In Connie Jones' office is a little wooden knickknack that says "I love the boss."

The boss is Andy Jones, her husband for the past 18 years, her employer for the past three years and a car dealer for the past 20 years. He is also the man who gave new life to the most traveled entryway into Columbia County.

There are 60,000 cars a day traveling Washington and Columbia roads, which form a triangle at Columbia Square and the Gerald Jones Auto Group. The group of seven auto lines still bears the name of Andy Jones' father, who started in Augusta with Volkswagen in 1974.

It was a risk to move from the Gordon Highway "Motor Mile" in 2000 to a rundown shopping center that was widely considered an eyesore. Many members of Andy Jones' circle of friends and family weren't supportive of the idea.

"I remember years ago when he came to me and told me that he'd put a deposit down on Columbia Square," said insurance agent David Goodbread, who has been one of Mr. Jones' closest friends since the mid 1980s. "I thought he was crazy."

Mr. Goodbread said Mr. Jones had trepidations about the move, but followed the vision he had for the renaissance of the square. Mr. Goodbread said he thinks Mr. Jones hasn't been praised enough for the transformation.

Being a risk taker wasn't new. Mr. Jones got some thrills in his 20s as a regional dirt track stock car racer.

Mr. Jones is an import dealer, selling Honda, Subaru, Mazda, Isuzu, Volkswagen, Volvo and Audi. At one time, the group also had Daihatsu, Yugo and Daewoo.

Mr. Jones is an import himself. Born and reared in South Carolina, he grew up near Greenville until his father bought into an Augusta dealership in 1974.

He grew up around cars, working in the dealership at age 10 as a car washer, then moving through all the other departments as he matured. Mr. Jones joined his father again when he graduated from the University of Georgia in 1985 and gradually took control.

His father was his role model, and he describes Gerald Jones as a sincere gentleman. "If I can be like him, I'll be well. If people end up thinking of me when I'm 74 like they think of him, I'll be very happy," the 43-year-old said.

Mr. Jones learned well from his daddy, said the Rev. Frank Page, who was his pastor at Warren Baptist Church until he became the president of the Southern Baptist Convention.

"He wants to do right the first time," Dr. Page said. "You may get a signed document from him, but you don't need it."

The auto dealer who gave a new life to the entryway to Columbia County had his own rebirth, in Christ, a dozen years ago.

"Right out of college, he was brash, had good ideas, but was running in all different directions," Mr. Goodbread said. "He's matured. When he got his faith back, I think it really helped him get some focus and direction."

Reborn, with help

Before taking a two-week safari in South Africa with his 15-year-old son, Drew, Mr. Jones spent a few days in San Antonio in mid-June. He introduced Dr. Page to 10,000 people at the Baptists' national convention before the pastor's sermon there.

Connie Jones met the pastor before Mr. Jones did.

Mr. Jones said he grew up in church, going "because you went." Then he didn't go at all for about 10 years. Mr. Jones said he wasn't a bad guy - he didn't drink or run around on his wife, he just hadn't accepted Jesus Christ.

Mrs. Jones recalled his telling her that they needed to go find her a church.

"Me a church? Us a church," she argued. She went to church alone initially.

That's when Dr. Page took her under his wing with guidance about her husband.

"He told me to pray for Andy, support Andy, not nag Andy. It's God's job to save him, not mine."

Dr. Page met Mr. Jones over lunch.

"He was a little fearful of that; he thought I might preach at him for an hour over the lunch table," the minister said.

A friendship developed. Dr. Page said there was a slow change in Mr. Jones - no drama, no epiphany to mark the transformation.

Dr. Page took the couple to Israel with him, and that turned out to be a life-changing event for the car dealer. He would have a few others.

Mr. Jones doesn't just attend church now; he is involved, said friend Steve Johnson, the president of Team One Advertising..

Dr. Page said the young man he first met would have thought it madness to suggest he would end up teaching Sunday school. Mr. Jones taught teenage boys for five years before taking a break. His involvement with Warren Baptist is now on the personnel committee, but he is seen as a leader at church, tapped occasionally for his business knowledge. He cannot spout Scripture as well as many, but "everyone has their talent."

"I get mad when we're late getting to church on Sunday morning because I enjoy the people," Mr. Jones said.

He is also underneath cars at the church on the Saturday mornings when the church sponsors free oil changes for single mothers. He supplies the oil and handles the waste oil. He even brings some of his technicians to oversee the quarterly event.

"He's a good guy with a good heart, and I fell in love with that good heart," Dr. Page said.

Joe Gibbs Racing, which manages NASCAR's Tony Stewart, flew Mr. Jones and some doctors to New Orleans in the initial aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. He helped distribute water to people staying in a parking garage at the airport.

Because he had no medical training, Mr, Jones was assigned to a military group and moved people for the nurses and doctors to check.

"They did surgery on the floor. I held the flashlight for them one time," Mr. Jones recalled.

After a week, he came back with some families that were relocating.

The most recent eye-opening trip for Mr. Jones was to South Africa last month. It gave him the chance to indulge his sportsman side.

"Every male in the South plays sports until they tell you you're not good enough, and I got told that early," he said, so he turned to golf and the outdoors, hunting quail and deer. He has stopped playing golf because his children aren't into it, but he connects with his son through hunting.

He had wanted to see Africa since he was a child.

"I started reading Wilbur Smith books in high school and really got enthralled with Africa," he said.

He didn't get the buffalo he was tracking, but he was able to shoot some mountain reedbucks and kudus. He won't see them again until a year from now, after they get through quarantine and the taxidermist. Then some mementos of the trip to Africa will be in his office.

"We live vicariously through him and what he does," said Mr. Goodbread, who has heard stories of Mr. Jones' golfing with pros during Honda's pro-am events.

It was hard to get away from the dealerships for two weeks, but the stack of stuff waiting to get done was done in a day.

"He's very good with numbers. Can't spell worth a lick, but he can do numbers. That's important here," Mrs. Jones said of he husband. "He was gone 14 days to Africa, he was back one hour, saw something that went wrong by looking at his numbers" - she snapped her fingers - "like that!"

Mr. Jones does his homework before making important decisions, she said. He was ahead of the pack when he moved his businesses to Columbia County.

A gateway

Mr. Jones stumbled on the new home for most of his dealerships by looking for a place to rent for a tent sale. Columbia Square in 2000 was occupied only by CiCi's Pizza and Rose's department store.

Eventually, he would end up in the midst of a $25 million project to renovate the buildings into an auto mall and shopping complex on the opposite side of Flowing Wells Road.

The gateway to Columbia County was an eyesore. The center had been built in 1974 and looked like "vacant 1974" when Mr. Jones got his hands on it, Mr. Goodbread said.

"Big old holes in the concrete," he added.

Mr. Goodbread said county officials pestered Mr. Jones about his trees and lights and the size of his signs.

"Bureaucracy was stuck in its bureaucracy. No one seemed to understand what he'd done," he said of his friend.

What Mr. Jones had done was move $1.5 million in sales taxes from Richmond County to Columbia County.

Mr. Jones said he was surprised that no Richmond County officials had inquired about his move out or attempted to keep him, although his Mazda dealership remains on Gordon Highway. He said Gordon Highway and that side of Richmond County was starting to deteriorate.

"There's nothing on that road to bring you there unless you live there or want a line of car on that road," he said.

Columbia County was beginning to look good to him, and most of his customers were from there.

When it was done, he had 170 people working for him at the dealerships and an additional 150 working for tenants in the shopping center.

"I don't know how much it grew my business saleswise, but it moved my parts and service up about 22 percent," Mr. Jones said. There are savings in the business from having consolidated office and sales personnel.

"I thought he was crazy, but he pulled it off," Mr. Goodbread said.

It is not the only vision Mr. Jones had that came to fruition. He also assisted in bringing Fort Discovery to Augusta, and he was one of the initial investors in People's Community Bank in North Augusta.

Success as a car dealer hasn't been all location, location, location.

"It is very difficult to tell someone how busy he is, what it takes to run all those dealerships and do it like Andy wants it done," said Team One Advertising's Mr. Johnson, who has handled car ads for the Jones Group for 20 years.

Mr. Jones has his home phone number on his business card.

"He's gotten calls at 2 o'clock in the morning from a customer that couldn't get her car unlocked and she ran out of options. He sent someone to get her and was on his way to get her if he couldn't get ahold of the someone," Mr. Johnson said.

Mrs. Jones said "What would Dad do?" is one of Andy's measuring sticks for making a decision.

"He loves to sell cars and talk to people," Mr. Jones said of his father, Gerald. "One of the nicest people you'll ever meet. He's sincere. 'Man, that's a good tie.' And from now on, every time you put that tie on, you'll feel better about that tie because he doesn't say it if he doesn't mean it."

Mr. Johnson said Mr. Jones has done a good job emulating his father.

A lot of strategies have changed in selling cars from the time Gerald Jones started.

"The philosophy of running a dealership, serving the community, treating people right, doing the right thing, having lifetime customers is still there," Mr. Johnson said. "What I believe Andy has done is taken all that technology and incorporated it into the basic philosophy of his father, treat the customers right and keep them coming back."

Big Dog

Mr. Jones is a rabid Dog when it comes to University of Georgia football. Mr. Goodbread said Mr. Jones will fly him and other people to see the Bulldogs play an away game against Florida, and then fly home that night. Sometimes they get into his six-passenger plane to see other football games.

At other times, they climb into the plane so Mr. Jones can fly Mr. Goodbread to Indiana to look at muscle cars, which is Mr. Goodbread's hobby.

"He's good about doing stuff like that," Mr. Goodbread said.

Dr. Page said Mr. Jones bought probably 300 tickets to the movie Facing the Giants, which came out last year, so that high school football teams could see it for free.

"He thought it would be good for them," the minister said. "That's the kind of thing Andy does."

Mr. Jones fits his measure of what makes somebody great. He takes care of the people around him.

"He's one of the few people I can totally relax around because he's so easy-going and loyal. You never doubt that he's there for you if you need him," Mr. Goodbread said.

Mr. Jones is also good with a comeback.

"We keep each other on our toes. I tease him a lot about his size because I'm 6-foot-6," Mr. Goodbread said. Mr. Jones is 5-foot-8. "He told me one day that if he stood on his billfold he'd be taller than I was."

Mr. Goodbread said Mr. Jones is comfortable in any setting: speaking with mechanics and race car drivers, introducing pastors to a convention, or golfing with wealthy and connected people in Augusta.

"I'm Andy's poor friend," Mr. Goodbread said with a chuckle. He became the insurance agent for Gerald Jones in 1982, when Andy was in college.

"We had to help him out of some speeding-ticket problems that he didn't want Gerald to know about," he said. "He had a heavy foot there for a while."

That foot helped with his hobby, stock car racing. He had success regionally, Mr. Goodbread remembered.

More important, he met Connie at a racetrack. Her brother was on the pit crew for another driver. She met Mr. Jones at the track near Interstate 20. They dated for six months and then married.

"He's like most of us, he married above himself," Dr. Page said. "Connie's a great part of his life."

For the past three years, Mrs. Jones has been the human resources director for the auto group.

Mr. Jones didn't give up racing right away, but his father tried to steer him away from driving and into the country clubs.

"His time is taken by that dealership - a lot of it - but he makes time for his kids," Mr. Johnson said. "He's always done that."

It is easier to be with his family these days because they work or spend time there.

Job one

Mr. Jones said selling cars is all he ever wanted to do as a vocation: "Even when it is hard, it is good because it is what I love."

One of his earliest recollections is going to see Gerald Jones, who was then a salesman in Greenville. It was his treat to see his father when he went to the dentist.

"We'd go by and see Daddy. I got to sit in his lap and play with a calculator," he recalled.

Later in his youth, if he wasn't in school he was at the dealership. Mr. Jones said he doesn't push his children to follow in his footsteps, though.

"Because I love it doesn't mean they will," he said.

He said he can see his son as a technician one day. At 15, Drew fills in sometimes in the summer.

"I doubt very seriously he wants my job, I wouldn't mind him being a technician because it is an awesome job. He really likes working on cars," Mr. Jones said.

His wife said of their son: "He's more afraid that he won't be able to measure up. Andy says, 'Yes you will, you'll be fine.'"

Daughter Kelly Anne, 13, also helps, answering the phone.

Mr. Goodbread said that Gerald Jones put a lot of confidence in his son and that Andy stepped up. Sometimes when a father passes a business down, the son doesn't work very hard, but this is not that case, he said.

"Andy has continued to outwork anyone around him," Mr. Goodbread said.

Mr. Johnson said Mr. Jones isn't totalitarian in his dealings with subordinates.

"He's always given his GMs (general managers) the free rein," he said. "If he made every little decision for them, then they don't have any responsibility, they can't make their dealership succeed on their own. They succeed or fail on their own merit."

Andy Jones said he works the same hours as his employees.

"I close sometimes," he said. "I'd rather let a salesman go home and work for him than make him work and me go home. They work hard. They put a lot of hours in."

It all goes back to the Christian model of service.

"He prays for a miracle and works like it is never going to happen," Mr. Goodbread said.

Reach Tim Rausch at (706) 823-3352 or timothy.rausch@augustachronicle.com.