Growth Summit gives retailer, tank manufacturer chance to finalize partnership

Time. That’s what the 2023 LP Gas Growth Summit in Orlando, Florida, gave Tom Van Buren and Robert Kenney.

Van Buren, COO at Pico Propane and Fuels in San Antonio, and Kenney, CEO of Metsa Tanks Inc. in northeastern Mexico, had time to finalize a business partnership at the summit that year. They also had time to deepen their friendship.

Van Buren and Kenney first met after they both became members of the National Propane Gas Association (NPGA) board of directors a few years earlier. They had a lot in common. Both led growing companies, not to mention a growing profession.

“We hit it off personally and had a shared spirit of wanting to help the industry,” Van Buren says.

The two men had discussed the possibility of Pico buying propane tanks from Metsa, but between their jobs and NPGA commitments, they were always too busy to hammer out an agreement. They came close in 2023 before the LP Gas Growth Summit, when Kenney visited Pico in San Antonio, but they still weren’t ready.

“Changing tank suppliers is not something to be taken lightly,” Kenney says. “I didn’t want to push too hard and overstep any goodwill we had established working on the board together and being friends.”

Van Buren and Kenney knew they were both planning to attend the Growth Summit later in 2023 – for Van Buren, it was his first summit – so they decided to iron out the details of a partnership there.

“Finding time to sit down and really make it happen is tough,” Kenney says. “At the summit, there were no distractions from our jobs or work as industry volunteers. All we had to do was work it out.”

That’s exactly what they did. Pico started buying 1,000-gallon tanks from Metsa, which redesigned its tanks – lengthening them and slightly decreasing the diameter – to accommodate Pico’s transportation needs.

Van Buren was impressed by Metsa’s willingness to modify its product for Pico.

“That’s huge,” Van Buren says. “Some companies stay in their wheelhouse and that’s great, but it’s innovation that separates Metsa.”

Kenney throws credit back at Pico, saying the propane retailer gave Metsa the opportunity to innovate by communicating its needs and future plans.

“That allows us to tweak our products to benefit them and benefit the industry,” Kenney says. “That transparency is not something we get a lot. A lot of times, if a company doesn’t like the product, they simply won’t answer your calls anymore.”

Van Buren never feared that doing business with Kenney might damage their friendship. Actually, he felt just the opposite.

“You want to work with people you know, like and trust, and with companies that have a quality product,” Van Buren says. “It helped that we were open and candid with each other in conversation and respected where each person was coming from by having that foundation in friendship.”

The summit helped Van Buren and Kenney to strengthen that friendship. They were paired on the golf course together and found they had more in common than they realized.

“The summit is a way to build personal relationships, where at national industry expos, it’s very transactional,” Kenney says. “Yes, I represent Metsa, but later that day at the summit, we are playing cornhole together or on the golf course, and I’m just Robert and he’s just Tom.”

Van Buren also liked the networking opportunities at the summit and enjoyed discovering what products and services various companies were offering. He was also happy to hear an update from the Propane Education & Research Council.

Kenney calls the summit “phenomenal,” a chance to make an impact on both retailers and partner companies. A “speed-dating” segment allows each company to spend time chatting with every other company in attendance.

“At the expos, it’s hard to connect with someone, especially if you don’t already know them,” Kenney says.

---

Related Articles

New Mexico retailer, software provider make most of time together at LP Gas Growth Summit

Partners share why they recommend the LP Gas Growth Summit

Propane retailers share why they attended the 2024 LP Gas Growth Summit