I received some sad news on May 15. As many of you will now know, Ron E. Porter, former SVP Automotive Finance at Scotiabank died at age 71.
Ron was a true automotive guy. He spent over 30 years at Scotiabank and previously at Chrysler Credit. His father was in the car business too, as a GM at a Chrysler store. He was known by many dealers across Canada as well as the OEMs he worked with. It is fair to say that Ron was known, cared for and respected from coast to coast, throughout our industry.
While many of you knew Ron, I expect very few of you know the key role he played in the birth of this magazine, twenty years ago. If you’ll indulge me, I’ll share the story.
I first met Ron when I was publisher of Canadian Auto World. He was at the helm of Scotiabank, our most important advertiser. A few years later, I was in a new role which gave me the opportunity to take a new look at the market. From that, the idea for Canadian auto dealer emerged.
I brought the idea to Rick Gauthier, then President and CEO of the Canadian Automobile Dealers Association (CADA). The idea was to publish the magazine in partnership with CADA. Rick loved the idea, and we quickly set out to lay the groundwork for a presentation to the CADA board.
As part of that, Rick asked me how I would know if the market would embrace the idea. I explained that launching a magazine was a bit like building a shopping mall. If you want to build a shopping mall, you need to know you have the support of your anchor tenant. The smaller stores will come and go, but the anchor needs to support you. Magazines are very similar.
In the Canadian dealer market, that anchor advertiser was Scotiabank, and the decision-maker was Ron Porter. So the first place I would go to test the idea for Canadian auto dealer was Ron’s office.
We met downtown, and I explained the vision for the magazine, why I felt it was important to the market, and how it would be different from anything else out there. Ron asked a bunch of questions, maintaining an appropriate level of professional objectivity throughout. He reminded me that his advertising budgets aren’t growing, so a new entrant would mean some tough choices. He promised to keep an open mind.
As I was leaving, I shook Ron’s hand and thanked him for his time. He gave my hand a little extra squeeze, and with a glint in his eye he smiled and said: “Niel, do what you’ve said you’re going to do, and I’ll be there.”
I knew I had my anchor tenant. I knew I could build the magazine.
Once the magazine launched, Ron and Scotiabank were there. For the rest of Ron’s career, Scotiabank never missed a single issue, in Canadian auto dealer or its French-language sister publication Affaires automobiles. Many years later, I pointed that out to Ron. He simply looked at me, smiled, and said: “of course. You did what you said you would do.”
That was Ron. I have many more memories and stories, but I’ll save some of those to share over a drink at an industry event.
Thank you, Ron, for being such an important part of so many careers and so many lives. You are missed.
