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Meet the Moderators

Ben Goodman

Goodman has spent the past 11 years with Byrider, the nation’s largest BHPH franchise operation. He began as general manager of multiple Byrider dealerships in Cincinnati, winning the regional Dealership of the Year award three times in his first five years. Goodman was then named GM of Byrider’s newly developed business development center, designing and operating an internal BDC for 21 Byrider corporate stores and increasing dealership traffic through Internet lead conversions.

When his program proved a success, it was implemented at 67 Byrider franchisees. Goodman later served as a Byrider franchise consultant, maximizing franchisee profitability through benchmark performance analysis, action planning, interactive training and onsite and virtual visits. He organized and moderated Byrider 20 Group meetings, bootcamps, panel discussions and conventions, as well as serving on planning, implementation and training committees in all phases of BHPH operations.

Before joining Byrider, Goodman spent nearly 16 years with CitiFinancial, rising to district vice president of operations, responsible for all operations of seven subprime consumer finance branches in Columbus, Ohio, and surrounding markets.

Bill Elizondo

Elizondo’s experience the BHPH industry goes back more than 30 years, beginning in 1990 with CAR Financial Services (formerly Wells Fargo Financial),where his responsibilities included profit, hiring, training, underwriting and collections, and he rose to national accounts director. He later served as created director of collections practices and review, and vice president of operations for America’s Car-Mart, the nation’s largest publicly held BHPH dealership, working with and managing 29 dealerships totaling more than 10,000 accounts and $86 million in receivables.

He moved from that role to director of strategic growth and development and later director of sales for Superior Auto, another large BHPH operation known for outstanding collections. During that stint, his job included running a dealership and personal visits with customers. As sales director, he was responsible for 64 stores – increasing retail sales by 22 percent and unit sales by 12.5 percent – and was instrumental in the development of a new sales manual.

Elizondo is a marathoner, an All-America masters swimmer and a swimming coach, and has completed an Ironman triathlon.

Ed Curry

Curry comes to NIADA with more than 40 years of auto industry experience, including 21 years in retail, starting as a salesman while attending college. He’s served in every front end dealership role from sales to general manager to owner of an independent dealership that included a BHPH operation. Curry held a number of leadership positions in more than eight years with Sonic Automotive, one of America’s largest auto retailers, including national used vehicle director, national sales director, senior vice president of staff operations and vice president of used vehicle sales. During his tenure he helped create Sonic’s Dealer Academy and wrote much of the curriculum for its first graduating class. He also created an industry first – Sonic University, which provided training to all dealership roles using both live training and distance learning.

Curry then joined NCM Associates and rewrote its used car bootcamp and training program as well as conducting the classes and training other instructors. He was also a regular contributor to Ward’s Dealer Business magazine. He later held senior positions in the used vehicle operations of Asbury Automotive and Van Tuyl Group, and was executive manager for a franchise dealership owned by Berkshire Hathaway Automotive. And he was general manager of Atlanta Luxury Motors, an independent operation that was in the initial phases of adding new car franchises to its seven used car locations.