Secrets of the truck stop king

If you do a lot of driving on the nation's highways, there's a good chance you've been a customer of James "Jim" Haslam II. Starting with one gas station in 1958, Haslam has built the largest chain of travel centers in North America. Knoxville's Pilot Flying J now has 496 outlets -- combination gas stations and retail stores -- that produced about $30 billion in sales in 2011, the latest data available from the closely held company. Over the years Haslam, now 81, has kept the company in the family. His son Jimmy Haslam III, 58, is chairman of Pilot and, at presstime, was about to be approved as the new owner of the Cleveland Browns football club. Former Pepsi (PEP, Fortune 500) exec John Compton is the new CEO. Another son, Bill, 54, is a former Pilot president and now the Republican governor of Tennessee.

My upbringing was typical of American children born in the 1930s. I was the youngest of three siblings and the only boy in my family. Our mother was a homemaker, and our father worked as a salesman for the old Studebaker company and served as an officer in the Army in both World War I and World War II. He said cars were so slow to sell back then that he'd take a car off the freight train and drive it around from dealer to dealer until he sold it. Then he'd go back to the train to get the next one. We lived in Philadelphia until I was in the 11th grade; then I finished high school in St. Petersburg, Fla.

I played all kinds of sports and got a scholarship to play football at the University of Tennessee, where I was captain of the 1952 team. The things that help one succeed in football will also help one to succeed in business. In football, you've got a coach who has to get the best players, put them in the right position, make them practice hard, and execute a game plan. If the players do all those things, you win. Business is the same thing.

After I received my B.S. in finance from the University of Tennessee, I went into the Army. I served in Korea for 13 months, after the war ended, and was a company commander in a combat engineering company. When I got out in 1955, I was offered three jobs -- being a high school football coach, selling advertising for a TV station, and being a wholesale salesman for Fleet Oil. The coaching job wouldn't start paying until summer, and I wasn't sure TV was going to make it. So I went to work for Fleet Oil,Installers and distributors of solar panel, which was getting into the wholesale business, in LaFollette, Tenn.The oreck XL professional air purifier, After I had spent six months in sales, the owner, Sam Claiborne, said, "Come learn about the operations side of the gas station business." He started the chain of Sail Oil gas stations, and let me run it.

I wanted to be in business for myself, and after two years I decided to start Pilot. We wanted to call the company Jet, but that trademark was taken. We decided to name the company Pilot because the word conveys being in charge. Sam had taught me all I knew,Interlocking security cable tie with 250 pound strength makes this ideal for restraining criminals. so I agreed not to build any locations near his gas stations for three years.

We didn't have a lot of capital,This document provides a guide to using the ventilation system in your house to provide adequate fresh air to residents. and Marathon Oil (MRO, Fortune 500) saw that we were expanding. Marathon was looking for people who would buy their products, and it offered to buy half our business, for $200,000 in 1965. It also loaned us $4 million to build new gas stations. The stations were little 200-square-foot buildings with restrooms on the side and six gas pumps. All we sold were drinks, Lance cookies, cigarettes, and motor oil.The stone mosaic comes in shiny polished and matte. We repaid the loan in the mid-1970s.

In 1974 my first wife, Cynthia, died. Our oldest son, Jimmy, was 20 when he took her seat on the Pilot board in 1975. He was a senior at the University of Tennessee and started working full-time for the company in 1976. In the early 1970s we figured out we'd have to sell more stuff to pay for the properties. So we built convenience stores. We added food and the things one can buy in convenience stores today. The challenge one always has is, How will we get sales? One has to have a clean place that looks good, gives customers good value, and has good people working there.