Herbert G. Chambers (born November 15, 1940) is owner and CEO of The Herb Chambers Companies, a group of 55 car dealerships in the greater Boston, Massachusetts, area. A directory of Herb Chambers Car Dealerships lists their OEM brand portfolio in Massachusetts and New England. In 2015, at the age of 74, he was named as one of the 400 richest Americans, ranking number 392, with an estimated $1.7 billion, by Forbes magazine.
Early life and career
Chambers was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts and was the son of a commercial artist and a homemaker. He grew up in a two-family home owned by his maternal grandmother. At the age of 13, Chambers’ mother started charging him $15 per week rent and this was when he started working at the Stop & Shop supermarket in the neighborhood. He did very well at the market, earning promotions and raises, but his school work at English High School of Boston suffered. He ended up dropping out of high school in his senior year.
In 1959, Chambers was out of school and looking for a purpose in life, so he ended up joining the United States Navy as an aviation electrician. After four years in the service and acquiring the rank of Petty Officer Second Class – E-5, he returned home and started working at a South End bar that was owned by his mother. He worked for two months before being fired by his mother due to a scheduling mix-up.
After the Navy, Chambers began working as a copy machine repairman in Cambridge, Massachusetts for $75 a week, plus commission on any service contracts he could sell. By the time he was 22, he had started his own copier distribution company called A-Copy America, with money borrowed from his parents, in Hartford, Connecticut. The copier business was changing from a leasing model to a sales model due to the new low-cost copier models from companies like Minolta, Canon, and Sharp and Chambers started selling copiers along with copy supplies. His business soon became the world’s largest Minolta and Canon dealers with 1,400 employees in 36 offices.
In 1983, Chambers sold the A-Copy business to Alco Standard Corporation for a reported $80 million and he continued to work with the company for another two years.
Chambers started his automotive business after purchasing a Cadillac dealership in New London, Connecticut, in 1985. His decision to purchase the business was based on his own poor buying experience at the dealership. As Chambers improved the operations of this first car dealership, he started the Herb Chambers Companies.
Summary
| Herb Chambers | |
|---|---|
| Born | Herbert G. Chambers November 15, 1940 Dorchester, Massachusetts, US |
| Residence | Boston, MA, US |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Owner and CEO, The Herb Chambers Companies |
| Net worth | US$ 1.7 billion (October 2015) |
Source:wikipedia