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Meet George Cunningham of AuctionAZ.com in West

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Today we’d like to introduce you to George Cunningham.

George, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
My family got started in the auction business in northeast Arkansas in 1947 with my grandfather, George Y. Cunningham. My father brought the family auction business to Arizona in the 70’s. I started working with my father when I was 16 as soon as I got my driver’s license.

After graduating from NAU, I went to work as a stock broker/portfolio manager for Shearson Lehman Brothers on Wall Street and in Scottsdale, I stayed connected with the family business occasionally performing appraisals when needed. After several company mergers I ended up at Travelers under Sandy Weil, the man who mentored Jamie Dimon.

At this time, my father had grown the auction business as far as he could on his own and convinced me to come on full time with him. The internet had just become available to the civilian public so one of the first things I did was register our first domain, AuctionAZ.com. eBay had also just gotten started and so the next thing I did was conduct the first online auction of any private company in the southwest.

My father and I slowly grew the business from about $2 million in annual sales in the mid 90’s to over $40 million in 2007, then things dropped off during the recession until 2015 with the sale of the GTAT plant in Mesa when our total was back up over $30 million again.

We now have three different auction companies, AuctionAZ.com, LLC which is our Arizona real estate brokerage, BidIndustrial.com, LLC which focuses on larger industrial auctions and Cunningham & Associates, Inc., our 70+ year old flagship company.

Has it been a smooth road?
There have been many struggles along the way including the inevitable money problems which many small businesses experienced in the recession. There has also been the occasional dishonest employee along the way which is always stressful and disruptive.

We’d love to hear more about your business.
We are the oldest auction company in Arizona, but we are also the most technologically advanced and remain on the cutting edge of what is next in our industry. We are currently writing a new online bidding software system that will take the way internet bids are accepted to the next level. We are the largest real estate auction company in Arizona and also the most experienced with over 70 years combined between my father and me. We have specialized in and have been known for being the main bankruptcy auction company in Arizona. We are also one of the largest industrial appraisal firms in the southwest.

One of the things I am most proud of is when I took over the company I made it a policy that we would do charity auctions for free. Since then my father and I have raised millions of dollars for local non-profits such as Phoenix Boys and Girls Club, Alice Cooper’s Solid Rock Foundation, The Irish Cultural Center, Teen Life Line, Phoenix Union High School and many others.

Is our city a good place to do what you do?
Phoenix is a great city for business; our city seems to have consistently improved in the time I have been in charge of our company. I am especially looking forward to the improving real estate market and our city growing even more.

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