Southwest Georgia Oil Co. Inc. has about 80 SunStop convenience stores in Georgia, Florida and Alabama. This year, there were three back-to-back hurricanes that affected the Bainbridge, Georgia-based company’s c-stores, President Glennie Bench said.
The way the team responds to the various hurricanes that pass through the region is Bench’s biggest leadership win, she said, emphasizing that the credit goes to her teams.
Southwest Georgia Oil didn’t close stores, unless there were safety issues, as Hurricanes Helene and Milton swept through the area.
“Our people showed up to serve their communities and they really felt that was important,” Bench said. “And I’m just amazed. I’m amazed at our truck drivers, who go out and make sure that the stores have fuel. It’s humbling, it really is.”
Bench (pictured second to left) spoke at the Convenience-Store Women’s Event in November in Charleston, South Carolina. She was joined by moderator Abbey Lewis (pictured far left), vice president of content strategy for CSP’s parent company Informa Connect; Chief Development Officer at Maverik Niki Mason (pictured second to right); and vice president, people and culture at Stinker Stores Lesley Segadelli (pictured far right).
Maverik
Mason’s win also revolved around her team and how they transitioned when her former company, Kum & Go, was acquired by Salt Lake City-based Maverik.
Maverik is No. 12 on CSP’s 2024 Top 202 ranking of U.S. convenience-store chains by store count. Southwest Georgia Oil Co. Inc./SunStop is No. 86 and Stinker Stores is No. 66.
“When I think about just everything that the team’s been through as far as integration and everything, I'm just so proud of them,” Mason said.
She’s also proud of her leaders who have moved on to other positions—like one who is now running real estate at grocery chain Hy-Vee, and another who runs real estate at Casey’s General Stores.
Casey's General Stores Inc. is No. 3 on CSP's 2023 Top 202. Hy-Vee is No. 43.
“I'm just so proud of them for all the growth and development opportunities that I've been able to work with them on over the years,” she said. “So everything just really for me comes back to the team and developing people.”
Stinker Stores
When Segadelli started at Stinker Stores, Boise, Idaho, about three years ago, there were some challenges.
“My first week on the job, somebody got punched in the face,” she said. “I was like ‘it’s chaos over here’.”
Entering a new company and a new industry was overwhelming, Segadelli said.
“HR is one of those departments that not everybody loves, I can fully admit that,” she said. “And I would say that was kind of what I walked into.”
Segadelli was able to build a new team, though, and flip the old human resources mentality on its head.
“The transformation of getting to kind of craft my own team, and doing these amazing things quickly, was a really rewarding and fulfilling experience that I didn't know I needed,” she said. “It kind of gave me that boost like ‘oh, I can't do this. It'll be okay.’”
When Segadelli was building her new team, she looked with people who were up for a challenge.
“That is what I looked for first,” she said. “The tactical stuff, I could teach. I could teach you the system we have, I can teach you the policies we have—but I couldn’t teach the tenacity.”
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