Gareth steps up at motor dealership

A Telford motor dealer has promoted a dedicated employee who has worked for the company for over 22 years.

Gareth Richards has been named as general manager at Furrows of Telford, in Haybridge Road, and he will work closely with Group managing director Dave Farthing, who is also based at the FordStore dealership.

“I began my career with Furrows at our Oswestry dealership and over the years I’ve worked at both Telford and Shrewsbury too,” said Gareth. “I started in the parts department, and have also run the accident repair centre at Telford.

“In my new role, I’m looking forward to getting to grips with the areas of the business that I haven’t worked in before, and the support from the management team and the staff at Telford has been invaluable. The vast experience and knowledge of everyone in the team has helped me to settle into my new responsibilities very easily, and it’s great to see how readily everyone is sharing information and best practice ideas.”

Group managing director Dave Farthing said: “We’re very pleased to have given Gareth the opportunity to step up to this leadership role, and he can rest assured that we will all fully support him with his new duties.

“He’s surrounded by colleagues who all have plenty of years of experience to share – in fact, in the senior management team, the average length of service is 28 years, and six out of the eight colleauges began their careers as apprentices.

“We’re looking forward to seeing the contribution Gareth makes to helping us to shape the future of Furrows and to hearing his ideas about how we can continue to build on our excellent reputation for delivering the very best customer service.”

As well as his role as general manager, Gareth is also Group parts manager and leads the team that handles Ford PartsPlus for Shropshire and Wolverhampton, VW TPS for Shropshire, as well as Mazda, Kia and Skoda parts, and Furrows Tyres.

Pictured: Furrows Group managing director Dave Farthing congratulates Gareth Richards on his promotion at Telford