Quick Facts
Biography
Robert Heiner "Bob" Garff (born 1942) is an American businessman, who is chairman of the Ken Garff Automotive Group. His father, Ken Garff, was the company's founder.
Biography
Garff attended the David Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah. He graduated with a B.S. in 1966 and an MBA in 1967.
In addition to his family's automobile dealerships, Garff has served in other business and civic roles. He was chairman of the Intermountain Healthcare Foundation and chairman of the board of directors of Deseret Book. He was also the owner of the Utah Blaze.
Garff served as speaker of the Utah State House of Representatives from 1985 to 1987. He was chairman of the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce, and chairman of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the 2002 Winter Olympics. For his service and leadership, Garff was given the Distinguished Utahn Award by the Salt Lake Chapter of the BYU Management Society in 2008.
Garff has served in various callings in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), including bishop and stake president. From 1987 to 1990, Garff served as president of the church's England Coventry Mission. He later served as a member of the church's Sunday School General Board in 1991 and as a regional representative, beginning in 1992. In 2003, he became an area seventy, serving in the Fifth Quorum of the Seventy. From 2012 to 2015, he served as president of the Bountiful Utah Temple.
Garff is married to Katharine Bagley and they have five children.
Automotive business
The Ken Garff Automotive Group is a large car dealership conglomerate, originally founded in 1932 by Bob's father Ken Garff. The company or one of its dealerships, according to a January 2004 survey conducted by Dan Jones & Associates, was the second most mentioned car dealership by Utahns when asked to name a car dealer. The company is associated with 26 car dealerships in Utah. On October 18, 2007 the David Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah announced that the Ken Garff Automotive Group donated $3 million to renovate the Kendall D. Garff building.
In 2007 Garff launched a program to significantly expand the size of his dealer network with the backing of Leucadia Financial Corp. By this point the Garff Automotive Group had 40 dealership. In 2007 the group had dealerships in Utah, California, Nevada, Texas, Iowa and Indiana.