Around 29 years old, Luke Lunkenheimer headed to prison. Nearly a decade of addiction and wrong choices ended with a bank robbery charge and prison sentence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ten years later, Lunkenheimer, owner of multiple successful car dealerships in New York, doesn\u2019t shy away from his past. He looks to share his story to inspire others and fulfill a promise he made at his lowest point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI remember back being in prison and saying, \u2018Man whoever\u2019s up there, if you just let me get out of here alive, let me get back to a productive life where I can have some freedom, I can enjoy a fast car again, I can just try to have another shot at this, I promise I will do whatever in my capability to help somebody else, even if it\u2019s just one person,\u2019\u201d Lunkenheimer said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lunkenheimer will be a featured speaker during NIADA Accelerate 2023 Convention and Expo at the Wynn in Las Vegas. Lunkenheimer will present \u201cFrom Felon to Fortune – How a broke drug addict became a million dollar dealer and realized the American dream,\u201d at 2:15 p.m. Wednesday in the Castillon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI wanted to participate in this, and I knew that my story and the success that I had experienced would do something for somebody,\u201d Lunkenheimer said. \u201cIt\u2019s my lineage being a car guy. My granddad was a car dealer, daddy was a car dealer and friends were car dealers. It\u2019s in my blood. If there\u2019s one thing I know about car people, I know there\u2019s opportunities every single day to compromise moral compass for financial gain. I don\u2019t plan on coming to Las Vegas to preach. I plan on showing my peers in the industry that you can absolutely do things the right way. You can absolutely maintain your commitments.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lunkenheimer\u2019s session will be one of more than 20 sessions Wednesday during the largest convention and expo for the independent dealer. Read Lunkenheimer’s story in the June issue of UCD. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
To see a full list of events, download the NIADA app.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Around 29 years old, Luke Lunkenheimer headed to prison. Nearly a decade of addiction and wrong choices ended…\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3963,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"csco_singular_sidebar":"","csco_page_header_type":"","csco_appearance_grid":"","csco_page_load_nextpost":"","csco_post_video_location":[],"csco_post_video_location_hash":"","csco_post_video_url":"","csco_post_video_bg_start_time":0,"csco_post_video_bg_end_time":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[28,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-independent","category-industry","cs-entry","cs-video-wrap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}