Son-in-law and pilot also killed; James DeVoe started chain in 1989
By Jeff Swiatek
jeff.swiatek@indystar.com
March 24, 2006
J.D. Byrider Systems vowed Thursday to carry on with the used-car franchising formula developed by its founder and head, James F. DeVoe, 62, who died in a fiery plane crash in Florida.
The crash, which also killed DeVoe's son-in-law Steele Gudal and a pilot, leaves the Carmel firm without the man who turned J.D. Byrider into the nation's largest used-car chain.
Sheriff's investigators in Brevard County, Fla., said autopsies will be needed to positively identify the three badly burned bodies on the twin-engine private plane that crashed Thursday on the outskirts of the coastal city of Melbourne. But J.D. Byrider officials confirmed they were DeVoe, Gudal and an unnamed pilot.
DeVoe had been visiting with Gudal's family in Jacksonville, Fla., and apparently was flying to Melbourne to check out a possible location for a franchise that Gudal wanted to open there, said Bill Ackermann, vice president of franchise operations.
"It's a real tragic loss," Ackermann said.
Gudal, who owned six Byrider franchises, had earned a pilot's license in the past year and may have been piloting the plane, which crashed in a wooded area, miles short of the runway to Melbourne Airport.
"My guess is he was flying it," Ackermann said of Gudal.
The crash was "pretty devastating," setting off brush fires, said Lt. Andrew Walters, a spokesman for the Brevard County Sheriff's Office.
On Tuesday, DeVoe and other company officials had wrapped up a meeting with franchise operators and owners in Atlanta, Ackermann said.
The company "will go on" without its chairman, president and chief executive, he said. "It's not going to cripple the business. We have a very solid management team."
The company is "very privately held," with DeVoe the primary shareholder, Ackermann said.
In 1989, DeVoe, then a Marion car dealer, founded J.D. Byrider and built it into a chain of 123 dealerships in 28 states. They generated revenue in 2004 of $523 million.
DeVoe's idea was to standardize the used-car sales concept and offer financing to buyers whose credit wasn't good enough to get them conventional bank loans. He sometimes was called the Colonel Sanders of the used-car business. He gave the company his own initials and took the name Byrider from an early electric car.
Carmel Mayor James Brainard said DeVoe was a good corporate citizen and a quiet man who helped others without making a big splash. "I particularly admire his business experience and his contributions to the community," Brainard said.
DeVoe was a contributor to a school for autistic children, Ackermann said. The school was founded by Gudal and his wife, Amy.
DeVoe lived in Fishers with his wife, Andrea L. DeVoe. They have six children. One, James Jr., is president of the 13 company-owned
By Jeff Swiatekjeff.swiatek@indystar.com
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