The Youngs have Utah in their blood. “My great-grandfather started Young Automotive in Morgan, Utah,” Oliver Young said, Sales Director for the Young Automotive Group (YAG). Being a 4th generation salesman for YAG, Oliver knew he needed to decide for himself if the family business was for him. After graduating with a BS in economics from the University of Utah and earning his MBA at Westminster, he started the Oz Marketing firm and ran it for a few years before deciding that he really wanted to be involved with the family business.

“I got a bunch of job offers and did a mental check to see if I wanted to stay in the family company. I just had a realization that this is what I want to do and my best chance to make a difference in the community where I live,” he said.

And the opportunities are plentiful. While YAG has primarily been a Davis County-centric business, they are growing their presence in Weber County by leaps and bounds.

“Now, we’ll have Mazda, Subaru, Kia and Avis locations in Weber County, so we’ll officially have more in Weber than Davis. We’re bringing lots of jobs and sales tax revenue to Weber through this expansion. Currently, Young Subaru on Riverdale Road is our largest store, but our new Mazda store will have the biggest footprint in the nation for Mazda,” he said. Add to all of this their Avis Rental and Sales location, and Young is growing and thriving in the Ogden market.

“A lot of local used car dealers were mad because Hertz had such a good pipeline of used cars coming in from rentals. So, we also got in the game and purchased Avis. It’s a great way to develop our used car inventories and gives us additional avenues to buy other rental fleets in order to get even more used cars in our group,” Oliver said.

But he also knows that YAG wouldn’t be able to grow at this rate if not for their people. “We have a really loyal group of employees. Without them, we couldn't do anything. And we earned the ‘Utah Business Best Companies to Work For’ award last 4 years. And have also earned the Salt Lake Tribune’s ‘Best Company to Work For’ award for the last 3 years, which is great because it’s based on employee surveys,” said Oliver. “We want to develop a culture that supports a type of environment where people love to come to work and can challenge themselves and grow.”

As for the business community in Ogden, Oliver couldn’t be happier. “The community is fantastic,” he said. “One of our values is ‘Engage and Support,’ so we started Caring for our Young, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. We host an annual pet adoption with South Ogden where we bring in 100+ animals in December and adopt them out. We also require all our locations to host events to raise $10k for local schools or nonprofits that help children,” he added. And that support really encouraged their growth. “That’s why we keep bringing more business here.”