Well-known car dealer passes away
COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI) – It’s the name you hear on commercials.
It’s the name you see on dealerships driving down Highway 45, Carl Hogan.
The Alabama native opened his first car dealership in Columbus in December 1996 with his business partner, Jim Cannon.
“If you knew Carl, the first thing you would see is what a kind, caring person he was. It radiated from him,” said Clyde Rhea of Carl Hogan Automotive.
Clyde Rhea is the executive manager at Carl Hogan Automotive.
Rhea said he was the second employee Hogan hired in 1996.
“He cared about his employees. Carl’s motto was ‘If you take care of your employees, they’re going to take care of your customers, and everything will take care of itself,'” said Rhea.
“He always wanted everybody at the dealerships to feel like family because we spend so many hours here doing our jobs and he always stressed that, if you were going to spend so much time with people outside of work, they should be like family,” said John Fenstermacher car salesman at Carl Hogan Automotive.
Hogan passed away New Year’s Eve after a near-year long battle with pancreatic cancer.
His son, Josh Hogan, who also worked for him, said he fought it with “a positive attitude, grit, and determination.”
“I had the opportunity to talk to him a couple of days before he passed while he was in hospice, and I said ‘I was so sad.’ And he said, ‘Clyde, it is what it is, but how are you?’ And that’s the type of person he was,” said Rhea.
Employees said he always put people first, from donating to his community to helping out behind the scenes.
“He wasn’t one that maybe sponsored a softball team, but every year, he’d give money to the whole organization. You know tornadoes hit locally… and he would always give a whole bunch of money and never wanted any recognition for any of that. A good man,” said Jonathon Breckenridge, a Used Car Sales Manager at CHA.
Hogan expanded his business and opened Carl Hogan Honda in 2001 and Carl Hogan Toyota in 2009.
Employees say his presence will be missed.
“It’s his belief in people that we want to keep carrying on today as our legacy,” said Rhea.
Hogan was 74 when he passed in Florida and leaves behind two sons.
Hogan’s services will be held at Pleasant Hill Baptist Church in Columbus on Sunday, January 18.
Visitation will be from 2:00 to 3:30 pm.
