On the record: Soundbites from the 2022 LP Gas Growth Summit

About 20 retailers attended the LP Gas Growth Summit. (Photo by LP Gas staff)

Propane retailers and vendor partners sat down with LP Gas editors at the 2022 LP Gas Growth Summit for on-camera interviews to discuss their experiences in the propane industry and ways to improve overall propane operations.

RETAILERS

Q: How can businesses raise morale, engage employees and boost productivity?

A: “We’ve noticed that our employees want to be part of something bigger. They don’t want to come to work and just answer a phone or drive a truck. Allowing them the opportunity to provide their ideas, be heard and have a voice in the company has been really important.”
-Lindie Honsberger, Foster Fuels

A: “I think we need to look at the types of employees we have and the generation gaps. Not all of our employees want the same things and not all of our employees want to be managed in the same way. So we really have to adapt our management styles to each individual employee or team.”
-Donna Howay-Germond, Paraco Gas

Q: How has your company been impacted by labor shortages?

A: “We’ve had three people retire in the last two years. Our industry is more of an aging industry, and the rest of our drivers are getting up there on the spectrum compared to being new.”
-Ryan Aiken, High Grade Gas Service

A: “We have not been affected too bad. As a company, we don’t see a lot of turnover. I think we treat our people very well. The fact that it’s an employee-owned company, everybody’s got a stake in the success of it.”
-Matt Drennen, O.E. Meyer Co.

Q: Could you share how you’ve been impacted by the supply chain issues?

A: “The supply chain has impacted us based on product supply in regard to cylinders. So what we’ve done is we’ve tried to partner with competitors, other vendors, companies outside of California, to get us the resources necessary in order to continue doing business within the state of California.”
-Jason Edwards, Pacific States Petroleum

Q: Can you tell me about your experiences with propane autogas?

A: “We currently fuel all of our vehicles with propane autogas. It’s a huge cost saver for us. It’s also big testimony to our customers: that we believe in the fuel that we fuel our own vehicles with.”
-Peter Samuelson, Propane Ninja

PARTNERS

Q: What have been your overall impressions of this year’s LP Gas Growth Summit?

A: “It’s great to get to move beyond the customer-vendor relationship and really get to know these people, be closer to them and be able to know them better to give them a better service.”
-Daniel Quiroga, Metsa

A: “It’s invaluable for us. The opportunity to talk to 20-plus companies face to face for roughly 15 to 20 minutes. You just can’t get that anywhere else. It’s a very rare opportunity for us to learn but also share information [and] provide feedback where and when we can.”
-Todd Grimm, Cargas

A: “To me, it’s so much better than a normal trade event. You get to sit down one on one with the marketer and with the vendor to discuss in much greater detail, [at a] much higher level. Plus, the social aspect of it – where we have dinners together, we have a golf outing, we have a barbecue – all that leads up to a much deeper level of understanding between the marketer and the vendor.”
-David Dodd, Otodata

A: “I love this Summit. I will come for as long as LP Gas will have us. I just love the deliberate one-on-ones. You could have conversations with people, might not turn into anything, but it becomes the seeds for a relationship that can turn into something down the road.”
-Marty Kirshner, Gray, Gray & Gray