Tom Wood Honda Powersports opens doors in Indianapolis

Jeff Wood, president and CEO of the Tom Wood Group, has made an impressive impact in Central Indiana. He is a powersports enthusiast and his passion for the products and industry is paving the way for his teams in the Midwest. The Tom Wood Group is an auto group in the Indianapolis area that was established in 1967. Now, nearly 30 companies are within the overall group. Tom Wood, Jeff Wood’s father, also a pilot, was the catalyst to Jeff’s passion for powersports when he gave his son his first Honda motorbike in the 1970s.

As a memorial to the late Tom Wood, the group’s corporate office entrance has a spectacularly unique work of art that displays a quote from him: “Success is not measured by the number of franchises or locations an organization has; it is measured by the people associated with it.”

Tom Wood Group

The Tom Wood Automotive Group was founded by Tom Wood himself in 1967. Following his passing in 2010, his son and retired Air Force Thunderbird pilot Jeff Wood took the reins. The group’s automotive foundation now extends into powersports, aviation, leasing and finance industries.

 “[Tom Wood Powersports] is the ultimate place to make a career and I think people should know how [Jeff Wood] is contributing to powersports,” says Curt Schannen, general manager of Tom Wood Honda Powersports Indianapolis. “The Tom Wood family in general, to say they are great people would be an understatement because they are all absolutely incredible.”

Tom Wood employees are offered generous 401(k) contributions, extensive health coverage and gracious vacation and personal time. “There are no other comparable businesses as they’ve set the bar so high,” Schannen says.

The company’s automotive foundation has positively influenced powersports operations. “The automotive space is very process driven and those core processes create efficiencies in any business,” he says. He highlights that borrowing organizational processes and customer management techniques from the automotive sector has created new efficiencies and improved customer experiences.

“The growth of our finance departments is incredible thanks to the automotive resources we have available to us.” he explains. “They have been phenomenal in helping us with compliance, managing our customer data, and marketing techniques that have been helpful with all the data and analytics that auto groups are highly aware of.”

And it doesn’t stop there. The Wood family also extends into New Zealand, a place Tom Wood loved to take them on vacation, where they now have two powersports dealerships, including the southernmost Indian Motorcycle dealership in the world, as part of their 10-rooftop domestic and international operations.

Philanthropy

The Tom Wood Auto Group supports numerous charitable causes. “They’re an incredible contributor to the American Cancer Society in Indiana,” Schannen notes. The donations from the Tom Wood family to cancer research has led to groundbreaking research and education through Indiana University, and the Tom and Julie Wood Center for Lung Cancer Research.

These efforts and donations have created the Tom and Julie Wood College of Osteopathic Medicine at Marian University, and Indiana’s first mobile lung cancer screening programs. The group actively participates in events like the Riley Children’s Hospital Miracle Ride, one of the Midwest’s largest motorcycle rides.

Core focus

The group’s leadership style is rooted in communication and collaboration. “I try to work with my team as a teammate,” GM Curt Schannen says. “The biggest thing I focus on as a leader is my store’s culture. We build and maintain that culture based on the four core values our group has establish across all of the Tom Wood Companies.”

These values are embodied in the acronym P.U.S.H.  “And that’s what we do each and every day. The ‘P’ is for ‘passionately driven.’ We have to have passion, and we have to be driven in our cause. ‘U’ is for ‘uncompromising integrity’ because that’s how we’re going to treat all our teammates and our customers. ‘S’ is for ‘sincere desire to help others’ because without sincerity, you’re not going to help them the way they may need. And the ‘H’ is for ‘humble confidence’ because we are the best in our business, but we don’t need to advertise that through any means besides how we conduct business and how we treat people.”

“Inspect what you expect” is also a best practice that he has learned and prioritizes. “As part of the automotive group, we have access to unique business management tools,” he says. “Because those tools are available to guys like myself, I’ve been able to create what I would call an unstoppable staff of managers and departmental teammates that are always in tune with each other, our customers, and are just the best to deal with.”

Employees share a love of riding, whether on the street or on the trails. “[Tom Wood Group has] kept and brought in new powersports blood,” Schannen says. “Every dealership has a good dynamic of employees… Different stores have different personalities somewhat based on the different brands carried, but a lot of that comes with the culture of the overall group.”