It's Been an Adventure

Maggelet retired as Maverik’s CEO and Chief Adventure Guide effective May 1, but his legacy lives on. He recently sat down with CSNews to reflect on his career and contributions, discuss his leadership style and share what his next adventure is going to be. 

CSN: What does it mean to you to be named the Retailer Executive of the Year? 

Maggelet: Well, it probably means you had a slow news day or something like that (laughing). But no, it is really, really cool. I really value the opportunity to be recognized by CSN because you are an industry watcher; you’re so well positioned to pick those who’ve distinguished themselves in the industry. So, with that as a backdrop, I am humbled to accept only on behalf of the 15,000 Maverik employees — because you know and I know that our industry is one of just a ton of activities that have to come together with great people from both inside Maverik and Kum & Go and outside, right? I mean, our vendor suppliers are crazy important to us. 

So, it’s all this stuff that has to come together for us to be successful for what, for us, is more than a million customer transactions a day. And so, I’m humbled at the opportunity to accept on behalf of what I think is just a phenomenal organization, Maverik. And being recognized by CSN, who knows what happens in our industry, that’s really, really exciting. 

CSN: You assumed the CEO and Chief Adventure Guide role at Maverik in 2016. Thinking back, can you talk a little bit about what the state of the company was at the time? What was going well? What needed improvement? 

Maggelet: Yeah, so we had Adventure’s First Stop at that time. [It] was probably 12-13 years into that experience, and I think that was working really great. We had these great stores that gave our customers the experience that we wanted them to have. But we also had some opportunities, right. I think any time you come into a new role, you try to figure out what the opportunities are and what direction it makes the most sense to take. 

So, in the 10 years prior to my joining Maverik, we had built about 13 stores per year. In the last few years, we’ve just about doubled that, when we exclude the big acquisition. We had the young stores; we had the adventure feel; we were growing our fresh food success. But we still had lots of opportunity on things to grow. There were new geographic areas to focus on. 

I think we had lots of enthusiasm, but we also had some struggles that a lot of other retailers probably had. We were using the same point-of-sale system that everybody else used in the industry; we were able to change that later. We saw high turnover, just like in the industry. And so, I really wanted to focus our team on the things that I thought collectively were going to help us build the strongest Maverik we possibly could build in the future. 

CSN: So, during your tenure, how did Maverik evolve under your leadership? How did you tackle some of those things? 

Maggelet: Well, we just about doubled that rate of growth the last couple of years, so I’m really excited about that. We came together and focused on our cultural elements — a lot of our cultural elements became more forward for us. When we look at what happened in sort of the big picture, excluding for a moment the Kum & Go acquisition, during that 7.5 plus or minus years, our store count grew by about 50%. Our sales grew by about 100%. Our fuel volumes about doubled as well. 

And so, when we saw those things happening, we felt that we were really doing the right things the right way. Focusing on that customer’s experience every day. Everybody ready to make things happen and really create an environment that people wanted to work in and grow with us in. 

CSN: Are there any achievements during your time as CEO that really stand out and that you’re especially proud of? 

Maggelet: There are so many! I don’t know how long we have for this answer. You know, Maverik has always been a company, I think, of positivity of enthusiasm and I had the great fortune of building upon that. 

We’ve got a new logo that I’m very, very excited about, and we’ve really updated our adventure stores and tried to provide an opportunity for [them] to feel more localized for our customers. … So, our new adventure stores look like the regions where we build — we’ve got designs that look good in Idaho and designs that look good in California and designs that look good in New Mexico — and they’re all different because those regions feel really different. 

I think our team has done a remarkable job with technology. Our new point-of-sale, our video network integration, our loyalty platform, multiple methods of payment and self-checkouts, all of these things we were able to do because we had such a great technology team helping us accomplish what we needed to accomplish. 

I can also say that for every year during my tenure, we hit all-time highs; we kept calling them our best years ever because that year was better than the year before, right. And it’s fun always being able to set the bar higher year after year, so I’m very, very proud about that. And then, I’m very proud about the Kum & Go acquisition. I think it’s really going to be great to bring two great brands together, great teams together, similar approaches, similar assets. 

But if I really said these are the things that I am probably most proud of, it’s the cultural elements that have positioned us better for the future. The first one is our purpose. When I took over, we had Maverik 300. We had 280 stores and said we’re going to get to 300. … As we were approaching that milestone, which we hit in 2017, I was like there’s got to be something more; we need something more timeless to speak to our team members and how we’re gonna work together in the future. And so, we came up with a new purpose: having fun together building the coolest convenience experience on the planet. … We work a lot of hours, we want to make sure that we’re having fun with our customers, having fun with our team members, having fun with the people we interact with from our vendor partners … building this model that we’re going to continue to build into the future — the coolest convenience experience on the planet, which was the most Maveriky way I think we could say what was important to us.

I’m also really proud that we saw our turnover rates drop by about a third since I started. A big contributor to that success was what we called our Titanium Rule. Everybody’s got something that talks about the sort of golden rule, but we call it the Titanium Rule because titanium is a much better metal if you’re out in an adventure. Our Titanium Rule is to just treat others better than they expect to be treated. That’s been a great foundational element for us.

CSN: You talked a little about the Kum & Go acquisition. How did that acquisition transform the organization? 

Maggelet: In simple numbers, it more than doubled us with the growth that we had in both of the pipelines — more than 820 locations, 15,000 team members, 20 states, and continuing to grow. It was complicated for us, right, because we only had one Base Camp location and we had all these great contributors that we wanted to keep on from the Kum & Go side, [so it] was just trying to figure out how to merge the two organizations together. And I think that we were, and continue to be, very successful with how that’s going. We are well underway. 

You know, one of the things we were really excited about was [Kum & Go] had really, really great assets. Their stores were younger than ours on average, and we thought we could marry the physical attributes of their stores with our technology stack. We thought that we could build something really special and I think we’re well on our way to doing that. We’ve completed all the rebrands in Colorado, which was our biggest overlap state, and we’re moving into Wyoming. So, we’re very happy about where we find ourselves at this point in the integration. 

CSN: What about the people aspect of the Kum & Go acquisition? How did you approach that? How did you make sure they felt part of the Maverik team?

Maggelet: Right, and that’s always one of the big challenges obviously in an acquisition and integration effort. But we had people flying back and forth on the corporate jet between our Base Camp in Salt Lake and our Base Camp in Des Moines to make sure that people had access. We ran all sorts of town hall meetings — we call them campfire meetings because town hall doesn’t sound adventure. We tried to make sure that people had a voice, a regular cadence of taking questions, answering questions, giving people direction, guidance. I think it’s really working out very well.

CSN: You touched on culture before. What kind of company culture did you aim to instill during your time at Maverik? 

Maggelet: I think the effectiveness of teams and people focusing on the most important stuff is exactly what every organization needs and so, what was most important for us is to make sure that we have teams who are outstanding at what we need them to be outstanding at. We need them to focus on results. One of the things that I think is always important is that people throughout the organization know this is the most important stuff we need to execute on. At the forefront of that is making sure that we’re always in stock, fast, friendly, clean for our customers every store every day. That’s been really important to us. 

I talked about our purpose, having fun together building the coolest convenience experience on the planet. Those are the things that tell the story of the spirit, the culture and what we’re trying to accomplish and how. Our purpose is to make sure Maverik is a great place to work … a great operator for our customers and a great growth company. I think we’ve executed well on those. 

And when I talk about being a great growth company, I think it’s two things you need to be really good at: No. 1, adding new outlets, which we have added a lot of new stores, and then getting more out of those existing stores, right. That’s the quickest way to get financial leverage out of what you do and how you do it. But you can only do that if you’re really giving your customers an offer and experience, being part of their adventure, fueling their adventure every day. That’s what’s really resonated for [Maverik] and led to our success. 

CSN: You mentioned having outstanding teams and having people who are doing outstanding work on those teams, and that obviously takes strong leadership. How would you describe your leadership style?

Maggelet: That’s a great question. I like to think of myself as being really hands-on and involved. I think probably one of the best things that a leader can be is good at asking good questions and then taking the time to listen, and then diving in on, ‘What was the genesis of that concern, that comment, that question, that suggestion?’ 

There are a million little details that are happening every single day. We’ve got great people who are closer to those details, and I need to make sure that I’m listening for their ideas because I know that the last thing we want to do at Maverik is wait for me to come up with the next big idea because we have so many good people thinking about things. I’ve always felt it was important for me to be open to hearing concerns about things from every level in the organization.

And then, I think [it’s] making sure that we’re hiring and training terrific leadership teams that lead culturally consistently with the way the organization is going to be most successful. One of the things that I got most stoked about was how frequently I saw our hourly hires — somebody who started as a cashier, an overnight clerk — grow to become a leader in the store and then a store director and then a district manager. About 15-20% of our district managers started with us in an hourly role. So, seeing people have this opportunity to grow in their careers is very, very exciting to me because we clearly want to serve our customers, but we also want to serve the needs and interests and aspirations of our team members at the same time.

CSN: You retired on May 1. Congratulations on this new chapter. Why did you feel that now was the right time to pass the torch? 

Maggelet: You know, just six months ago, I celebrated my 60th birthday and when you celebrate that birthday, you’re like, ‘Wow, I’m closer to 80 than to 40, so maybe there’s something else to do in life.’ I feel that the company is in a very, very good position. I’m really proud that every single one of our ELT [executive leadership team] members grew from a role up into that role and when they grew up, they had people who were able to grow up through the organization. 

I also know that I’ve had the great opportunity to serve as the CEO and Chief Adventure Guide at Maverik for 7.5 years. It’s the best job on the planet and I think it’s great to pass that opportunity along to somebody else and let others grow through the organization. Crystal Maggelet, the new CEO and Chief Adventure Guide, comes with deep experience in the industry and energy. So, I know she will do a phenomenal job with Maverik.

CSN: How are you enjoying retirement? How are you spending your time?

Maggelet: Well, as you might expect from me, lots of travel and lots of adventures. I’ve done bike trips in Oregon and Slovenia, some sailing trips to Croatia and the Bahamas, spending time going to college football games, catching up with friends and, of course, spending time with our kids and their partners, and now we have our first two grandkids. So, lots of fun ahead and I’m excited to start this new adventure-filled chapter in my life.