With years of auction industry leadership under his belt, Paul Lips is now stepping into his role guiding the National Auto Auction Association as its 2013 president.

But interestingly enough, it was the need for a change-of-pace that brought him into the auction business in the first place.

Some six years into his career in public accounting, Lips knew it was time to try something different.   

The Hoosier State native — who had been in the Indianapolis area since graduating from Ball State University in 1990 — was ready to explore another path.

“It was time for a change. I knew that wasn’t my career path,” Lips told Auto Remarketing in a late August interview. “But I was looking for an opportunity that was going to have a lot of variety, a lot of people.

“I like interacting with people of all different backgrounds. There were a lot of jobs that came along that didn’t appeal to me because they didn’t have the variety, and they didn’t have a lot of interaction with people all over the place,” he said.

However, Lips received a call about an opportunity with this auction company in the area known as ADESA, and he decided to go in for an interview.

“I came in for the interview, and the CFO at the time for ADESA was Brian Warner, and Brian and I had gone to college together,” he said. “It was pretty much one of those interviews where he just asked me one question, which was ‘When can you start?’”

But Lips didn’t exactly jump immediately at the offer.

“I said, ‘Well first, I’ve got to see what these auto auctions look like,’” he told Warner.

So, Lips went out to ADESA’s Indianapolis, which was about a year old at the time and one of 26 facilities the company had throughout the country.

“I always explain that the vision in my head at time was that an auto auction was an old barn with dirt floors and junk cars coming in, and a big heavyset auctioneer with a cowboy hat on and a handkerchief over the microphone with a gavel,” Lips said. “I walked into ADESA Indy and with it being a new facility, there were cars in the lobby, and it looked like a new-car dealership showroom. And then I walked out in the lanes and saw the activity and all the people, and starting thinking about it.”

He added: “I was like, ‘Wow. I’ve got tons of variety, a very interesting business, and there are people from all walks of life all over the country that I’ll be able to interact with.’ And I’m like, ‘I think this is for me.’”

The rest is history.

At the end of 2012, Lips will have been with ADESA for 16 years.

Since starting with the company in 1996 within its finance department, he’s moved up the ranks to his current post as executive vice president of operations and finance. Lips was named corporate controller in 1997 and became chief financial officer in 2001. 

He was appointed vice president of investor relations and planning in 2004 and then received a promotion to senior VP vice president of operations in 2005.

He has also played an active role in the leadership of the National Auto Auction Association, and now steps into the president’s role.

Of course, Lips isn’t just a NAAA leader or an ADESA executive. Those are only some of many roles he plays.

Lips is a family man, enjoying his free time with his wife Margaret and daughters Macy (10) and Kaile (8).

Having grown up in South Bend, he’s an “avid fan” of Notre Dame football, and gets to about four or five Fighting Irish games each year.

He and Margaret enjoy traveling and watching movies together, and when they have a free night, they’ll take in a rock concert.

This, of course, is where they “pretend that we’re living back in the 1980s again,” says the rock fan. In fact, when Auto Remarketing chatted with Lips, he said a KISS and Motley Crue concert was in his plans that coming weekend.

As far as Lips’ plans for his NAAA presidency, he boiled it down to a few key measures.

“I want to continue (building) on the foundation that (2011 and 2012 NAAA presidents) Jay (Cadigan) and Charlotte (Pyle) have laid here the past couple of years. I think we’ve got some good momentum going with what we’re doing in terms of leadership development,” he said.

“When I look back at my career with ADESA and my involvement in NAAA, the one thing I wish I could have done differently was to have gotten more active in NAAA earlier in my career,” Lips continued. “I probably would have been able to grow faster into the industry and understand everything about the industry much quicker, had I been more active in NAAA.

“So, I like what Charlotte’s done with the leadership program, and we’re going to keep that going. Hopefully we can continue to reach out to more and more of the younger people in the industry and get them more involved in NAAA because the industry is changing rapidly,” Lips added.

“The Internet has only been around for selling cars for about 10 to 12 years, and the way we do business is a lot different. There are people who came into the business, and that’s all they know. And we need to get them active in NAAA because they’re going to be the future of the auction industry, and somehow we’ve got to carry the torch forward,” he added.

Lips went on to mention his goal regarding NAAA’s work in Washington, D.C.   As president, he wants to keep the organization’s momentum in legislative affairs rolling.

“We just started getting active on Capitol Hill, and there’s a lot of legislation and regulations that we deal with on a daily basis. And those aren’t going to slow down. So, we’re definitely going to keep that initiative going, and I credit Charlotte for getting that kicked off last year,” he noted.

“Beyond that, the thing I want to focus on is the inclusion of more and more auctions in the programs that we have within NAAA,” Lips continued. “Most of us share the announcements that we make on the block, and that protects the integrity of the industry, so dealers can’t take a car from one location to another and skip the announcement, because the announcement follows the car.

“I want to make sure that as an industry, we’re focused on things like that as well as the sharing of our market data, which we do via a partnership with NADA. And that’s the basis for the used-car market guide,” Lips noted, referring to the AuctionNet data.

 He also mentioned that he wants to get more auctions involved in these efforts.

“We all benefit from that, and I think that’s a huge benefit for our customers as well, on the dealer side and on the commercial side,” he stressed.

Lastly, Lips added that he is aiming to “push on the power of membership in NAAA,” noting: “There are a lot of auctions that are new to the industry or there has been a change in management; they recognize the value that the NAAA logo brings, and I want to make sure that we make that as strong as possible going forward.”