By the time sales picked up in 2010, Laurel Ford was again profitable, setting the stage for Walker to pass the business on to his daughter, Urica Walker Martin, who has been under his tutelage for at least the last decade. The transition, scheduled to occur in the near future, is more than a first-generation owner passing the keys to a second-generation owner. It will also place the 39-year-old Walker Martin among only a handful of African American women to oversee a dealership for one of the major automakers.
Walker Martin is proud that she is about to become part of such a small group of African American female car dealer operators. “The significance is in the opportunity,†she says. “We are in a position to open doors for others and shed light on the fact that this is no longer a white male-dominated field.â€
A Small Group
Walker Martin has been at Laurel Ford since March 1996, when she was also attending William Carey College in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. In 2002, her father sent her to the National Automobile Dealers Association Academy in McLean, Virginia. Since then, Walker has been grooming her to take over the dealership mainly by showing her how to manage its sales team and finances. “I stay out of the dealership a whole lot since we got it turned around and make sure people understand that she’s the one in charge,†Walker, 58, says.
All told, there are more than 17,000 U.S. dealerships, says Damon Lester, president of the National Association of Minority Automobile Dealers in Largo, Maryland. Of that number, about 250 are African American-owned and roughly 10 out of that number are owned by black women.
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