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John L. Sullivan likes to tell stories, almost as much as he likes to sell cars.
He does both very well. And often. Sullivan's Chevrolet dealership in the Roseville Auto Mall, and his Toyota, Saturn, and used Toyota dealerships, sell "about 1,800 cars a month," he said.
Sullivan's success is no accident.
"My dad was an automobile dealer, so I've been associated with the car business pretty much all my life, except for when I was in the service and one other brief period," Sullivan said.
He got his first job as a car salesman in 1963, bought 35 percent of the dealership in 1977, bought the rest of it in 1984, made it grow, and plans to add two more dealerships to his current four in the next 18 months.
"People are always asking me how I've come to be so successful," he said. 'I think it's because of what I learned from my father, how he treated the people who worked for him and the people he did business with. He treated them with respect and they respected him, and that's what I learned. So the people I've chosen to be with me work with me, not for me, but with me. That's the difference. With my father, it was always 'we - not I,' and that's the way it's been with me.
"Certainly it's not John L. Sullivan all by himself It's the people we have, their expertise.
BACKGROUND
* Age: 67
* Education: One year of junior college
* Resident of. Granite Bay
* Native of: Brainerd, Minn.
* Family: Wife Laura; Daughters Kelly, 39, and Michele, 34; and stepsons Mark, 40, and Timmy, 19
GETTING STARTED
Kaiser-Fraser: "My dad, George M. Sullivan, was an automobile dealer in Southern California. During my childhood he had a ChryslerPlymouth dealership, a Dodge dealership, a Nash dealership in Riverside, and a Kaiser-Fraser dealershhip in San Bernardino, and with that last one he lost a lot of money and it probably caused him eventually to get out of the business.
I worked for my dad one time, in junior high school one summer, in the parts department. Another time...