A Family Affair

The c-store industry’s “First Family” takes center stage as Stan Sheetz is enshrined in the Hall of Fame

In joining his uncle Steve Sheetz in the Convenience Store News Hall of Fame, Stan Sheetz cements his family’s place as one of the most important and influential families in the history of convenience retailing.

The first time the CSNews Hall of Fame included more than one family member was in 1991 when brothers John and Jere Thompson of The Southland Corp. were inducted as one entry in the event’s fifth year. The Thompsons are credited with expanding the modern convenience store, a retail concept that grew out of their father Joe C. Thompson Jr.’s ice business. Then in 2010, Sonja Hubbard, CEO of Texarkana, Texas-based E-Z Mart Stores Inc. followed her late father Jim Yates the 1997 inductee, into the Hall of Fame.

Now, the Sheetz family has its second Hall of Famer.

“Growing up with the business, I was fortunate. It gets in your blood,” said Stan, whose father Bob founded the company in 1952. “When I came back to the company [after attending graduate school in New York City], we had 75 stores. The future looked very appealing.”

Today, Sheetz Inc. is a 450-plus-store chain based in Altoona, Pa.

The company is certainly not unique in a retail channel filled with such well-known family-owned and/or family-run companies as RaceTrac Petroleum Inc., QuikTrip Corp. Kum & Go LC, Maverik Inc., Thorntons Inc. and QuickChek Corp., just to name a few. But what may be unique about Sheetz Inc. is the degree of participation by so many family members in leadership positions at the company.

Steve, who preceded Stan as CEO and chairman, is currently chairman of the Sheetz Family Council, which works to ensure that the family always has a strong role in the leadership of the company. Other family members in positions of leadership include new CEO Joe Sheetz (who on Oct. 1 succeeded Stan in that position as he became chairman); Stan’s son, Adam Sheetz, who serves as director of regional operations; Executive Vice President of Operations Travis Sheetz; Director of Brand Development Ryan Sheetz; and the recently retired Louie Sheetz, who served as executive vice president of marketing for many years.

On the dynamics of this extraordinary family business, Stan said, “We get along great. We absolutely do. My father instilled in all of us that the company comes first. We’re always going to do the right thing for the brand.”

Stan has worked at the family company as a salesperson, truck driver, store manager and maintenance technician. “He became driven to win at a young age,” recalled his father. “He used to go with me in a 1954 Chevy pickup. We would pick up the milk and deliver it store by store…We would talk and he would ask questions, but I think he would learn the most through osmosis watching his father. Watching the dedication I had to what I was trying to do.”

Stan credits his father with being instrumental in convincing him to come back into the family business, after he attended graduate school and then worked for three years at other companies in New York City. At that point, he considered pursuing his career elsewhere, but coming back to the family business was just too appealing to pass up. “A lot of people have to commit to the unknown,” Stan mused. “That’s taken off the table when you come into a family business.”

After earning his degrees in both business and financial management, he joined the retailer’s finance department on Sept. 1, 1981, rising to executive vice president of finance. However, it was his move into operations that really positioned Stan to make his mark.

“It’s fair to say I was rather introverted before Steve asked me to move into operations,” said Stan. “That type of job really opens you up. It becomes all about the people. I had to learn that. It was a great personal growing experience.”

DRIVEN TO WIN

The transition into operations forced Stan to grow into a people-person — and a great one at that.

With Stan, “what you see is what you get,” said Steve. “He’s got this drive that says, ‘I want to win.’ Stan took that ‘driven to win’ [attitude] and put a softer side to it. I think in the end, ‘you gotta treat people right’ is his legacy. It is that balance of being driven to win, but being very supportive of his people and their development. Grow the people who, in turn, grow the company.”

The retailer’s current operations chief, Travis, said Stan helped define the importance of company culture. “I think he knew that as we got bigger, it would be difficult to pick the people that we want to run our stores,” said Travis. “As you get layers in the company, it becomes more difficult for the family to stay in touch with our stores and for all of our executives to stay in touch. So, I think he recognized the culture at store level is really what was going to drive our success moving forward, and he put a lot of things in place in this company to really manage that and make sure that grew effectively.”

Son Adam agrees on his father’s impact on Sheetz’ culture. “He is probably most proud of the culture that we have here and that we can all be ourselves and have fun. Nobody’s got a culture like that and his fingerprints are all over it,” Adam said. “He’ll be long gone for years and we’ll remember that the culture is a reflection of him.”

Heading up operations was great training for the CEO role, which Stan assumed in 1995. “When you’re in operations, you get to know everyone in the company,” the Hall of Famer said. “People are calling you every day — we didn’t have email then. And, you solve problems.”

Under Stan’s leadership, Sheetz Inc. experienced aggressive growth in its number of stores and employees, achieved impressive financial success, and maintained a healthy culture to create a highly motivated and passionate employee base.

“We’ve built a great team and a culture dedicated to serving the customer,” said Stan. “We’re driven to win, but you also have to check your ego at the door. We’re here to build the brand, not your ego.”

That competitiveness is clearly evident to Dave Woodley, executive vice president of marketing, who said, “[Stan] doesn’t like to lose. Doesn’t want to be associated with losing, not that anyone does, but I’d say his No. 1 trait is that he’s driven to win.”

To Stan, every single day is important. “We’re responsible for taking care of over 1 million customers a day,” he noted.

He’s also proud that Sheetz Inc. created more than 10,000 jobs during his time as CEO. Earlier this year, the chain was named to CSNews’ Top 20 Growth Chains list for adding 23 stores to its base of 434 locations at the end of 2012. Among these stores were such milestones as its 227th store in Pennsylvania, its 42nd West Virginia store and its first dual-lane drive-thru store.

“I’m proud that we gave our people the opportunity to grow,” Stan said.

Self-distribution is one of the tenets of the retailer’s success. The company operates its own fleet of gasoline tankers; has its own 140,000-square-foot Sheetz Bros. Kitchen that produces sub rolls and buns, baked goods, packaged sandwiches and other perishables for daily delivery; and its own 400,000-square-foot distribution center in Claysburg, Pa. This year, Sheetz Inc. began construction on its second distribution and food manufacturing center in Burlington, N.C., which will help expand its “convenience restaurants” deeper into North Carolina and Virginia.

Why self-distribution? “We’re control freaks, that’s why,” Stan explained. “We have to control everything — from soup to nuts.”

Ninety percent of the products in the stores are self-distributed from its distribution center or kitchen. “We’re very protective of our brand,” Stan continued. “The only way to do that is to protect it ourselves. So, we brought in the talent to do it.”

Ray Ryan, executive vice president of distribution services, describes Stan as one of the most direct individuals he’s ever worked with. “You can call that real, you can call that honesty, you can call that, ‘I don’t care, I’m gonna tell you how it is,’” said Ryan. “But if you learn that [this] is how he’s going to be and it’s not personal — it’s just him being straightforward and honest — then it actually drives you.”

Current CEO Joe cited Stan’s aggressive and ultra-competitive nature. “There is nothing that he doesn’t want to win at and win as big as he can,” said Joe. “When he started his job as CEO, we were still very much a gasoline-driven company that was selling food. But in his tenure, we became much more of a restaurant-type business. I think his legacy will be Sheetz’ real dive into food.”

Last October, Sheetz Inc. was honored as Best Prepared Foods Innovator in CSNews’ 2012 Foodservice Innovators Awards program, sponsored by Tyson Foods.

A LASTING LEGACY

One of the most memorable experiences of Stan’s business life relates to something beyond his family’s company, though. As a past chairman of NACS, the Association for Convenience & Fuel Retailing, he was asked to help find a replacement upon the retirement of NACS’ long-time president Kerley LeBoeuf in 2005.

“When I was chairman of NACS, I was asked along with Bill Douglass [Douglass Distributing Co.] and Scott Hartman [Rutter’s Farm Stores] to find Kerley’s replacement,” Stan recollected.

The trio recruited current NACS CEO Hank Armour, another CSNews Hall of Famer and the founder of West Star Corp., as only the third president in NACS’ more than 50-year existence.

Stan credits Douglass for being the driving force behind Armour’s recruitment. “I’m very satisfied with how that all played out and really proud of what Hank’s done for this industry,” Stan said.

As a company, the Sheetz family has earned a reputation for hard work, hospitality and even humor. “We all like each other, but we’re always going to do the right thing for the brand. If you’re just here to stroke your ego, find the door,” the Hall of Famer said.

Building the Sheetz brand will also be a big part of Stan’s legacy, according to Louie. “He drove the ‘wow’ factor. He drove us in a way that says, ‘Don’t be ordinary. Be extraordinary. Be exceptional.’”

The keys to the future, according to Stan, remain the same: “This business really thrives on people and innovation,” he said. “There’s a whole lot at stake and we must continue to respond to the changing needs of the customer.”

With devoted family members, and a talented and motivated staff of store and store support associates, Sheetz Inc. appears poised to continue its leadership in the c-store industry.