Irma Elder.(Special Report)(Brief Article)

Crain's Detroit Business, March, 2004

Irma Elder Elder Automotive Group, Troy President and CEO Irma Elder's husband died in 1983. At the time, Elder, the mother of three teenagers, had not worked for about 20 years. She assumed control of a Ford dealership in Troy on Jan. 1, 1984, at the tail end of a recession, and purchased a Jaguar and Saab franchise in 1993.

Today she has six dealerships that had 2003 sales of $672 million. What other people don't know: "I tell (people) that I am still shy, and people laugh, but basically inside I am really still shy. But you eventually overcome everything in life. I think that I was so busy trying to survive that I forgot that I was shy.''