SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- Chet Cadieux understands a lot of things about his father. “He was the most kindhearted man you’ll ever meet,” he said Saturday, “the kindest-hearted and the meanest.”
All was said with love as Chester Cadieux, the man who made QuikTrip one of the most-admired convenience-store chains in the country, was honored with CSP’s first Icon Award during the 2015 Outlook Leadership conference in Scottsdale, Ariz.
“He had a specific style so that you always knew that he cared about you,” the younger Cadieux, president and CEO of QT, said about his father, referring to him in the past tense in regard to Chester’s advanced stages of Alzheimer’s disease. “He didn’t only inspire you; like all great leaders, he created a drive in you to make him proud of you.”
Cadieux accepted a plaque on his dad’s behalf. The plaque acknowledges a tree planted in a park not far from QT’s headquarters in Tulsa, Okla., in Chester’s honor.
Steve Sheetz, chairman of the Sheetz Family Council, counted Chester Cadieux as his mentor, learning how to double, triple and even quadruple fuel and fountain sales in his stores with seemingly obvious advice, such as, “You need more pumps” and “You need more fountain heads.”
“He taught me about capacity,” Sheetz said. “Chester spoke a different language. He talked about the average age of his store facilities. No one talked that way back then.”
As important as facilities were to Cadieux, “there was nothing more important to him than people,” Sheetz said.
“I remember him telling me that the main objective of his company was to provide an opportunity for his employees to grow and succeed,” Sheetz said. “Well, I called B.S. on that, but what I learned was that the leaders at QuikTrip, they live that purpose every day.”
Chet recalled a letter that his father wrote to all of the chain’s employees after a particularly quick period of growth in the company that left some store managers behind the times.
“Basically, he said, ‘You’ve got to treat people right. You’ll get fired a lot faster for treating people badly than you will for bad sales’,” Chet said. “He ended the letter—this was a letter that went to every employee in the company—with, ‘No one wants to work for an asshole, and I won’t allow it’.”
With that, Outlook Leadership launched its #ThankAMentor program, an avenue to recognize mentors who have influenced retailers’ and suppliers’ lives. Outlook Conference attendees, and the entire convenience-store industry, are encouraged to use the hashtag #ThankAMentor via all social-media platforms to say a special thanks to someone who has helped them along the way in their career or otherwise.
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