Driven by Community: A Conversation with Capital Ford’s General Manager Zach Brandt

SFFMI: Capital Ford has been part of Santa Fe for more than six decades. What do you think has allowed the business to stay rooted in the community for so long?

Zach Brandt: A lot of it has to do with the community that we’re in and the people that we have. We do everything we can to take care of our people. Because if we have happy people, then we’re going to have happy customers, right? As long as we take care of our people, they take care of Santa Fe. And we wouldn’t have been here 61 years without doing that.

One of the things I pride myself on is I have multi-generational family members that work for us. And it is important to me to have that. It is tough when they decide to go on vacation and they all go together, but I have an entire family in my service department.

My lead scheduler and my accounts receivable gal is married to one of my senior master technicians. Their son-in-law is one of my senior master technicians. They have a son in the shop and then a daughter who also works for me. I literally have their entire family. 

What inspired you to support the Institute’s Tianguis Móvil/ Mobile Produce Market?

For me, it has a lot to do with my wife—we have a five-year-old at home, and [my wife] wants to make sure she’s eating stuff that isn’t genetically modified, it’s organic. And then we like local sources, because those farmers have control over what’s in our food. That is the best of the best.

So when the opportunity came up, I’m like, “we absolutely have to support that.” You don’t get better produce than [local produce], in my opinion. I get so frustrated when I buy stuff at [the grocery] and three days later, it’s bad. But I can go to the farmers’ market, the quality is better, and it lasts a lot longer. 

What does it mean to you to be the third generation of your family to run Capitol Ford? 

I’ve been coming into the store since I was nine years old. I’ve been in the dealership pretty much all the time. Going through high school, my dad tried to push me away, but it was kind of in my blood. I’ve always known that this is what I wanted to do, and I’ve always loved the car business. My mom teases all the time that when I was in kindergarten, I could identify just about every vehicle on the road. We’d be driving to school and she was just flabbergasted that I knew the make and model of everything.

I’m going on my 22nd year in the business. It’s just what I love. But for me, the most satisfying part about it is watching someone that I grew up with that we might have sold a Ford Focus to in the early 2000s. And now they might be in an Expedition, but I got to grow with them. So maybe they went from a Focus, to an Escape, and now they’re in an Expedition, but you got to see the family and how the family has grown over that time period, and that’s what’s so cool. 

I couldn’t imagine doing anything else. And to be able to be a third generation doing it means everything.

You know, [it has been] 61 years this year. My goal is to make it to 100. And then I have a daughter, so I won’t push her…but it’d be wonderful if we had a fourth generation. 

Your family has also had a long history of giving back in Santa Fe. What stands out to you about that legacy?

We try to do things (and we have for 60 years) that make an impact on the community. We have a charitable foundation in my grandfather and grandmother’s name that we use to continue to do those things. It was very important to do that.

My grandfather loved sports. So every little league team, every high school team that he could sponsor, [he did], and even to this day, we still do, all the way up to supporting a kid I grew up with who is now the basketball coach at Northern New Mexico College. We got to be the floor sponsor this year. Just whatever we can do to make a meaningful impact.

One of the things that is really cool for me is that when I drive down Siringo Road, I get to see a park that is named after my grandfather, and it’s because of the philanthropy he had in town that that happened.

So to me, it’s legacy, and how do I continue that for another 50 years? 

Your dealership has a notably fun culture—even on social media. How did that develop, and why does it matter?

You know, COVID changed a lot for us. And one of the things that I noticed is my employees perform a lot better when they have more time off.  I want to give them more time with their family, so we encourage them to go to soccer games, baseball games– whatever the case may be.

We started having fun with Instagram and making videos around the store. When you have engagement like that, it is so fun. To me, if we’re having fun at work, then we’re not really working. So social media has been a fun way for us to do that. 

Why is ‘local food’ important to you personally?

For me, it’s all about how the food is grown. We’re eating food that is grown here and it doesn’t have pesticides… and that means a lot.

Also, being that that it’s grown in our environment, it does a couple of things. [For example], I source local honey all the time, because we struggle with allergies. But when we eat that, we’re eating the [local] pollen So we’re eating food that is grown here and it doesn’t have pesticides. 

Do you see challenges around food access locally, particularly with recent shortages and the closing of one of our major grocery stores?

You bring you bring up a valid point. I mean, look at the egg shortage that we just had recently. I didn’t have that problem, because I was able to source eggs from one of the moms at [my daughter’s] school. But it blows my mind that we are there on a Saturday, and there’s four cartons of eggs on the shelves. You don’t even get to pick the type of eggs, it’s just what’s on the shelf.

We’ve been buying arugula when we can locally, because we eat a pesto pizza at the house that is my daughter’s favorite. And we make an arugula salad, but there was probably a good six month period where we couldn’t get arugula at the grocery. That just blows my mind. 

Looking ahead to the dealership’s future, what do you hope people continue to associate with Capital Ford?

I still want them to associate us with being a family owned, community driven business. And that we’re here for them and for all their needs. And that will never change.

We are proud to support all the people in our community and we are proud to support our local farmers.