The owner of a vehicle dealership in Winner has been nominated for the 2024 TIME Dealer of the Year award– one of the automobile industry’s most prestigious and highly coveted honors.
Cody Haiar of Frontier Motors was chosen to represent the South Dakota Automobile Dealers Association in the national competition – one of only 49 auto dealers nominated for the 55th annual award from more than 16,000 nationwide. The TIME Dealer of the Year award recognizes the nation’s most successful auto dealers who also demonstrate a long-standing commitment to community service.
Haiar is a first-generation dealer who launched his retail automotive career in Sioux Falls, where he started in sales and moved up the ranks. By 2015, he and a partner purchased Frontier Motors and in 2022, they added a second store, Frontier Motors Ford in Winner. Today, their portfolio also includes two trailer dealerships.
Haiar says his mentor in the car business told him to always strive to do what’s right for the employees, the customers and the community – advice he still follows today. He says as a local business owner, the opportunity to serve a community “is a great honor” and he feels like they are making a lasting impact in Winner.
Haiar and the other 2023 nominees will be honored at the annual National Automobile Dealers Association Show in Las Vegas in February (Feb. 3, 2024).
More about Haiar:
Haiar worked with the Rotary Club of Winner to bring Junior Achievement to the community in 2013. Since that time, he has been an in-classroom volunteer and a sponsor of the organization, which prepares young people for future success.
Haiar has also donated Frontier Motors vehicles for giveaways that raise money for important causes, including the Winner Regional Foundation (for a 3D mammography machine at the local hospital); Immaculate Conception Catholic Church (for new parking lot and building upgrades); and the Rotary Club of Winner (to help victims displaced by a tornado). And he sponsors the
Frontier Motors Open, an annual golf tournament that provides funding for the Winner Country Club, a public golf course. Other groups he supports include the local food pantry; Winner Area Chamber of Commerce; Tripp County 4-H; Tripp County Economic Development; and many others.
Dealers are nominated by the executives of state and metro dealer associations around the country. A panel of faculty members from the Tauber Institute for Global Operations at the University of Michigan will select one finalist from each of the four NADA regions and one national Dealer of the Year. Three finalists will receive $5,000 for their favorite charities and the winner will receive $10,000 to give to charity, donated by Ally. Ally also will recognize dealer nominees and their community efforts by contributing $1,000 to each nominee’s 501(c)3 charity of choice.
Nominees will be recognized on AllyDealerHeroes.com, which highlights the philanthropic contributions and achievements of TIME Dealer of the Year nominees.
Cody Haiar and Jarred DeWaard, the General Sales Manager at Frontier Motors.
Courtesy photo.
Cody Haiar with girlfriend Jessica Kaiser and his parents.
Courtesy photo.
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