Rocket Scientist Turned Car Dealer

With a degree in organic chemistry and a job as a rocket scientist, Marshall Jespersen hardly seemed destined for a career in car sales. But his family held an equity stake in a struggling Honda dealership in Danvers, Mass., and in February 1989 Jespersen stepped up to manage International Cars Ltd. “As a scientist, you know a lot of times when you are over your head and you don’t know what you need to know. I knew I was over my head,” Jespersen, dealer principal, recalls. So he joined the National Automobile Dealers Association to learn more about the industry and went back to school to earn an MBA.

The rocket scientist proved adept at the auto industry. International Cars Ltd., now an employee-owned company, is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. In addition to its Danvers, Mass. headquarters, International Cars also acquired four dealerships in NH: Dover Chevrolet, Dover Honda, Porsche of Stratham and Audi Stratham. Based on revenue generated by its NH dealerships alone, International Cars ranks 33rd on Business NH Magazine’s list of the Top 100 Private Companies in NH, which also appears in the September issue. It has grown to 212 employees (109 in NH) and experienced 13 percent average annual growth in revenue between 2011 and 2013. It has also donated approximately $2 million to charities during the past 40 years.

“The strong point about coming from another field is I didn’t know what couldn’t be done,” Jespersen says. “I looked at it and said we will make this work. There were enough good people and enough resources working together to make the operation what it is today. It continues to grow and evolve.”

International Cars has won several industry awards, including Audi Stratham receiving the Audi Magna Society Award in 2010. The company adopted an award-winning ESOP model in 2000 that Jespersen credits with playing a role in the success. As for the future, International Cars is looking at more acquisitions, he says. To learn more, visit iclautos.com.