CARY, N.C. -

Editor's Note: This is a special preview, available only to CMG Premium subscribers, of our special "Top Dealers: Champions in the Community" issue for June.

Norma Jean Ross was often thinking ahead.

Ross assumed leadership of the Bob Ross Auto Group in Centerville, Ohio in 1997 after the death of her husband, Robert P. Ross Sr. She ran the business with her daughter, Jenell, and son, Robert.

“She always called me at 1 or 2 in the morning, ‘What do you think about this?’ and ‘How are we going to go about that?’” Jenell Ross said about her mother’s business leadership style.

“She had been involved I would say for decades assisting my dad in different capacities, but she was a lot of fun to work with,” Jenell Ross went on to say of her mother, who died in 2010.

Under Norma’s leadership and forward thinking, the dealership would go on to win several honors. One year, the Bob Ross Auto Group was included in a list of the Top 100 General Motors dealers that have excelled in retail sales and customer satisfaction. 

But Norma Jean Ross had also performed many years of community service. One of her many areas of involvement involved starting the Saturday Academy at Central State University in Ohio. The Academy was a test preparation course that assisted students in preparing for the SAT.

Again, Norma was always thinking ahead, regarding areas involving the business and in the area of charitable work.

“She was always very involved with the dealership, especially helping with marketing and all of our sponsorships and levels of engagement in all facets of the community,” Jenell Ross said.

Foundation honors Norma’s charitable work

Her long list of charitable activities included service as a board member for the American Cancer Society. But in 2010, Norma lost an eight-year battle with breast cancer. Jenell Ross went on to become president of the Bob Ross Auto Group, and its dealerships now include three franchises: Buick, GMC and Mercedes-Benz.

But Jenell Ross also started the Norma J. Ross Memorial Foundation to honor her mother’s years of service to the community. Norma loved opera and wanted to expose minority youth to the arts, and that is a top area of focus for the foundation. Initiating activities toward preventing and ending breast cancer is the foundation’s other top area of focus. The foundation works to do that through preventive measures such as raising funds to help with research and to help women get mammograms. 

Pink Ribbon Driven is part of the foundation that helps raise money by selling merchandise such as pins, hats and T-shirts. Funds from the sale of the merchandise go toward the foundation’s mission of helping underserved women affected by breast cancer and engaging youth across Ohio.

Jenell Ross said Pink Ribbon Driven now offers an entire merchandise line for men and women, and the merchandise features the Pink Ribbon Driven logo. She said her goddaughters came up with the Pink Ribbon Driven logo, a pink ribbon adorned with black stitching that is threaded through a steering wheel.

“So, a lot of my employees will wear Pink Ribbon Driven gear all year round, not just October,” she said, adding that at the time of her interview with Auto Remarketing, she was wearing one of the shirts. 

“It’s just brought a new level of awareness to what this potentially deadly disease can be and do, and effect your loved ones.”

Today, the Norma J. Ross Memorial Foundation is still going strong. Last year the foundation started an In This Together Initiative to support health care workers at breast centers and cancer treatment centers. The organization donated PPE supplies such as masks, disinfecting wipes, gloves, gowns and hand sanitizer to keep the workers and the patients safe.

Each month, the foundation donates PPE supplies to Dayton Physicians Network, Kettering Health Network and Premier Health facilities in Dayton and surrounding areas.

As for Jenell Ross, her company said she is the only second-generation African-American female automobile dealer in the country. Also, according to the company, Mercedes-Benz of Centerville is the first African-American owned Mercedes-Benz Dealership in the world. Bob Ross Auto Group said it operates the only Mercedes-Benz and Buick-GMC dealerships owned by an African-American woman. 

She is an active member of the Dayton Area Automobile Dealers Association and the Ohio Auto Dealers Association. She also fulfilled an appointment from Ohio Gov. John Kasich to the Motor Vehicle Dealers Board.

She said the current business climate was “a little crazy,” considering the pandemic and supply chain issues. But like her mother, she is always thinking ahead to when the business climate improves. She said her company was working to keep its employees healthy and to take care of its clients.

“It’s been a blessing with the demand that has occurred really since last June, but obviously there’s naturally a huge concern about where we go with this lack of inventory and when we’ll see some sense of normalcy,” she said.

She will continue honoring her mother, noting that Norma’s first career was in elementary education. Norma went on to become a curriculum consultant, but even after that, she was involved in youth education. 

“She was always looking for ways to help improve that environment for area youth and still stayed very actively involved in the educational realm,” Jenell Ross said. 

She went on to say, “She was involved in a lot of different organizations, within the arts as well as minority women service organizations that are focused on the betterment of community, and a lot of times they have youth components. So [she was] a lot of fun to be around. She was very much loved and appreciated and liked throughout the community.”