John MacDougall, chairman and founder, Nice N Easy Grocery Shoppes
John MacDougall was elected to the Convenience Store News Hall of Fame in 2003. He is a 30-plus-year veteran of the convenience store business, and he founded Nice N Easy in 1980 and incorporated the business on Feb. 29. The first store opened its doors on April 1 of that year. Which leads the company to explain: "While some may find that having the two most important days in your history being Leap Year and April Fool's Day to be a challenge, we believe it only shows that nothing was going to stop us from being successful!"From that first store, the Canastota, N.Y.-based retailer now has more than 80 c-stores across the central and upper regions of New York State.