Pelican Parts Forums - Crossroads....

Well here I am at 57 years old having stayed here in NE Ohio for varoius family reasons and currently at a crossroads.

In May of 2009 the great company I was employed by lost their bank financing and evaporated. I was the National Sales Manager traveling 49 States and most of Canada selling semi-custom engineered items to the Service Truck and Fire Apparatus industry. The company tried to soldier on but ended up pretty much folding. I became a 55 yo guy with a bunch of experience and a decent education (basically engineering and sales/business management) that found I couldn't get many to look at me for a position and those that did felt I was way over-qualified for what they were looking for.

I had an old friend that at the time owned a Audi and Porsche Dealership that at a PCA event offered me a position which was working out very well until he up and sold out to Penske Corp. For months after the sale we soldiered on but the new GM was very hostile and antagonistic toward the old employees and especially toward the "Gray Hairs" still there. He accomplished his goal and at this point we have all left. Too bad as it was a great group of people but we didn't fit the "profile."

I left for an established BMW store but the management of the store was determined to be the "Low price leader" crushing all opportunity for making any money as a sales person. I stayed for 10 months and left after selling $900,000 worth of new BMW's and being paid a commission of just under $3200.00 for the month (Gross Commission!), pitiful.

I was offered a position at the other Audi dealership here mostly through the assistance of the District Audi Rep who I have a great relationship with. Its going ok but this place is built around 2 long time guys who do 80% of the business here. Its ok they have earned the right to do so here, its just the way it is.

So the crossroads....I have my only son 150 miles away with 2 years of Medical School to go (he has determined to NOT stay in the north when completed as has his future spouse), My mother-in-law has gone off the cliff with Alzheimer's and has no recognition or awareness of who we are. These are the last 2 "anchors" for us here so we are contemplating moving south. I own my house and a rental (managed by a great management company), rental is leased for 20 months and we could likely rent our home through the same management company.

NE Ohio is the fastest area for bleeding jobs in the USA. We are down a net 8100 jobs this month and there has been a net loss every month of 2013...the pool is shrinking fast.

Question is, where to go.

Primary goal is to escape the winter and have some better income potential. Want to use the cars more, maybe play a little golf...I have history in the Columbia, SC area and some connections in Houston and Dallas, TX but we could go just about anywhere. At 57 I want/need to work 10 years to retirement and I do like the car sales business (not so much the hours here) but could look at doing something else sales/sales management related.

Thoughts?