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Tholen known as dealmaker, being good to people

MARSHALL — Longtime Marshall businessman Robert “Bob” Tholen is remembered as being good to people, including those who were his employees and those who were his customers. Tholen died on Tuesday at the age of 86.

The automobile dealership was in the Tholen name for a very long time — Tholen Auto Sales was first owned by his father, Frank Tholen. After working alongside his dad for a number of years, Bob Tholen took over the family business.

“Bob was in business for close to 50 years,” said Pat Ternes, who worked at Tholen’s for 32 years. “He worked with his dad before he took it over himself. He was a great individual to work for and with. He let people develop and he did a lot of wonderful things.”

Ternes served as a sales manager and handled the account for Marshall-based Schwan’s Company.

“We marketed a lot of used trucks throughout the United States,” he said. “We traveled all 48 states to sell the used trucks. They were all propane converted. We sold all new trucks to Schwan’s — Ford GMC and Isuzu. Then we took trade-ins and sold the trade-ins.”

Al Macht was on the Schwan’s end of the transactions from 1985 to 2006.

“We purchased a lot of the Schwan’s route trucks from Bob,” said Macht, who now works at Action Trackchair. “The chassis were purchased from Tholen’s — primarily GMC chassis and some earlier Ford chassis. They were converted to propane here in Marshall and delivered to Rice Lake, Wisconsin for truck body installation.”

Macht said Robert Tholen grew up with Bob Schwan, Marvin Schwan and Alfred Schwan.

“Bob (Tholen) was around the (Schwan) family a lot, so there was a longstanding friendship there and that led to the business transaction of buying trucks from him,” Macht said. “Bob was always the consummate dealmaker, keeping Schwan’s best interest in mind.”

While Tholen Auto had a solid relationship with the largest business in Marshall, those closest to him said the dealership also treated people right.

“Tholen Auto was a longstanding name in Marshall,” Macht said. “Bob was always working hard for the customer. He would go out of his way to help anybody. If you were a person in need, Bob was there. He always tried to find the best deal for Schwan’s, to help negotiate a lot of the deal. He brought a lot of value to the equation.”

Tholen was born in Marshall on Sept. 19, 1931, to Frank and Marie (Van Anne) Tholen. He grew up, attended school and graduated from Marshall High School.

From 1951-1955, Bob served in the United States Navy Air Corp. Later, he was a member of Knights of Columbus, American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars.

“He was very much involved in the community,” Macht said. “I know he was involved with Knights of Columbus and heavily involved with his church. After I stopped interacting with Bob at Schwan’s, you could always count on finding Bob at church Sunday morning.”

Russ Labat, longtime publisher at the Marshall Independent, also knew Bob Tholen to be a good businessman and an active member of the community.

“I bought a couple of cars out there — he sold a lot of cars and a lot of trucks to Schwan’s over the years,” Labat said. “He was also a very good customer of the newspaper. He supported Marshall for so many years. He was good to a lot of people. And he did a lot of things in the background that a lot of people didn’t know about. He didn’t want the recognition.”

According to Ternes, Tholen sold the dealership to Kruse Motors in 2008. After a fire destroyed the Ford, Lincoln and Mercury store across the street and the weather caused problems at the Buick, Pontiac, GMC store, where Isuzu trucks were also sold, it seemed like the right time to retire, he said.

“After being a businessman for many, many year, Bob just thought it was time to retire,” Ternes said. “He opted to sell to Kruse Motors.”

After working at Tholen Auto for 32 years, Ternes continued on at Kruse Motors until 2016 — closing out a 41-year career.

“It was very enjoyable,” Ternes said about his experience at Tholen’s. “It was very people-friendly.”

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