The History of Lester Glenn Mazda in Toms River, NJ

Three Generations Of The Lester Glenn Experience

The automotive industry has experienced a number of changes throughout the years. Despite these industry-wide changes, Lester Glenn Auto Group has remained focused on its future, while proudly reflecting on its past. More than 60 years since its beginnings in 1956 and three-generations later, Lester Glenn Auto Group continues to operate as a hands-on, family-run automotive organization focused on taking care of the customer.

In March of 1956, more than sixty years ago, Lester Glenn opened the doors to our very first dealership.

Lester Glenn founded what would become known as Lester Glenn Buick, we welcomed customers to our home on Flint Road in South Toms River, New Jersey. Our first showroom had just enough room for one car and its service department only had room for three!

Within the confines of these small walls is where the Lester Glenn philosophy of taking care of our customer not only was founded, but wildly flourished.

After seven months of developing a solid foundation, Lester Glenn Buick was poised to move on to bigger and better things. We moved our dealership to a new, and much larger, location on Route 37 in Toms River where we watched our new car sales climb from a mere 50 per year to an unprecedented 1,000 per year.

Growing in both sales and ambitions, in 1966 Lester Glenn asked his son-in-law, Stanley Kraushaar, to join the organization.

This "temporary" position for Kraushaar, a pharmacist at the time, later became a permanent change.

Early into Kraushaar's tenure, Lester Glenn Auto Group would look to expand its footprint further onto Route 37 in Toms River, acquiring another storefront where the Lester Glenn Buick GMC location sits today.

In 1972 Stanley Kraushaar became a Partner and the Manager of Operations of Lester Glenn Auto Group. His foresight would help lead Lester Glenn Auto Group into the future as the Glenn and Kraushaar families set sights on continuing to grow.

In 1984, with great sadness, our organization mourned the loss of its founder and first president, Lester Glenn.

Glenn's foundational principles of taking care of the customer and doing everything possible to ensure the customer continues to choose to do business with us lives on today as what we refer to as the "Lester Glenn Experience."

After Glenn's passing, Stanley Kraushaar would succeed Glenn in overseeing all operations of Lester Glenn Auto Group. During Kraushaar's many years of leadership, Lester Glenn Auto Group would continue to grow in sales, number of team members, franchises and locations, all while maintaining what made Lester Glenn Auto Group unique - the customer experience.

In 2007, after a successful career in the financial industry, Lester Glenn's grandson and Stanley Kraushaar's son - Adam Kraushaar - joined the family business.

From early childhood, Adam grew up in the Lester Glenn dealerships, spending time in every department and learning, hands-on, what it takes to operate an automotive group.

With Adam on the team representing Lester Glenn's third generation, ambitions to expand the Lester Glenn Auto Group footprint had never been higher. Together, with his father Stanley, Adam would pursue purchases of additional properties and franchises to add to the growing list of options Lester Glenn Auto Group would be able to offer its customers.

After Stanley retired later in 2007, Adam would assume his present role as President and Owner of Lester Glenn Auto Group. Under Adam's leadership, Lester Glenn Auto Group would expand into multiple new towns and a whole new county.

With respect to the organization his grandfather founded and his father operated for many years, Adam continues to preach and practice the same founding principles of doing everything possible to take care of our customer and treating them with dignity and respect.

Lester Glenn acquired the Mazda brand in 2010. In the beginning, our Mazda inventory and team shared a home with a few of our other dealerships on Route 37 E in Toms River. As the interest in the brand continued to grow in New Jersey, it was time we made a move to give our team and our customers more space to see the exciting new Mazda inventory and a larger service center to have their routine maintenance performed.

The Move

Later in 2011, our Mazda store moved into its home on Route 9 in Toms River, NJ. We would go on to make many happy memories, assist many sales and service customers for a total of eight years from this location. But as the brand continued to grow, we knew we'd have to make a move to better serve our customers and grow into our full potential as a Mazda dealership in New Jersey.

Early in 2019, we made the move to place our Mazda dealership back on Route 37. By doing so, Mazda joined the "Lester Glenn Mile," that is Route 37 in Toms River, where 5 of our other dealerships also call home. Moving back onto Route 37 allowed us the opportunity to spread out, stock more inventory and provide a larger customer lounge and showroom with more amenities for our customers.

A New Experience

Later in 2019, we made the decision to move forward with an extensive renovation to the showroom on Route 37. A new state-of-the-art showroom and service center would be built in place of the existing location.

This showroom would offer our guests a seamless sales and service experience in a completely new and updated facility with new amenities and welcoming environment.

Our beautiful new facility opened its doors in December, 2020. The same team and customer experience our customers have come to know and expect when they enter our doors made the move to the new building, where we hope to be able to assist even more customers out of this larger and improved facility!

Lester Glenn Mazda

THE FUTURE IS BRIGHT

From our inception in 1956 all the way through our most recent projects and developments, our mission has always been the same:

Complete Customer Satisfaction and Dedication to the Community.

With the help of all of our amazing team members and the loyalty of all of our customers, we have been able to establish a truly wonderful relationship with the residents of Ocean County and beyond.

Over the years, we've had great opportunities to contribute to organizations - both small and large - and help to make a difference in the community that helped build us. We look forward to continuing that community service as well as serving our communities with the treatment they deserve and the experience they have come to expect from Lester Glenn Auto Group since 1956.