Stuart Taylor | The Valdosta Daily TimesSteve Everett in the showroom of Langdale Ford.

VALDOSTA — Steve Everett, general manager of Langdale Ford, has been chosen as Georgia’s nominee for the 2016 TIME Dealer of the Year award.

Nominee’s are chosen by past nominees and judged on two main criteria: business performance and community.

The first is business: Customer satisfaction, market penetration.

The second is community: What are nominees doing for the community their dealership is in?

BUSINESS

Steve Everett can point to the day that changed his life.

It was the summer of 1977.

He was shopping for a car at Reddick Motors.

He bought a 1977 Pontiac Phoenix, and in the process he became friends with the salesmen and managers at Reddick, talking shop with them.

Everett had always loved cars, had developed an eye for them, able to pick out a make, model and year on sight.

When he bought the car, the manager, Al Johnson, offered to hire him.

Everett had moved to Valdosta the previous year with his work in the grocery business with Colonial Stores. He wasn’t happy with it, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to start a new career either.

He declined Johnson’s offer, but a few months later, in December, he came back.

Johnson hired him on the spot.

“He taught me how to sell cars,” Everett said. “He was a great sales manager, a great guy. Not only did he hire me, train me and was my mentor, but when he retired he was a great friend. He made such an impact on my life.” More quotes.

Everett was promoted to sales manager in 1979, a move that encouraged him to take a broader, longer view.

“As a salesman, it’s more a singular focus,” Everett said. “Sell a car, get a commission. As a sales manager, I’m more of a company kind of guys: what’s best for the business, what’s best for the customer, building a relationship with the customer.”

He stayed with the dealership when Tommy Griner bought it, going on to become a partner in the dealership in 1985.

In 1991, Langdale Ford called him and asked him to manage the dealership, an offer he accepted the following year.

He’s been there ever since.

He’s seen changes in the industry over the years — mostly with technology — but in some ways not much has changed.

“A car is still four tires and an internal combustion engine,” Everett said. “We still sell them in a lot of the same manner. We’re straight up. We don’t hard sell. We present the information: here’s the car, here’s the price. If we can make a deal, great. If not, we can still be friends.”

Another thing Everett keeps the same is the very mentoring opportunities that were extended to him when he was first starting out in the business.

“One my greatest sources of pride is some of the young people in the business today, who I’ve been able to hire, develop and promote,” Everett said. “I’m trying to pass on that legacy of what Al did for me. Somebody putting their arm around you, taking you under their wing and helping you out, trying to make something out of you.”

Everett points to Mark Howell, the assistant general manager for Langdale, as an example.

Howell started on the wash rack at Langdale Ford, working his way into the office, into sales and eventually into management.

“We have to invest in our future,” Everett said. “I really believe that. Our young people, that’s our future. Somebody invested in me. Most people can point to someone who invested in them, in their life, in their career. The greatest thing you can do is be that person at some point in your life, that you help out others.”

COMMUNITY

When Everett was growing up and other kids might be spending the weekends in the woods or at a ball field, he was at the airport with his dad, Ben.

Ben Everett was a retired Air Force flight engineer, a machinist by trade and a pilot by passion.

“I’d head to the airport with my dad, wash airplanes, fly around a little bit,” Steve said. “It was his passion and it eventually became mine.”

Everett got his pilot license when he was 19 and has been flying ever since.

Flying ties directly into his efforts to help the community.

For years, Everett has flown with Angel Flight and Mercy Flight, both groups that offer transportation to medical patients who need specialized care they can’t get where they live. Sometimes that’s a cancer patient that needs treatment, a burn victim who’s going to reconstructive surgery, in one case a young child that had been born with a malformed head and had to undergo a year and a half of rehabilitative treatments.

“I always tell my employees that you’ve got to give back,” said Everett. “You give back in three ways. You give back to your community, your industry and your church.”

For his church, Northside Baptist, Everett and his wife, Patti, direct a young adult Sunday School class, along with serving on committees and as an usher.

For his industry, Everett serves on the board of the Georgia Auto Dealers Association, working with all new car dealers across the state.

Last year, Georgia dealerships raised $100,000 Action Ministries, an Atlanta based non-profit focused on providing hunger relief, housing and education for homeless people.

Along with his flight work, Everett also worked with The Mailbox Club and is the executive director of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Airport Authority.

Everett’s father passed away in 1998, Al Johnson a few years back.

But the impact they had on him continues, acting as part of their legacy.

Legacy is something Everett thinks about a fair bit: what remains of our lives after we’re gone?

“I think, deep down inside, we’d all like to leave a mark when we pass on,” Everett said. “Some people want to make huge impacts, but I think those who quietly get the job done leave the greatest legacy.”

No man can write his own legacy, but Everett, if he had to choose, wants to leave one of having paid forward what was given to him.

“We’ve got to have a passion for the young people coming along,” Everett said. “You’ve got to be amiable to them. You’ve got to love them, lend some expertise, give a little bit of wisdom, a little bit of advice. Everybody just needs a little bit of time.”

The National Auto Dealer Association Convention starts April 1 in Las Vegas.

In a long ceremony, the 50 nominees will be narrowed down to four and then one.

The nominees won’t know until that moment who’s taking home the top prize.

But Everett can look — here, now — at what he’s done so far, the differences he’s made in people’s lives, some big, some small.

Some as simple as offering a man a job in the summer of 1977 that changes his entire life.

Stuart Taylor is a reporter for the Valdosta Daily Times.