Man Who Saved Harley Buys Store #9
Eyeing retirement, Jim and Linda Schlier have sold their Tannersville, Pennsylvania based Pocono Mountain H-D store to Steve and Anne Deli's American Road Group (ARG) - marking their ninth full-service Harley dealership acquisition.
Steve Deli is the man who is often credited with keeping Harley-Davidson in business in 1985. As Managing Director of Chicago based American stock brokerage and securities firm Dean Witter Reynolds, Deli was approached by then Harley CFO Richard Teerlink to help refinance the company.
In doing that, he suggested that the best idea for Harley at that time was to take the company public. It was initially considered an unlikely solution by Teerlink and then CEO Vaughn Beals, given the precarious position in which the Motor Company found itself at the time, but in 1986 that is exactly what happened, with Steve Deli leading the IPO - and the rest, as they say, is history.
Anne Deli herself has a place "in the annals" at Harley. In the early 20th century, her family had lived "down the street" from the Davidsons and, growing up in Milwaukee, her next door neighbor had been the founder's son William J. Harley.
After a hugely successful career in the advertising industry on Madison Avenue, New York, Anne became Harley's first female VP as head of Marketing and Licensing.
Steve Deli went on to create the business unit that became HDFS. Steve and Anne eventually found themselves in the dealership game and created their American Road Group in 2000.
ARG stores include their first acquisitions, Orlando H-D, Laconia H-D at Meredith, NH (home of the longest running motorcycle rally - Laconia Motorcycle Week) and Wildcat H-D at London, KY. The company additionally owns merchandise stores at Walt Disney World, Key West, and elsewhere.
