Who will succeed Schuman
as Honolulu’s GM dealer?

Company Chairman Gustav Schuman told a group of employees about his desire to retire in September. He also told them the company and GM were unable to negotiate an agreement in which the automaker would operate the dealerships.

The conversation followed months of negotiation between the company and unionized employees belonging to the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 142. As of September the more than 40 union members had been working under contract extensions as the company sought measures to increase profitability.

Schuman has retained its Subaru distributorship for Hawaii and a dealership on Waialae Avenue. It is moving its distribution operations to the site of a former NAPA Auto Parts store it previously closed on Halekauwila Street in Kakaako. The site will also have a Subaru service center, according to spokeswoman Anne Hunter.

Schuman was Oahu's only Cadillac and Hummer dealer and GM has not yet named a new dealer for its brands.

A GM spokeswoman was unable to provide an update on the automaker's plans yesterday.

Separately, Hunter said an announcement is expected soon.

Just who it will be remains the buzz among local dealers.

It will not be Joe Nicolai, president of JN Group Inc. and owner of several Oahu car and motorcycle dealerships. Officials from Cutter Family Auto Centers and Jackson Auto Group were not available.

Nicolai sees no great rush to name a successor as "the customers are being taken care of." Schuman's former GM customers are able to have their cars serviced at any GM dealership, he said.

Schuman has 20 GM demonstration models to sell from the flagship 1234 Beretania St. location, which it owns. The company's plans for the land have not been announced.

In a filing with the state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations in September, Schuman estimated that 117 workers would be terminated by the closure of the dealerships in Honolulu and Waipahu. Some have been retained while others have been rehired.

The former Schuman-owned Subaru dealership on Farrington Highway in Waipahu officially changed hands yesterday and is now owned and operated by Carl Morley, Schuman's former general sales manager.

All but one of his 20 employees are former Schuman employees, from both the Waipahu and Beretania locations.

The dealership's phone number remains the same, at 671-5115, but its name is changing to Ohana Subaru. The new sign will be up within the next day or two, Morley said.

"Without the sign up and everyone thinking Schuman is closed, we've got to start getting the word out (that it is open)," he said. Service customers are continuing to come in, so "it'll just take awhile to get everything back in the flow."

Morley finds himself in familiar digs. "This is where I started many years ago when this was Pearl Harbor Subaru -- it's the same building," he laughed.