Driven Dealer

Monique "Niki" Martin-van den Hurk, executive vice president of Aloha Auto Group Ltd., has been nominated for the 2015 Time Dealer of the Year award.

She is the only woman in the industry ever nominated from Hawaii and is one of 55 dealer nominees from among 17,000 across the United States who will be honored at the 98th annual National Automobile Dealers Association Convention and Expo in San Francisco in January.

Martin-van den Hurk will represent the Hawaii Automobile Dealers Association at the national awards, sponsored by Time magazine in association with Ally Financial and in cooperation with NADA. A panel of judges will select one finalist from each of the four NADA regions and one national dealer of the year.

This is a first for Martin-van den Hurk, who began her career in the automotive industry in Bellflower, Calif., in 1983.

The industry is male-dominated.

"You know, I’m pretty humble about this whole thing," Martin-van den Hurk said in a phone interview. "I’m kind of a small-town girl at heart, and am happy, as a woman, that the guys voted for me. I never knew they would think of me and it touched my heart."

When she learned of the award, "my mouth fell open," she said.

Martin-van den Hurk was working as an advertising account executive in 1983 when she was offered a job as finance director for Worthington Ford.

"I had absolutely no experience and no idea what the job entailed, but I knew I could make good money so I accepted the position," she said in a statement.

She did, however, have the industry in her DNA, as her great-grandfather Peter E. Martin was "an executive vice president of Ford Motor Co. from its inception," she said. "Mr. Ford hired him, a French-Canadian, to travel to France and learn how the French built their assembly lines. He then built the first assembly lines and the early Ford plants for Mr. Ford."

In 1997, she and her husband, Bill, left California for Hawaii where, with the help of an investor, they built a Hyundai dealership. They added a Kia dealership the next year, and later sold the Hyundai dealership to focus on Kia. They bought out their partner’s interests and have now built Aloha Auto Group Ltd. into seven Kia dealerships statewide as well as two Harley-Davidson dealerships, one on Kauai and one in Kona on Hawaii island.

Martin-van den Hurk was nominated by HADA Executive Director David Rolf for the award, which seeks to honor successful auto dealers who demonstrate a commitment to community service.

An animal welfare advocate, she has served Friends for Life Oahu, a nonprofit no-kill animal shelter focused on West Oahu; the Oahu branch of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals; the Hawaii Foodbank and the Salvation Army, among others.

She will receive $1,000, to be given to the nonprofit of her choice.

"I think in one year alone I rescued 30 dogs on the West side," she said, having lived in Makaha for seven years. She would be hiking and find stray dogs, "and ran out of friends to give them to," she laughed.

"I keep food and a leash in the car, so if I see one (on the road) I stop traffic" because it’s like seeing a baby in the street, she said.

The rescued dogs include Annie, seen in many Aloha Kia TV commercials.

"She’s blind and deaf on one side, she’s a pretty special girl," Martin-van den Hurk said.