The Reynolds and Reynolds Co. has announced five finalists in its 2025 Automotive Amplifiers Contest. Finalists will present their best practices at Amplify 2025 in Dallas on Aug. 19.

“With so many high-impact entries, the judges had a very difficult task selecting the five finalists. Each of these individuals and their best practices have the potential to make a difference across the industry in a meaningful way,” said Reynolds president and acting CEO Chris Walsh.

Finalists and Their Projects

• Kamir Martínez Díaz – At Pepe Abad Auto in Cayey, Puerto Rico, Martínez Díaz streamlined a fragmented, manual document workflow, cutting internal processing times and saving the company significant annual costs.

• Chris Lasko – At BMW of Pittsburgh, Lasko created a real-time dashboard tracking every BMW and MINI sale by salesperson, showing status from sale to delivery.

• James Dieli – At Beau Townsend Ford Lincoln, Dieli applied a proactive CRM strategy in Fixed Operations to increase revenue, strengthen customer loyalty and improve efficiency.

• Rick Sheppard – With Uftring Auto Group, Sheppard developed a follow-up process for declined services, reversing lost service business and generating growth.

• Chris Ponte – At Scranton Chevrolet, Ponte designed a system to significantly improve the dealership’s off-the-shelf parts fill rate.

Judges

Three industry professionals will evaluate the finalists:

• Sam D’Arc, COO at Ziegler Auto Group and host of Daily Dealer Live on the Car Dealership Guy network

• Yuriy Demidko, CIO for DP Fox Ventures and Fox Motors

• Jeremy Reardon, production manager at Westside Lexus and former Amplifiers Contest winner

Awards

Winners will each receive a $5,000 donation to their charities of choice, along with a trophy recognizing the innovation or best practice.

“This year’s finalists will be addressing five unique problems, each solved by innovation or best practice,” Walsh said. “We’re excited to see which ones stand out the most and earn a victory at Amplify, where others facing those same struggles may be inspired to address them in similar fashion.”