Crimson and Gold Connection; Miles Schnaer

Our guest today is 2015 Meritorious Achievement Award recipient from Pittsburgh State University, Miles Schner. Miles, thanks for joining us. What did you study at Pittsburgh State University and what year did you graduate? I studied pre-med actually. I was a biology major and I was trained in the Army as a lab technician and ended up during the Vietnam War period. I didn't leave the states, I worked in hospitals in America and basically tested, drew blood, tested blood and helped pathologists in autopsies from time to time. And that interests me to go to medical school and become pathologists. My father had a little pharmacy downtown Kansas City and had several friends that were medical doctors and pathology. And so it really interests me. I wanted to be a doctor. I didn't want to be the kind of doctor that had to be on call all the time. But dealing with pathology, you were dealing with nothing that was critical or timely and you weren't dealing with potential problems. You were dealing with the dead body actually. And so that was the situation that really interests me.

When I got back to school after being in the service, I didn't actually want to graduate in 71. I didn't have the grades to give me in the medical school. So I had a friend recommend the car business and that's kind of the rest of history from there. So I've been in the car business since I graduated college in January, December, period of 71. Since you have been involved in the car dealership business, how has it evolved since you began? Well, I was told years ago that I had good debts on manner that my parents told me the values of life that if you do the right thing, you'll be rewarded for it. And I have been in a lot of reasons I can tell you about later, but it gave me a sense of taking care of people and having a big heart. I guess you might say that if you're treating people right, you're helping them whether it's physically or mentally or behind cars. So it just has to do with the fact that the way I was raised and the way I lived my life and the way I try to tell the people that work for me and my kids that, you know, just take you a little longer to get there if you do things your right way, but you'll get there and reap benefits of that. So I think having the knack of being able to help people was the reason for my success in life, but my success in business as well.

When you started as a salesman was one of your goals to purchase a dealership in the future as you have owned multiple dealerships. No, not really. I interviewed it for dealerships in Kansas City actually and my aunt finally talked the Leon Morris who had class and more Chevrolet back then. His mother was in the home where my aunt was a business manager for and she wasn't like a second mother to me and had never been married and she told Leon that he needed to hire me because of the fact that I was her nephew and she knew I needed a job. And since I interviewed there, he had my application and my dad had a interview with Marion Labs for me as a salesperson and I ended up not taking that interview and just went to work and more Chevrolet. So I interviewed, like I said, several places, but I went to work selling cars. I was doing okay. I was kind of in the middle of the pack of learning the business. And after the first year, I said myself, this is not for me on a college graduate. I'm not a car salesman.

There were different styles of selling cars back then still is, but I just didn't like that. The hours were long and tedious. And if you didn't sell something, you didn't make any money. And I was leaving in a used car manager at a van Chevrolet contact me. I heard you're leaving and I said, yeah, I'm getting out of the car business. This is not for me. And he said, want to come down here and talk to me about it because there's potential management. And if you are succeeding in the management side of it, the dealer who's younger, Cecil Landtile does act as a bounce factor and he puts young people out and you end up buying them out over a period of time. I said, you know, really, I'm not, but I don't have lunch with you. And we talked and I had to make a career decision because my wife at that time was graduating college the next year at Pittsburgh. And I knew that I had to find something as a future to be able to support us being together. And I knew that was going to be a decision I had to make.

The first decision is the marriage side of it. And the second decision was, you know, where my future. So I went to work selling these cars here for two and a half years. And I was doing a real good job for them. And they promoted me up in the management, eventually general management. And then that's when I went to Decatur, Illinois as a partner with Mr. Van Tile and ended up buying him out over a period of time. And then came back to Kansas City and bought an autoplasm, sold it to the superior group that came through Kansas City. And that's when I bought the dealerships and Lawrence and sold my interest or sold the deals in Decatur in 97 and early part of 90s when we sold the autoplasm. And then I went to Lawrence in 94 and that's where I am today. How does it feel to be honored as a 2015 Maritorious Award from Pittsburgh State University? Turned it's really a common emotional thing to be real honest with you. I met my wife there. My oldest daughter is a pitch state graduate to be back involved in Pittsburgh after knowing that I was going to be gone either Decatur or Kansas City. And really I think my mother lived the 99 years old and got a few years ago and she always used to tell us things happened for a reason. No matter what it was, they're bad and good things happen if you work at it. And so coming back to Kansas City was meant to be.

Kennell Gammon is a real good friend of mine and he is probably the one that really precipitated the fact that I was going to be back involved with pitch state as he retired from Kansas City Chiefs. He was on a national championship team and the pitch state graduate. So we just bonded automatically and he got involved in a lot of obvious situations down the Pittsburgh and so he got me involved. We made some philanthropic contributions to university. You know, at this point, you know, having three out of four, my family members, my daughter and my wife and I as pitch state grads of my youngest daughter's Boston University grad and she's still there after 16, 17 years. So our goal was to contribute back to the university and get back because of what it has meant to us as a family. Getting involved is an executive committee or getting involved on the foundation board and meeting Dr Scott and meeting the staff and the people that are there. Being involved with the university meant so much to me is especially when I'm getting the award that if winning awards is part of your life, that's great.

But if doing the right thing and knowing that you're doing the right thing and awards and recognition, I accept is byproduct of that. So just an overwhelming experience and I'm not trying to be humble about this is just where I am. Shifting gears from awards to rewards. What do you think has been the most rewarding thing that you've done throughout your career? Probably giving people opportunities to succeed. You know, I've been very fortunate to be able to attract outstanding people in my business. I've felt like that I've never accepted the fact that it's my business. I've always accepted the fact that it's my employees business and I just agree benefits of ownership after taking the risk to invest in these businesses. But I think the rewards are watching young people succeed like my former partner. You know, that was his goal was to put people in business and allow them to buy out, which means that they succeeded. And that was his rewards for watching us succeed. And I've emulated that in a small, small way compared to what he has done.

But in a way that gives you that sense of satisfaction and whether it's your family, seeing your kids grow up, having your kids have kids and watching them deal with their kids and their successes, they're rewarding. I think it's just watching people succeed and watching them take the things that we've been able, as an organization, offer them to watch them succeed. So I think that's the major thing. I guess I could talk about that. I've told a lot of people this, but I had known my two girls who've been turned out like they have. I had 10 more just like them. We've been very rewarded with family as well. What would your advice be to any current student that are wanting to take kind of that leadership pathway? I would say that if I could do it anybody could do it. Whether it's getting a degree or whether it's buying business or going to work for somebody and succeeding. I just say it's work. If you're working for somebody or you've enrolled in classes at school, then do everything in your power to listen and to succeed.

Whether it's a business that you're listening to a manager or a leader of an organization, they succeeded. If you might as well listen to them, tell you what you need to do to succeed in the business. Teachers and counselors are telling you how to succeed and that's based on going to work and just doing the things the way that they want you to do it. But I think work ethic and commitments. Everybody that that you hear about is making the commitment and making that commitment to succeed and just work at it. Is there any other thing that you would like to add to this conversation that I've looked over maybe? I think the thing that really is the crux of everything that I do or the thing that everybody does is just do the right thing. If you commit, like I just said, you commit to whatever you're doing in your life and whether it's to a family or to a college or to a spouse or kids or a business, you just have to work at it and commit. And then the rest comes, but it's the matter of doing things the way that you know or the right thing to do. I could probably keep going with that aspect of it, but I know that if I could said before, if I could do it and that probably the thing that I would do is I sacrificed the house, you know, when I was coming up through the ranks.

I had a lot of friends that were out going to ball games and going out to bars and I basically just said, you know, I've committed to this thing.