I believe about my mission,
and that is I'm providing freedom, so I do my
very best. To me, success is making sure that everybody
has an opportunity for that freedom, no matter what their
(02:58):
financial situation is, no matter what their payment they can afford,
no matter how big of a car they need, whether
it's their first car, whether it's their last car. So
I think success for me is watching myself impact our
community as well as grow careers and opportunities for our associates.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
You went to college in California, so you basically literally
live from coast to coast. What does South Florida do?
How does it play a role in shaping your organization's mission.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Well, I've been you know, in California up until I
was at twenty three. I married Rick when I was
twenty three, so that was my life as growing up.
Moved to Ohio for five years, and then we moved
to South Florida when we were offered the first Accura
and the first Hyundai dealership in the United States. So
that with that offer, we said, where do we want
(03:49):
to build these new stores? The first Korean brand ever
sold in the United States and the first luxury Japanese
car sold in the United States. We said, we thought
we'd have the best chance in South Florida, which is
a melting pot of around the world.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
That's how we.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Ended up in South Florida in nineteen eighty five. We're
just now celebrating forty years. Accurate is as well as
Hyundai in the United States. I find that South Florida
is a fantastic place to build my own cultural awareness
and appreciation because we are truly a melting pot. Our associates,
(04:26):
which we have a twelve hundred that work here in
Broward County are from all different countries, different languages, and
that's how we see our customer base as well. And
it's changing and growing and becoming more diverse every single year.
So to me, living in South Florida has really been
super fun. It's beautiful here. I always tell people, Hey,
(04:48):
I'm playing in the sun and I'm working in the cloud.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
It's the best place to be.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
What's the biggest challenge you have faced as CEO and
how you work to overcome it?
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Well, when Rick passed away six years ago and I
took the CEO role from the COO role.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
Actually we were partners, of course, but he was the CEO.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
His name is the business and his name is the
one that's most known for the industry. So when he
passed away, even though I had been working with him
for forty over forty years, taking the CEO role was
a bit of a challenge to get accepted more by
the community than it was our associates. Our associates knew
(05:30):
that I worked, They sell me all the time. I
was involved in all the decisions in the company, the growth,
and they saw me certainly as a very much a leader.
But the community, I even got people say, oh, we
didn't know that you worked, reader, We thought you were
just on the commercials with Rick.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
So I had to really play it low key.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Just lost my husband lost who everyone felt was the
leader of the organization, and I softly stepped in to
the role by making sure that we didn't go backwards
at all, and I just became very visible in the community.
I started, of course, doing all the commercials. I brought
in our two adult children so that people felt that
(06:12):
I wasn't alone, and I just made sure that I
went to all the charity events. I was involved with
all the organizations. So I'd say my biggest challenge was
making that transition with the community that Rita Case wasn't
just the wife and just the face on the commercials,
but she was actually qualified to operate and run the
(06:34):
Rick Case Automotive Group successfully for the community and for
our associates.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
You mentioned after the passing of Rick that you had
to make sure that you kept advancing the company. What
innovative strategies have you implemented to keep the organization constantly
growing well?
Speaker 2 (06:49):
When Rick passed away, of course, we were just now
in the middle of COVID, and that was in twenty
twenty when he passed away, and so there were a
lot of challenges just operating the business with COVID with
the chip shortage, with all of the challenges that the
manufacturers were having building cars. It was the whole thing
(07:11):
was challenging for anybody that had a business, and of
course all of our associates and.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
The working class in general, we were all challenged.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
After we got over that hump, which was just like
I said, keeping the business open, providing automobiles, keeping our
people working, I started thinking of different things that I
might be able to add to keep our company growing.
So one of the things I came up with was
one of the biggest aggravations customers have is how long
it takes to buy a car. When we get the surveys,
(07:43):
people say, why in the heck does it take five
hours to buy a car, And it doesn't. It just
takes five hours for everyone to make a decision. Anyway,
I started promotion that says, you know it's called sign
and go, it's sixty minutes or less, meaning that if
you come to the dealership and you're not driving out
in your new car in sixty minutes or less, the
(08:05):
first payment is on us. That was an idea to
drive traffic to our stores so that they would feel
like that time, their time was valuable. That we were
extremely efficient, that we had a process that could get
you in and out in sixty minutes in your new car.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
What's the vision for rick Case Automotive as we goes
to the future, say the next five years, because the
auto industry is so rapidly changing. You mentioned we had
the chip shortage, we have the growth of the electric
cars that's been pushing back a little bit. But where
do you see your organization in the next five years.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Well, when I look out for the next five years,
I see us as a very solid, family owned and
operated automobile dealership, and as these other dealerships around us,
right here in Broward County but throughout the country are
being purchased by large public companies as well as very
very large private companies, accumulating massive number of dealerships. I
(09:02):
just have twelve dealerships. I have five in Atlanta and
I have nine down here in Broward County.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
My goal for the next five years.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Is to maintain a quality experience for our customers, for
our associates, and to provide support to our community. And
I say, no one's walking. So the car business is
a solid business. People need transportation, especially here in South Florida,
(09:31):
where we really have no other mode of mass transit.
We have the Bright Line. We have some buses, but
that's like one percent. Ninety nine percent of the people
need an automobile as a form of transportation for their life.
So I have a solid plan for our company to
remain the size that we are and to continue to
(09:53):
be number one. That was a goal that Rick and
I always have had, and that is what we've strived for,
and that is what we've strived our associates to be
the best of the best, to be number one. And
right now we are the largest volume Honda dealership in
the world, and we have been for the last two years.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
We are the largest.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Volume Volkswagen dealership in the world for the last eight years.
We are a company that you cannot be volume if
you're not a quality experience for our customers and provide
a quality, appreciated career path for our associates. My five
year plan is to remain at the top, number one
(10:33):
and to continue with our mission statement.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Are you currently using AI and how do you think
it's going to impact ry Case Auto?
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Well, AI, it's actually been a lot of fun. We
are experimenting in every way there is not a week
that goes by that I don't get two or three
new vendors because they're popping up daily who want to
get in front of me or our associates and let
them is what they can do to help our company
(11:02):
with AI. I'm absolutely convinced that AI is going to
be a very positive impact on the auto industry and
on all industries. It is not going to replace positions.
It's not going to replace positions in our company as
we're a service company, so we need to have associates
(11:23):
dealing with our clients. But it will make us more efficient.
It's a tool that we have never had in our
toolbox that is going to make us more efficient. Just
one thing, for example, is we are open with AI
twenty four hours a day. Our phone is answered twenty
four hours a day with an answer. You want to
(11:45):
know if your car is finished. It can tell you. You
want to know if you can make an appointment for
your car. You want to know if we have a
certain car in stock. I mean the AI is now
being able to be an answering machine that isn't a recording,
it's actually interactive with the customers questions. I just think
(12:07):
it's going to be truly an amazing technology that it's
rapidly advancing, and it's going to change our business. But
it's going to change in such a positive way. It's
going to give our customers a very consistent answer, a
very timely answer, and it's going to be there twenty
(12:28):
four hours a day. It's also going to bring tools
in our dealership for our associates in the accounting offices.
It can do spreadsheets that our associates with Excel spreadsheet
might take you an hour and a half to put together.
It can put it together in like one minute. It's unbelievable.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
Actually, I think it's going to be great.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
You mentioned a little bit about your importance to the
community here in South Florida, but we haven't gone into
your philanthropy. I know it's so close to your heart.
Tell me about the community engagement that is so important
for you as a leader.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
So when we moved down here in nineteen eighty five,
we were already involved with our Rick K Spikes for
Kids program, where we provided bicycles through the neighborhoods, donating
them to Boys and Girls Club kids that maybe wouldn't
have a bicycle.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
We brought that here to Florida.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Right away, and that's how we really started getting involved
with the Boys and Girls Club. You had a much
bigger organization than we had in Akron, Ohio or Cleveland,
so we got you into that because it kind of
went along with our foundation of the Boys and Girls
Clubs where we were giving these bicycles because we were
big bicycle dealers in Ohio.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
That's a whole nother story, but we really.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Believe that the community is a safe, educated, and healthy
place than our associates and our customers as well as
my own kids and my family is going to have
a thriving, positive life style environment. So that's what we've
always been focused on over the years. Over the last
(13:58):
four decades, we have gotten even more involved in many areas.
But we started off with just the Boys and Girls
Clubs helping young men and women that are born into
communities that couldn't offer the same opportunities that our clubs
could after school.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
We just grew that to.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Everything from the hospital support to the habitat, to educational support,
vocational support, American Heart Association. We're doing it. I'm doing it,
and I've got our associates involved in doing it because
it's the right thing to do. This is our home,
(14:37):
and because it is our home, we need to embrace
it beyond our own front door. It's our neighborhoods and
our towns, our cities, and our schools. So I just
have it in my heart to do it, and it
brings me a lot of rewards to see my impact
(14:58):
over the last four decades make such an impact on
Broward County.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
I've an honorary countless awards, including the Horatio Alder Award,
the Time Dealer of the Year, and Outstanding Woman in
the Auto Industry. Which of all these awards are you
most proud of?
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Oh that's such a good question, you know.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Being selected as Time Dealer of the Year out of
sixteen thousand dealerships, they only choose one person every year
that Time says is the outstanding dealer for the entire year.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
That was a goal to just be nominated for forty years.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
I see the other honorees every year at our national
convention up on the board. There's one from every state,
so there's fifty two pictures, and I would say, oh,
someday my picture is going to be up there. Someday
I'm going to be nominated for Time Dealer of the
Year because I've been a car dealer for fifty years,
so I got to that convention for at least forty
(16:06):
five And when they nominated me, When Florida nominated me
as the Florida representative for all the auto dealers in
the state of Florida to go to the National Time
Dealer Award, and then I was the one selected out
of all of the United States, it made me so
(16:29):
proud of what I have done to show that a
woman can be a successful car dealer because there are very,
very few, and that I had made an impact on
the industry to be recognized at that level, which was
one of my goals way back in the seventies, and
that I had made an impact on our community, that
I would be recognized by the other Florida dealers as
(16:52):
having made that much advancement in supporting Floridians as well,
and not just South Florida, but Floria. So I'd have
to say that that was the biggest honor of my life.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
What advice would you give to someone, especially a woman
aspiring to be a CEO.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
My advice to a woman that's interested in being a CEO,
and that can be a CEO of your coffee shop
with five associates. It can be the CEO of you know,
a giant, giant company that has five thousand Walmart or
Costco or some of these major organizations. It all has
(17:32):
the same and I believe the same skills. The first
skill is you must be knowledgeable on what your field
of interest is. Once you're knowledgeable, you'll have confidence, and
confidence is the key to leadership. With confidence, you create
followers because your confidence is contagious. So if you're confident
(17:56):
in your field of interest, you'll create followers. When you
have follows, you'll be able to do more because you
can delegate to your followers. You get to the top
not by climbing up. You get to the top by
being pushed up by those that want you to be
their leader. So the first thing I would say is
be passionate about what your field of interest is. Then
(18:19):
be as knowledgeable as possible.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
I learn every day.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
There's not a day that goes by that I don't
spend two or three hours reading about the auto industry
to stay up on all of these changes that we
have going on, and we've always had them.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
People say Oh, there's so many changes in the car business.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Right now, with ev with driving them themselves, you know,
automated cars, the tariffs, the Chinese cars.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
May be coming here. I said, it's no, It's always
been that way. I could go back to nineteen.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Eighty and say that there was disruptors. In nineteen eighty
is when Toyota at the time it was called Dots
and now Nissan and Honda were introduced to the United States,
and all the big three, the Chevy, Chrysler, Ford, they.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Were all those dealers were scared. Oh my goodness, the
Japanese cars are coming. What's going to happen.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
So the car industry, as well as most industries, have
been in a disruption, which is growth. If you don't
have any disruption, you're not going to have growth. So
I see that, you know, the future is really really
great for the auto industry.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
What does this year's International Women's Day theme of give
to Gain mean to you?
Speaker 3 (19:34):
And I like that very much.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Give to gain to me professionally, give to gain has
to do with my commitment to our industry, commitment to
the auto retail industry in South Florida, and I need
to give it my all I need to give it
my all by staying ahead of it.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
I need to give it my all by being fair, being.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
An organization that the community believes they can come in
and buy a car and have a great experience that's
honest with integrity, and that our associates follow those same rules.
And with that give of myself to our organization, I
am going to gain a reputation, a respected reputation in
the community that I am a great place to do business.
(20:22):
The only difference in a franchise system, which is what
I'm in. I'm you know, I sell Hondas, I sell
you know, Hyundai's and Kias and Folkswagons. That's a franchise system,
just like McDonald's is a franchise system. The difference in
a franchise system is only the dealer because we're all
(20:43):
selling the exact same product. So you think about a
franchise system, you have to earn the right for a
customer to want to do business with you, because you
are no different than any other Honda dealer selling a
Honda car.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
They're all the same.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
What I give is I want to be sure that
I stay ahead of all the competition as a better
dealer not a lower price dealer, because really people buy
cars from people that they like and they trust. It
isn't always the five dollars payment difference. So my give
is myself and my receive or my gain is my reputation.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Who is a woman who embodied that give to gain message,
that mindset and inspired you by lifting you.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
Up, you know, And I think back when I first
got here into Broward County and I joined the board
of the Boys and Girls Club back in nineteen eighty five,
nineteen eighty six. One of the first people that I
met and that has impacted me and I still go
back to her because she was the major influence on
(21:52):
my education and mentored me on community support, on philanthropy,
on how to choose organization, that my dollars were going
to go the furthest and that my time and my
energy to provide leadership was going to have the biggest impact.
And that was Marty Huzinga now Marty Hazinga, which was
(22:13):
the wife of Wayne Juzinga, who's obviously the most famous
entrepreneur in the United States, the only person to ever
found three fortune five hundred companies and the only person
in the seventy eight year history or so or one
hundred year history of the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of
(22:34):
the Year Award won it for the United States in
the world, in the world only one in all of
those years, only one person has ever won from the
United States Entrepreneur of the World, and it was Wayne Juzinga.
His wife, Marty Hazinga, was forced to be reckoned with
(22:56):
here in Broward County. And when I first got here,
she was on the board of the Boys and Girls
Club and together her and I we just bonded. She
loved my energy, my passion, my work ethic, my organizational skills,
my positive energy, and together we turned the Boys Clubs
of Barard County into the Boys and Girls Clubs of
(23:16):
Barard County. And we converted the three boys clubs that
we had into three Boys and Girls clubs, and from
there we grew to now eighteen Boys and Girls clubs
that serve over twelve thousand youths here in Brod County.
She mentored me, and she has been someone I talked
to all the time. When I'm about ready to give
(23:37):
money or my time to an organization, I say, hmm,
would Marty say this was a good use of my
energy and my time and my resources.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
Is there a final message you want to leave for
our listener.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
So as we approach celebrating International Women's Day, I am
excited to share a message to all of you women
out there that are thinking I don't know if I
can do it. You know, oh, I really have this
passion to own my own business, to be a CEO
of the company that I work for, to move up
into the company that I'm working for, so that I
(24:08):
can be in charge because I know I can do it.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
That is my message.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
You know you can do it. Believe that you can
do it. Don't listen to anybody that says you can't.
All along my road from the very beginning, when I
told my dad I want to take over this car dealership,
everyone said, Rita, you'll never make it. There are no
women car dealers. You're not going to be listened to.
You're always going to be just the dealer's daughter. Then,
(24:36):
of course I married Rick and I became the dealer's wife.
I never let that get into my head. I always
knew that if I was knowledgeable, I was positive, I
worked as hard as I expected all those that were
following me, I.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
Would make it. So go for it and don't let
anybody stand in your way.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Rita, thank you so much for joining me on CEOs.
You should know, and thank you for all you due
for the auto industry, the community and women. That was
readA Case, the president's CEO and owner of rick Case
Automotive Group.
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