Cornelius Martin Athena
Cornelius Martin was born to Herbert and Beatrice Tutt Martin. A Greenville, Kentucky native, there he attended a one-room school in the first and second grades and spent his childhood and teenage years working on the family farm. After graduating Muhlenberg Central High School, he moved to Dayton, Ohio to attend Wright State University. It was there he began working in the automobile business. He then entered and graduated from General Motors Dealer Academy at the General Motors Institute in Flint, Michigan. In 1985, Cornelius bought an Oldsmobile-Cadillac dealership in Bowling Green, Kentucky and established the Martin Automotive Group. Since then, the business developed into one of the most successful and respected automobile retail organizations in the nation.
The Martin Automotive Group then acquired or built more than 15 auto dealerships in Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia, Iowa, California, and Arizona. In February 1998, he formed Co-Mar Aviation Inc. and won the bid to become the fixed base operator responsible for all ground flight support operations at the Bowling Green-Warren County Regional Airport. He then opened his first Harley-Davidson dealership in Bowling Green in December 2003 and then his second in January 2006 in Louisville, Kentucky.
Cornelius was honored many times for his work. In 1989, he was awarded Bowling Green-Warren County Small Business Person of the Year. In 1996, Saturn of Dayton South was named one of 10 Good Housekeeping and Automotive News Automotive Dealership Service Excellence Award winners nationwide. In 1997, he was named Automobile Dealer of the Year by Black Enterprise, a national magazine. He was honored in 1999 with a Governor’s Economic Development Leadership Award. He was a recipient of the 2002 Time Magazine Quality Dealer Award at the NADA Convention in New Orleans and received the 2003 Business Hall of Fame Laureate from Junior Achievement in recognition for his longtime support. In 2004, Cornelius was selected by General Motors Minority Dealer Development to participate in national print advertising campaigns. Dealer Magazine, an automobile industry magazine, featured him as its cover story in the October 2004 issue. He was also the featured cover in the May 2005 Megadealer 100 issue of WardAuto Dealer Business Magazine.
Cornelius also held numerous leadership positions in civic and professional organizations on local, state, and national levels. He and his brothers and sisters incorporated the family farm under the name Martin Acres, where he served as vice president of the corporation. His wife, Gail, and their three children are also very active in the community, participating in the arts and volunteering their time to many charitable causes. Cornelius passed away in a tragic motorcycle accident in June 2006.
To honor his memory, former Athena Award winners established the Cornelius Martin Athena Scholarship Fund in June 2006. The Athena Award was sponsored by Martin Automotive Group and honored local businesspeople who contributed most greatly to the community and the advancement of women in the business world. The scholarship fund serves to assist nontraditional female students at WKU. Through this fund, Cornelius Martin’s prolific legacy continues.