St. Louis dealer Frank Bommarito dies at 88

St. Louis dealer Frank Bomarito died Monday at the age of 88.

Bomarito, who founded the Bomarito Automotive Group more than 50 years ago and has expanded throughout the St. Louis area, passed away peacefully at his home in Naples, Florida, surrounded by his family. A post on the Dealer Group’s website confirmed his death.

According to a company history posted on the group’s website and an obituary posted online, Mr. Bomarito began his automobile retail business in 1952 as a porter at a local Pontiac dealership. rice field. After returning from two years of active duty in the Navy during the Korean War, Bomarito took a job in car sales, eventually becoming sales manager at another Pontiac dealership.

The company credits Bomarito’s success in motivating and managing its workforce as the reason General Motors awarded him the Oldsmobile franchise in Ellisville, Missouri, in 1971.

Bommarito oversaw and expanded the business for 27 years until his son John Bommarito became president in 1998. By that time, Frank Bommarito had expanded his operations throughout Missouri to include Mazda, Cadillac, Nissan and Infiniti. Frank Bomarito was nominated for the 2015 Time Dealer of the Year award.

Bommarito Automotive Group ranked 72nd on Automotive News’ latest list of the top 150 U.S.-based dealer groups, with 13,697 new vehicles sold in retail in 2021. collected.

The group now employs more than 1,000 people, according to Bommarito’s obituary. The obituary quotes Bomarito as saying, “Giving someone a job was the best thing you could do for someone.”