Not surprisingly, many of Danny Jones’ earliest memories revolve around his family’s auto dealership. “I would go to work with my father and come home covered in grease from crawling around on the floors, and I bet my mother was just screaming,” remembers the third-generation auto dealer, CEO and co-owner of Jones Junction Automotive Group, the largest family-owned retail auto campus in Maryland. 

Another favorite memory is the time Danny’s father, Vernon Jones, took a truckload of pigs as a trade-in for a car. Soon, the pigs began to have piglets, making the trade an even better business decision, according to Danny. “We’ve traded tractor trailers, Peterbilt trucks, motorcycles, boats, motor homes, you name it! Whatever helps the customer out,” Danny explains.

Today, Jones Junction Automotive Group is an expansive new- and used-auto campus in rural Bel Air, Md. (population 10,661) with eight distinct franchise showrooms as well as additional rooftop operations, including a pre-owned and used-car superstore, body shop & collision center and rental car centers, hiring more than 620 employees. Spread over 60-plus acres, the campus is a major auto-shopping destination for anyone within a 25-mile radius, including Harford County and the surrounding Maryland, Pennsylvania and Delaware communities.

“Our marketplace is 265,000 people, including the surrounding areas,” explains Bryan Kilby, co-owner and president of Jones Junction. “What we’ve created here is probably not replicable. It’s one of a kind.”

Expansion, Investment and Community Roots

But before Jones Junction became a premier destination for auto shopping, the company started 445 miles south as a mom-and-pop small business. In 1917, Columbus McVey “C.M.” Jones —Danny’s grandfather — owned and operated Jones Garage, a Ford service repair center in Fig, N.C.

In 1938, the Jones family moved to Conowingo, Md., and C.M. opened a small repair shop and gas station called the Jones Motor Co. In 1939, C.M.’s son Vernon took over and expanded the company into a Studebaker sales and service center. After serving in the Navy during World War II, Vernon returned home, purchased the company from his father and relocated the business to Bel Air. 

Throughout the 1960s, Vernon grew the business by adding franchises, expanding existing facilities and reinvesting in the business and the community. In 1965, Vernon and his wife, Catherine, moved their family to Bel Air and opened a Plymouth franchise and began selling Honda motorcycles. 

“I had to put those together,” Danny remembers those early Honda 90CCs. “Our house was right beside the dealership, and used cars were in the front yard.”

The year 1967 saw the company open the first Toyota dealership in Maryland. By the time Jones Motor Company opened in its new location at the junction of U.S. 1 and Route 147 in 1973, the dealership offered Plymouth, Toyota, GMC, Datsun (now Nissan) and Subaru vehicles all in one location — Jones Junction.

By 1983, Vernon was looking for a talented partner to join the expanding business. Enter Don Kilby, a former Cadillac dealer from North Carolina who had moved to Baltimore looking for bigger opportunities. Together, the Jones and Kilby families continued to add dealerships and franchises over the next decades, including Bel Air Hyundai, Jones Kia and Jones Genesis. 

More recently, Vernon’s sons, Danny and Larry Jones, and Don’s son, Bryan Kilby, have also grown their Stellantis holding, including the Stellantis Sixpack, which includes Jones Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Ram, as well as ProMaster commercial vehicles and Street & Racing Technology performance offerings. The auto campus is also one of the original Mopar Power Brokers in the country. 

The dealership group’s list of industry accolades is impressive and includes the Subaru Love Promise HEART Award for Bel Air Subaru, the Toyota President's Award for Jones Toyota and being named an Automotive News Top 150 Dealership Groups, Forbes Best-in-State Companies, a Hyundai Brand Ambassador for Bel Air Hyundai and Jones Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram being recognized as one of the top-performing Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram dealerships in the Northeast for the 14th consecutive year with the prestigious Pentastar Award.

Jones for a Lifetime: More Than a Slogan

While the scale of the auto campus has grown significantly, the philosophy established by C.M. Jones remains the same: take care of customers, support employees, and serve the community that supports them.

To take care of their customers, the dealerships offer the Jones for a Lifetime program, including engine checks, oil and filter changes, Maryland state inspections, 24-hour roadside service and car washes — all free for the life of the car. They also offer free shuttle service or on-site car rental to Jones for a Lifetime customers. 

“People feel that we genuinely care, because we treat them like family,” Danny says. “Every customer is important.”

Jones Junction is also committed to employee retention and career development. Several employees have been with the dealership for decades, including General Manager Larry Kropff, who started washing cars at the dealership 50 years ago, and CFO Debra McCollum who has been there for 40 years. 

“Our employees are really the key to everything we do,” Bryan explains. “They’re the ones who make the process work every day and create the experience customers expect when they walk through the doors.”

To thank their employees, Danny and Bryan host an annual golf tournament and an annual Jones Day at Hershey Park. They also support community activities and organizations that are recommended by employees, including sponsorship of local charity runs, Christmas parades, local 4-H clubs and youth sports teams — just about any cause that’s important to their employees and their families. 

Danny and Bryan also believe that continuing their families’ long tradition of community investment is a key part of their business’s legacy and future “When a business has been here for more than a century, you understand that your responsibility goes beyond selling cars. You’re helping support the place where your employees raise their families and where your customers live,” Bryan says. 

To that end, Jones Junction Automotive established Jones for a Cause in 2015 as an all-encompassing initiative to support a wide range of non-profits in the community. This platform has enabled the business to generously donate to and help sponsor many local organizations and events, including Meals on Wheels of Central Maryland, the Empty Stocking Fund, the annual Special Olympics Super Plunge and Harford County programs such as Teacher of the Year, the local Farm Bureau and the county fair. 

Healthcare has become a particularly meaningful focus; and in 2024, Danny and his wife, Gail, committed a $20 million gift to the University of Maryland Upper Chesapeake Health, the largest in the hospital’s history. Their gift will expand access to primary care for families who live and work in the region. 

Earlier this year, Jones Junction was honored by the American Cancer Society during its third annual Evening of Hope event for community support and charitable engagement. Jones Junction presented a check of $25,000 for the future Hope Lodge Baltimore, an establishment for cancer patients who need to travel far from home for life-saving treatment.

Recently, Danny had a special visitor stop by the auto campus — a woman who had just completed her cancer treatments and wanted to drop off some flowers and a letter of thanks.  

“For us, philanthropy isn’t just a philosophy. It’s a responsibility. If anybody needs help, I’ll do whatever I can to help them,” Danny says. 

For Danny and Bryan, it all goes back to C.M. Jones’ original philosophy of trying to do the right thing every day. 

“The core idea hasn’t changed in over 100 years — take care of the community that supports you,” Bryan says. “We’ve watched families come back again and again. Parents buy cars here, then their kids come back years later to buy their first vehicle. That kind of loyalty means a lot.”