Mike Dunnahoo

CEO, Owner

Mike Dunnahoo wasn’t born in West Texas. When you meet him and hear his story, you’d think he had been. He’s the kind of guy who made West Texas what it is: started work when he was 14 years old, learned a trade and learned the value of hard work.

Pulling on his own bootstraps, he became a successful businessman before moving to Abilene in 1999 where he has built another successful business. He, with his wife Pat, raised a family who share their old-fashioned values, believing in the importance of taking care of their own. And their own is now all of Abilene.

It was his daughter Ché, the dealership’s first marketing director, who first jumped into non-profit Abilene, joining the Junior League and becoming active in Big Brothers Big Sisters. It was Ché who first said that "if our customers are here, then we really need to be involved."

Car dealers in the Metroplex, where he cut his business teeth, didn’t get involved. And that wasn’t the way Mike Dunnahoo had spent his time as a young person.

Mike grew up around Fort Worth, graduating from Richland High School while working 40 hours a week in a machine shop. He started work at the age of 14, pushing a broom, in the shop owned by family friends. Over the next six years he learned welding, how to bend parts and use a punch press. After being "passed over" at the age of 20 for the Lead Man position, a cocky Mike left and went to work for Lennox Air Conditioning running a 40-ton punch press. Six months into the job, he had an accident in which he almost lost a finger.

With that, and being a newlywed as motivators, the young Mike Dunnahoo answered an ad for an auto salesman. A childhood neighbor had once told him that he had such a gift of gab he ought to be a salesman. He went to the first interview with long hair, sideburns and no suit. By the second interview, he had a line of credit at a menswear shop, a new suit and shorter hair.

Pat went with him for the last interview – the dealer wanted to be certain she understood the long hours and hard work the job would require. At that last interview, he was asked to take a psychological test that had to be sent off for grading. His tenacity led him to badger the dealer every day for two weeks before they hired him without knowing the test results. A good thing: after he’d been on the job for two weeks, the results came back showing that he had no aptitude for sales! In the meantime, he was selling cars. That was 1972 and by 1979 he was the General Manager of Don Davis Oldsmobile in the Metroplex. And by then he had two children, Che born in 1974 and Blake who was born in 1977. Both have taken a spin in the auto business, with Blake continuing to work for his dad.

In ’99, after nearly 10 years of running a wholesale auto operation, he answered a call from his old friend, Wichita Falls car dealer Harry Patterson. Harry’s group was managing the Star Dodge dealership for owner, Fred Stella. Harry wanted to buy it and he wanted a partner who would run it. Mike took over as GM in August of 1999 and a month later the group had bought Star Dodge. In 2001 they bought the Honda and Toyota dealerships, selling them in 2005. Today Mike is back at the corner of S. 1st and the Winters Freeway, now the sole owner, running his Dodge and Hyundai dealerships and racing from one volunteer job to the next.

Tracy Gilliam

General Manager

As a young man just starting out in the automobile dealership business, Tracy Gilliam was mentored by Mike Dunnahoo – well, sort of. A Granbury native, Tracy has worked in the car business all of his adult life and his mentor was a man who had been a protégé of Mike’s early in their careers.

Like Mike, Tracy spent a number of years in the wholesale car business. In fact, that’s how he got to know Mike Dunnahoo: Mike was working in wholesale and selling to Metroplex car dealer while Tracy, also working in the wholesale business, was buying cars from the same dealer.

Tracy learned the retail car business while working at the Chevrolet dealership in Granbury, working for the man who had been mentored by Mike and who would teach Tracy how to handle people.

He spent the first 36 years of his life in Granbury, never moving or living anywhere else. He and his family moved to Abilene a little more than 10 years ago, having come here to work for Star in the used car department. He was elevated to Used Car Sales Manager for Star Dodge-Hyundai two years ago and was named General Sales Manager last year.

The Gilliam family, which includes Tracy, his wife Tracey and 15-year-old son Logan and 18-year-old daughter Lauren, love Abilene, particularly because of the low crime rate and the relaxed atmosphere. The children attend Wylie schools.

Tracy is part of all the Star Dodge-Hyundai family activities, but he most enjoys the work the dealership does with the Ben Richey Boys Ranch. “We really do help those young men out there,” he said. And he’s happy to help with all the Junior Achievement activities the dealership is involved in. He says he expects to spend the rest of his working career right here, working with Mike Dunnahoo, as they grow the business together. “If you are on his team, if you are loyal to him, he is loyal to you.”

Kim Bosher

Director of Marketing/Public Relations

16 years ago Kim Bosher found her home in Abilene. Not just a home in which to live but a home for raising her three children, a home for a new marriage, a home with a career.

A Victoria native, she moved 362 miles north because a family member told her she could work at a car dealership here and as a single mom could earn more money than she was making as a waitress in her hometown.

Kim started out in the warranty department, which represents 70 percent of the dealership’s service business. It was a place, she said, where she could learn a lot about the business, from gaining knowledge about the manufacturer to coordinating training for the technicians.

Her move out of the service department started with studying and analyzing customer surveys, an essential part of the customer’s total service experience. She called customers, worked with mystery shoppers and generally became what she laughingly calls the “Quality Control Investigator.”

Today, she and her husband Mike are the grandparents to, six boys and two girls. All four of their children are grown. Ashley, 24, lives in Abilene. Amber, 26, recently received her Masters degree in  Hobbs, N.M. ,R.D., 28 is a Drill Sergeant in the U.S. Army living in Lawton,Oklahoma and Sandy ,30 is a Choral Director in Cincinatti,Ohio.

At the dealership her title is now Director of Marketing/Public Relations, but her role encompasses far more than what the title suggests.

Not only is she the dealership’s information hub, she is involved in all hiring, development, implementation and maintenance of customer and employee processes; and she still plays a role in the warranty department. Her most important task, however, is working with the dealership’s owner, Mike Dunnahoo, and various managers, in deciding on the annual charitable giving budget and then working with Mike to direct the organization’s involvement with the selected charities. Any community event that has Star’s name on it, gets Kim’s or Mike’s involvement.

Kim serves on the boards of directors of the Paramount Theater, Connecting Caring Communities and the Abilene Business Council, is a member of the Rotary Club of Abilene and is a former board member of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Abilene and Junior Achievement.