Ten years after they first met, Scott Bianchin and Dave Jung have become first-time owners of a dealership.
The two became managing partners of Abbotsford Nissan earlier this month with the store’s original owner. Jung had worked at the dealership for the last 17 years, most recently as General Manager.
Bianchin worked for the last three-plus years as the General Manager of the Dilawri Group’s Mercedes-Benz store in Langley. Previous to that he had been GM of the Jim Pattison Auto Group’s Volvo of North Vancouver dealership. He began his journey into the automotive dealership world after graduating from Northwood University’s Bachelor of Business Administration Automotive Marketing and Management course in 2009. Previous to that, he graduated from Georgian College’s Automotive Business School.
“I was always entrepreneurial and always been motivated to have my own business,” said Bianchin. “The further I got with cars, the more I enjoyed it and the more successful I became. It just naturally evolved that way.”
A 37-year-old who grew up in Kitchener-Waterloo, Bianchin had worked as a Fixed Operations Manager for Nissan Motor Corporation when he moved to Vancouver in October 2013 and first met Jung. They developed a friendship and looked at opportunities to become partners in a dealership.
Jung, a 56-year-old native of Vancouver, said it had never been an ambition of his to own a store or become a partner in one. He began working at a Nissan dealership in 1989 as a service technician and worked his way up. He began working for Abbotsford Nissan 17 years ago, beginning as Service Manager and became GM of the store a year and a half ago.
“It’s not really a dream come true for me, because I never dreamed I would be in this position, but certainly I’m happy with the way it’s turned out,” said Jung. “Scott really helped throughout my career and was really inspirational to me to think I could even move up through the business. This opportunity came up and I can’t think of anyone I’d rather partner with than him.”