Teton Volkswagen receives Gold Pin award

Teton VW execs Mario and Dave Hernandez receive the Gold Pin award

Teton Volkswagen of Idaho Falls has received the Volkswagen’s Gold Pin Award, one of three dealers to receive it in an area that covers Texas and the Rocky Mountains. The award, one of only 10 awarded world-wide this year, recognizes Volkswagen dealerships for sales and service not only to customers but to the community.

This isn’t an award dealers nominate each other for, said Darren Bush, VW’s regional officer from from Dallas, who came to Idaho Falls Tuesday to bestow the honor upon Mario and Dave Hernandez, who started Teton VW in December 2012. District directors send nominees to Volkswagen of America in Herndon, Va., where the first cut takes place. Winners from there get sent on to Wolfsburg, Germany, where the leadership decides. Nominations are unknown to the dealer until the dealer is approved as a recipient.

The certificate that comes down is in German and contains the word “ausgezeichnet,” which four years of high school German allows me to recognize as meaning “excellent.”