DETROIT — Ally Financial and TIME have opened the nomination period for the 2015 TIME Dealer of the Year program. The process kicked off at the annual Automotive Trade Association Executives (ATAE) Summer Conference in Laguna Niguel, Calif.

This year, the winner and finalists will be selected by a panel of faculty members from The Tauber Institute for Global Operations, a partnership between the Ross School of Business and the University of Michigan’s College of Engineering (CoE). The panel will choose the 2015 finalists from each of the four NADA regions. And from those four finalists, judges will then select the national winner.

Executive with the ATAE, which represents state and metro area dealer associations throughout the country, can begin the process of selecting and nominating extraordinary dealers within their regions for the upcoming 2015 TIME Dealer of the Year award by visiting timedealeroftheyear.com.

To recognize the exemplary community involvement and leadership of these dealers, Ally provides a $1,000 grant to a qualified nonprofit organization chosen by each nominee, as well as additional grants for the winner and finalists. The ATAE will also receive a $5,000 donation to the charity of their choice.

In 2014, Dennis Jungmeyer, a member of the Arkansas Automobile Dealers Association, nominated winner Jeff Teague of Teague Auto Group in El Dorado, Ark. Jungmeyer chose to provide his grant to the CARTI Kids Program, which provides a support system for pediatric cancer patients. Ally has provided approximately $250,000 in grants to nonprofit organizations in connection with the TIME Dealer of the Year program.

Nominees for the 2015 award will be announced in October and the winner will be named at the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) Convention and Expo in San Francisco in January 2015. To learn more about the TIME Dealer of the Year program, visit timedealeroftheyear.com.