The Moran family runs one of the most successful automotive empires in the southern United States – JM Family Enterprises, a nearly $15 billion-dollar business. The family’s patriarch was James Martin (JM) Moran, who started the family business with the single purchase of a Sinclair gas station in 1939. Moran was born in Chicago in 1918 and went on to serve in WWII. He married Arline Steveley in 1941 and, together, they had three children: Arline in 1943, Pat in 1945 and Jim Jr. in 1948. Moran bought a used car lot in 1946 and eventually turned it into the country’s largest and most successful Ford dealership. That success caught the attention of Toyota, who was looking to establish dealerships in the United States in the late 1960s. Moran partnered with Toyota to create one of the largest Toyota distribution operations in the United States. He would create other automotive-related industries and place them under the umbrella of JM Family Enterprises. Upon his retirement, Moran’s daughter Pat served as Chairman of JM Family Enterprises from 2000 to 2007. In 2003, Colin Brown was named as the first non-family CEO in the company’s history. The Moran family has a long history of philanthropy through the JM Moran Foundation. At the time of his death in 2007, JM Moran was estimated to have a net worth of $2.4 billion.
