I hope you are off to a great 2017. We are so excited about what the new year has in store for us. We are over the moon excited about the year we had in 2016. Thank you to our amazing customers. We have the best customers and the most awesome coworkers, I’m partial to ’em, I know, but I am so, so happy to call the River Valley home, and Harry Robinson Buick GMC my work home.

My favorite part about working at HRBG is definitely the people I work with. Let’s be honest, no one wants to go to work everyday to a place where the people aren’t great. My second favorite thing about work is the love for the community that Harry instilled in this business from it’s start. Everything revolves around community. When you are car shopping, we’re thinking about your kids baseball team sponsorship. While you get an oil change and a car wash, we’re at Chaffin talking to students about making smart life choices and choosing a career they love. You’re watching TV in the waiting area & we’re serving desserts and encouraging donations for local foster children. You’re deciding between a new Buick or a used BMW, and we’re donating money to local law enforcement. THAT is why I love working here. The old cliche’ “love what you do, and you’ll never work a day in your life”, definitely rings true. And, I get to do what I love while working with awesome people! And in 2016, we added even more people to our staff, gave away more time, money and prizes, and came up with more ways to give back to the community.

It’s awesome that when you give to your community, they give to you. That feels so good. What I mean is, it feels good when a friend sees a We Support the Blue #FreeGasFriday video and comments, “I love what you guys do for the community, when I buy, I’m buying from you!”. It also feels pretty great when we win awards. It just affirms to us that by doing the right thing, good things keep happening.

Here’s some highlights of our year:
*We added 7 New Positions and another went from part time to full time. (for a small local business, that huge! We are blessed.)
*Won Arkansas Dealer of the Year from DealerRater for the 3rd year in a row.
*Won the Women’s Choice Award for the 4th year in a row, and we’re still the only dealer in Arkansas to have won.
*Won SWTR Reader’s Choice, Best of the Best for the second year in a row AND we won 3 awards both years!
*We logged more volunteer hours in the community.
*Made more monetary donations than ever.
*Had our first Heart to Heart diaper drive collecting almost 7,000 diapers, over 3,000 wipes, $400, and  a mattress.
*Summer Funner was a HUGE give away campaign this summer where weekly winners won awesome adventures in the River Valley. (love this one supporting other local businesses).
*We Support the Blue was a campaign to raise money for much needed training and equipment for local law enforcement. We donated $100 for every vehicle purchased in October and took donations. We presented the Fort Smith Police Department and Sebastian County Sheriff’s Office with a check for $16,434.
*The 4th annual Sierra Full of Joy collected awesome gifts for local foster kids to make their Christmas brighter and we sent those donations in with an additional $500 donation from HRBG to each of the organizations benefiting from Sierra Full of Joy.
*#FreeGasFriday continued, giving $50 in gas to a HRBG customer every Friday.
*Our helpful videos got over a quarter of a million views, sending our total video views to almost half a million!
*We added 12 more VIP (Valuable, Inspiring, Positive) Employees of the Month.
Marty, Internet Sales Manager **one of the nicest people I know
Alex, Dedicated Delivery Coordinator **is super awesome, (strange compliment, but..)such a competent worker…she makes stuff happen..the right way & with efficiency
Annie, Service Advisor**she loves customers, and she’s been a technician, which makes her one of my favorite women ever
Dj, sales **sweet guy & new dad
Tamie, title clerk**her job would drown most people, and she does it so well and with such kindness that you would never know it was as difficult and overwhelming as it really is
Dustin, Body Shop Estimator
Michelle, Body Shop Admin
Mike T, Body Shop Manager
**we had a huge, uge, massive hail storm this year, there were a lot of obstacles for our body shop staff to overcome & they prevailed, rocked it out & kept as many customers happy as was humanly possible. 🙂
Adam, sales**very hard working guy, new member of the team this year representing one of the new positions created this year, huge asset, sales manager & conducts our morning sales meetings which help train and motivate our sales staff
Polly, executive assistant**She not only helps with sooo many details for us, she even let me borrow a dress for the Mercy ball and for the HRBG Christmas party <3
Leona, payroll specialist**She is also a new member of the HRBG coming to us by way of a new position added in 2016. She’s an excellent person and a sharp learner.
and Grant, body shop parts manager**he doesn’t know he’s won yet :), he took over for an employee who left to start a career in a new field, and when he took over he became aware of some issues with the parts management, he took these issues up, tackled them head on, straightened the whole system out and has made body shop parts inventory management such a better, more efficient department.
Those are the 12 employees of the month for 2016, and very soon we will announce the employee of the year! **exciting! Last years winner, Joey, won a parking spot for a year, a shirt, jacket, and a little all expense trip for 5 days to Grand Cayman! 😱

I’m so overjoyed looking back at the incredible year we’ve had & couldn’t be more excited to see what 2017 has in store for us! We expect and will continue to work hard for great things. I wish you a most happy and blessed 2017!

-❤C