Barbie Graham — A Woman’s Woman in a Man’s World

By Deb Peterson | Photographed by John Blair

When I sat down with Barbara Graham (known affectionately in Mountain Home as Barbie), owner of Kent Chevrolet Cadillac, I intended to write a story about what women should know about buying a car, a story she and I had talked about several years ago.

What I got was a different, much better story.

Sure, we talked about cars, and I’ll share that with you, but first I want to tell you about the marvelous woman behind the story—Barbie, a woman’s woman in a man’s world.

Selling cars is not what Barbie Graham set out to do. She was passionate about special education, and established programs for local school districts, including Mountain Home, after graduating from the University of Arkansas. She was taking a short break from teaching when duty called. Her father, C.N. Kent, owned the Chevrolet car dealership in Mountain Home, and Barbie’s husband, Frank Graham, ran it. Frank had Parkinson’s disease. As his illness progressed, Barbie could see she was needed in the family business.

“The choice was to sell it or run it,” she says. “This business sustained our family. I felt a sense of obligation and told myself I would give it five years.”

She and Frank had raised two children—Nicole and Kent—and Barbie was grateful for the security, and the insurance, the dealership had provided her family.

That was 1991.

Barbie is still there today, 22 years later. She is one of only two women in Arkansas who own car dealerships, and she is an icon in both the Mountain Home and auto industry communities.

How did that happen? How did a self-imposed five-year obligation turn this woman into a successful and beloved boss and civic leader?

She discovered she loves managing people. And the lessons she learned during the 13 years she devoted to special education served her well.

“This was not my chosen profession,” Barbie admits, “but you bloom where you are planted, and you do it to the best of your ability.”

Barbie bloomed in the auto industry. She was avant garde.

She hired women in every department (30% of the staff at the dealership is female) and looked for innately good people, people like Misty Hubbard, who has handled customer relations for Barbie for 12 years.

“I always promote women no matter what I’m doing,” Barbie says. “Misty has an extreme work ethic for customer care. She has it intuitively. You can teach people the basics, but you can’t teach how to take care of a customer on a feeling level.”

When Barbie interviews employees, she seeks to learn who they are, not what they can do.

“I want to know about the most creative thing you’ve ever done,” she says. “Do you have regrets?”

She extended the “family” in the business to include its employees.

“This is a family business,” she says. “I care about my employees’ family lives.”

She wants her employees to live balanced lives, to be at their kids’ ball games and recitals. She gives them the flexibility to take care of their personal lives.

“I learned how to be a mommy from Barbie,” Misty says. “She taught me about participating in the classroom, community involvement, mentoring. She modeled it for me.”

Barbie attributes her leadership approach in part to her Methodist commitment to prayer, presence, gifts, and service. She believes in doing the right thing, no matter what she’s doing. She speaks candidly, but kindly, even when, no, especially when, life isn’t going smoothly.

“I have stepped between a customer and an employee,” she says. “I learned to step on shoes without messing up the shine.”

She wants her customers to be happy, but she won’t allow them to bully her employees. She once told an angry customer who was physically distressed that she would do everything she possibly could to make him happy, but that she was very concerned that his anger was killing him.

She suspects it is this candor that causes people to feel intimidated by her at times, and the thought astonishes her.

“I don’t ever want that,” she says emphatically.

I asked Barbie where she learned to handle difficult situations with such grace and diplomacy.

“Teaching special ed,” she says. “When you have to tell a parent that something is wrong with their child, you learn very quickly to do it in a way that is kind and considerate and leaves hope for every possibility in the world. That parent has to have confidence in you.”

Her dad also had a hand in that aspect of her personality. He raised her to be self-assured, to believe she could do anything she put her mind to.

Since Barbie was a girl, one of those things has been civic leadership. She formed the first Candy Stripers volunteer organization at Saltzman Clinic and Hospital in Mountain Home before she graduated from high school. Throughout the years she has served on local, state, and national boards, was the first female board chair of the Arkansas Automobile Dealers Association, is a founding member of the Women Obtaining Wealth investment club, and has volunteered at CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate) and the Mountain Home Kindergarten.

“The dealership has given me the opportunity to help the community in so many ways,” Barbie says.

Today she is passionate about endowments. She nearly bounces out of her chair when talking about the Twin Lakes Community Foundation’s Hunger Endowment.

“I thought endowments were for rich people,” she says, “but they’re not! You can build up to $10,000 gradually. I really, really encourage people to set up endowments for whatever they are passionate about. You have to teach giving.”

She is busy doing just that with her granddaughters. Barbie created the Samantha and Alea Vaccarella Endowment, and once a year, she helps the girls choose to which cause they want to give the gift of their proceeds. She’s proud of how thoughtfully they make their decisions, always choosing to help children in one way or another.

The children in Barbie’s life—Samantha, Alea, and Erin, Barbie’s stepdaughter from her 2011 marriage to Dale Cody—keep her young and joyful.

“I loved my grandmother,” Barbie says, “my children loved their grandmother, and I love being a grandmother.”

Surrounded by family, however it is extended, is clearly where Barbie Graham blooms brightest.

Find Kent Chevrolet Cadillac at kentchevrolet.com

M! April/May 2013