Mark Redding may have had to say goodbye to his dreams of becoming a professional baseball player, but he's been a playmaker in the convenience channel for years now. He got his first taste of the industry when he accepted a position as a route merchandiser for McLane Grocery Distributors in 1983. From there, Redding [...]
By Kate Quackenbush, Managing Editor While everyone talks a big game about livingand eating healthier, Don Hamberger knowsthat consumers still love to treat themselves.Candy represents the fourth most profitablecategory at La Platta, Md.-based Dash In Food Stores, behindcigarettes, foodservice and coffee. Confections are up 3.5%from last year, on top of 6% the year before, and [...]
Wayne Moser, Town Pump Food Stores Wayne Moser studied electrical technology with the hopes of gaining employment in the oil fields in Western North Dakota or Eastern Montana, where he had always dreamed of moving. Unfortunately, the oil boom era was slowing down just after his college years, which made it difficult to find employment [...]
Tom Newbould graduated with an accounting degree, but after crunching numbers for six months at BP as an auditor, he realized his career aspirations just weren't adding up. Newbould began working for the British powerhouse during college, but he had his sights set on the retail marketing side of the business. So he paid his [...]
By Kate Quackenbush, Managing Editor Mike Leake may have had eight years of experience servicing convenience stores while working for Frito Lay and then McLane Grocery Distribution as a DSD sales representative, but it wasn't until DesMoines, Wash.-based Emanuel Inc. recruited him that he found a truly unique operation. Leake met owner Sami Said while [...]
Joe Lewis Global Supply Chain Manager Chevron It's as if Joe Lewis was preparing to be a global supply chain manager for a multinational oil company his entire life. Why wouldn't any red-blooded American kid salivate over the idea of working in key markets throughout North America, Asia and Africa? Lewis started working in grocery [...]
Greg Hendricks thought it was just a regular day when the vice president of Taylor Petroleum breezed into the Radio Shack where he was working in 1983. He asked Hendricks if he liked working with computers, which he did, and brought him on board the company's pump maintenance team. Twenty-three years later, Hendricks' technology roots [...]
Mary Vinson knew she was facing an uphill battle the day she started working for Donnini Enterprises (Lake Park, FL). Her job, simply put, was to install a back-office accounting system using the state-of-the-art computers the company purchased a year earlier. Just hours into her tenure Vinson faced her first daunting challenge: opening the boxes [...]
While Bruce Earhart may have been ready to "sing the blues" after a couple of consecutive 14-hour days, his band Eugene and the Night Crawlers hasn't yet written a song about the convenience retailing business. How he found his way to the c-store industry might offer great material, but Earhart seems to have found his [...]
Together, Darcy Paluch and Steve Hendrickson have nearly 30 years of experience with Moyle Petroleum (Rapid City, SD), which operates 35 Common Cents Food Stores in five states. Both started their retailing careers at store-level, learning the trade from the inside out. Despite the challenges, Paluch, marketing director for Common Cents, sees a huge upside [...]
Rick Klyczek is what you'd call a NOCO "lifer." He started working for New York's NOCO Energy Corp. right out of school as an assistant manager in the company's NOCO Express retail division. He quickly moved up through the ranks to become store manager and then district manager before moving into various executive-level positions at [...]