Create Your Dreams Wherever You Are

When starting at Toyota over 25 years ago, Alva Adams Mason often felt like she was trying to find her way.

“I liked the work,” Adams Mason says as she recalled her first position in retail market development for Toyota Motor Sales, most recently serving as group manager of multicultural business alliance and dealer relations. “But I really had a passion and desire to help others and to try different ways of engaging the community.”

It wasn’t long before she found an avenue to do just that.

Birth of an Idea

In 2001 Adams Mason was working together with Toyota dealers and executives, and she played an instrumental role in the creation and launch of a new group: Toyota Lexus Minority Owners Dealership Association (TLMODA).

TLMODA focuses on and fuels the success of Toyota and Lexus dealerships owned or managed by minority member dealers, both in their businesses and in their communities, by providing strategic support, a robust network of fellow dealers and other important resources.

The idea for TLMODA came from the late Ed Fitzpatrick, a California Lexus dealer who knew of a similar initiative at Chrysler. As Adams Mason recalls it: “Ed said to me, ‘Alva, in order for Toyota and Lexus dealers to play a bigger role at NAMAD (the National Association of Minority Automobile Dealers), we need to have a line group.’”

Embodiment of Company Values

When the idea for TLMODA was pitched to Toyota, the company’s leaders immediately saw the value of a supportive platform that would strengthen minority dealers by empowering them to grow and improve their businesses.

“Toyota’s principles of respect for people and kaizen (continuous improvement) are so real, and it carries through into the dealer side of the work,” Adams Mason says. “From day one, Toyota executives have been there for TLMODA, helping them build their platform and increase their representation. They show up at meetings every year, sometimes as many as 45 of them. You don’t see that with other OEMs. That’s how much Toyota cares about the dealer body.”

Toyota made an initial contribution of $50,000 to launch TLMODA and continues to provide support to the organization today. To increase the representation of diverse dealers, Toyota pledged to add 4-6 ethnic minority dealerships each year, a target it has since increased, on TLMODA’s advice, to 5-7 new minority dealers per year. Adams Mason proudly notes that Toyota “has not missed a year” in meeting these targets.

Transformation into an Official Organization

As for TLMODA itself, the organization has come a long way since the founders held the first meeting in a Toyota executive’s hotel suite during a NAMAD conference in San Antonio more than two decades ago.

In 2013, Robert Hatchett was hired as TLMODA’s first full-time executive director, and strategist Eleanor Beasley joined in 2017. Membership has now grown to 66 dealerships representing more than half of Toyota and Lexus diverse dealers. Additionally, two members have served as NAMAD chair, giving Toyota and Lexus minority dealers a key voice at the decision-making table and fulfilling one of the founders’ original goals for TLMODA.

When Adams Mason looks back on TLMODA’s journey, she sees a transformation from what she calls a “mom-and-pop shop” to a full-fledged organization. “Twenty years ago, I never would have thought we’d be into our third strategy right now, or that we’d be doing a magazine,” she says, referring to Avenues, the high-quality digital publication TLMODA puts out quarterly to keep members informed and connected.  

Community Connection

Another huge point of pride for Adams Mason is the unprecedented level of dealer-community engagement TLMODA has inspired and catalyzed.

For example, there’s the long and fruitful partnership with The Salvation Army, which has allowed dealers across the nation to effectively support their local communities through tailored efforts such as responding to the COVID pandemic, stocking the pantries of neighbors in need during the holidays and making sure every child has a backpack to start the school year.

Dealers have also participated in broader Toyota initiatives including Buckle Up for Life and the Way Forward Fund.

Forward Momentum

Looking to the future of TLMODA, Adams Mason eagerly envisions the next generation of dealer leaders taking the helm. “We’re starting to bring in those next-gen leaders now, so it will be really exciting for us to pass the torch and see them leading.”

For her significant contributions to the automotive industry and to the spirit of diversity and inclusion, Adams Mason was recognized with the prestigious NAMAD Lifetime Achievement Award in 2021.

Adams Mason has enjoyed a long and distinguished career at Toyota. Reflecting on how she eventually found her way at Toyota, Adams Mason remembers the many times she volunteered to represent the company at a community event, long before doing so was part of her official job duties. She saw each event, no matter how small, as an opportunity to pursue her passion and build her knowledge about community engagement.