Joseph C. Herman, executive vice president of Vancouver-based Kuni Automotive Group, died Wednesday following a yearlong battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 72.
Herman joined Kuni in 2010 as its chief operating officer and helped double company revenue from under $500 million to more than $1 billion annually. In August, the company named him executive vice president. Kuni, with dealerships in four states, recently created a new “best in class” dealership award that will be named “The Joe Herman Challenge Cup.”
“Remarkably, Joe worked right up to the end, doing what he loved doing,” Greg Goodwin, Kuni’s chief executive officer, said in a statement. “Mentoring, coaching, leading, teaching, motivating, impacting the lives of everyone he touched. He was a true visionary who changed our business, much for the better.”
Throughout his more than 40-year career in the auto retail industry, Herman directly managed more than 215 dealerships and thousands of employees, Kuni said in a statement. That career began in the 1960s when Herman sold cars at a Volkswagen dealership in New Jersey. Over several decades he moved into positions at four Volkswagen, Porsche, and Audi dealerships on the East Coast. He then spearheaded creation of US Auto Group, one of the nation’s first consolidated automotive groups.
