Kuni Chief Operating Officer Joseph C. Herman passes away

Published 12:00 am Friday, October 31, 2014

The local automotive industry became a little smaller this week following the announcement of the passing of Joseph C. Herman, chief operating officer of Kuni Automotive Group.

According to a press release, Herman died on the morning of Wednesday, Oct. 29, following a year-long battle with pancreatic cancer.

Born on June 9, 1942 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Conrad Earl and Longina Valerie Herman, he attended the American School in Germany and, following his graduation from Red Bank Catholic High School in Red Bank, New Jersey, studied at Duquesne University and Monmouth College. He is survived by his wife Kathryn Herman, son Christopher Scott Herman and daughter Rebecca Brooke Herman.

Herman’s career was marked by industry firsts and successes at the highest levels. In the more than 40 years he worked in the automotive industry, he directly managed more than 215 dealerships and thousands of autmotive professionals.

Herman began his automotive career in the 1960s selling cars at Shrewsbury Volkswagen in New Jersey while, at the same time, serving as 2nd Lieutenant in the U.S. Army Reserve. During the following decades he held leadership positions at World-Wide Volkswagen, Corp., Porsche Audi Eastern, Porsche Audi Manhattan and Herman + Miller Porsche Audi. Additionally, he spearheaded the creation of one of the nation’s first consolidated automotive groups: US Auto Group.

In the early 1990s, he served as the COO and Executive Vice President for EMCO/United Auto Group, which later became the Penske Automotive Group. He then spent nearly eight years as President and CEO of the Planet-Potamkin Automotive Group before joining Group 1 Automotive as its Senior Vice President of Operations.

In 2010, Herman joined the Kuni Automotive Group as its COO and helped double annual revenue from under $500 million to more than $1 billion. In August of this year, the company elevated him to Executive Vice President and, more recently, announced the creation of a new “best in class” dealership award that will be named “The Joe Herman Challenge Cup.”