Norman Hickman Jr.

1960-1963       
Member of the 82^nd Airborne, 2^nd Brigade, 504^th Infantry.  Served in Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, Korea and Germany.  Honorable discharge, Specialist E-4.

1963-1967       
Eastern Express – Kansas City, Missouri
Journeyman mechanic

1967-1971
Van Chevrolet – Shawnee Mission, Kansas
Service salesman, dispatcher and assistant service manager

1971-1974
ITCO Corporation – Kansas City, Missouri
Franchise Sales Manager

1974-1982
Northwest Motor Welding – Phoenix Arizona/Arvada, Colorado
Started as a machinist in the Phoenix shop.  He was transferred to Colorado in 1976 and was promoted to shop foreman two years later.  In 1980 he was promoted to full-time outside sales.

1982-1986       
Regional Transportation District – Denver, Colorado
Started as a third-shift mechanic at this publicly funded bus company but was quickly promoted to Maintenance Supervisor where he restructured the existing preventive maintenance program to substantially improve equipment reliability and miles driven between road calls.

1986-1999
City and County of Denver – Denver, Colorado
Superintendent of Fleet Maintenance. Designed and implemented a preventive maintenance program for a fleet of 1,750 pieces of equipment.  Resulted in a 90% reduction in road calls, an 85% reduction in equipment down-time and increased efficiency of budgetary expenditures (annual budget of $12 million).

1999-2000      
Retired – Surprise, Arizona

2000-2007      
Golf Cars of America – Sun City, Arizona
Managing partner of three golf car sales and service locations.  The 2005 sales even exceeded Columbia ParCar Corp’s factory stores!  Golf Cars of America was the only dealer in the country that was given a five year parts and three year labor warranty.

The cars sold weren’t just any golf car, but had options like cloth adjustable bucket seats, high speed gears, evaporative coolers for the summer and custom enclosures for the winter, 13” automobile radial tires and came in colors from Country Club Beige to Kandy Apple Red.

Taken from the notice sent to Columbia ParCar’s employees:
“Norm was a tremendous and vibrant supporter of Columbia and not afraid to speak his mind when he has good ideas – which was frequent!  Because of Norm we have become a better company with better products and people.  Norm will be missed by us all.”