Propane Personality: Ben Casper

Ben Casper
CEO, Moveit Inc.
Education
Casper attended Ricks College in Rexburg, Idaho, initially majoring in music before traveling on a two-year church mission trip to Pennsylvania.
Work Experience
1999-Present
Moveit
CEO
1995-2000
Basin Propane
Owner
1986-2006
Les Schwab Tire Center
Member dealer owner
Note: Before Casper joined with Les Schwab, he had his own tire stores in Utah and Washington.
Introduction to propane
Casper’s first experience with propane came when he started filling 5-gallon bottles as a tire store owner in the 1980s. He later opened his own propane company, covering a wide area of southeastern Washington state. “I enjoyed working with the customers, and propane people are wonderful people,” he says. “The tire business is a cutthroat business, and I guess propane is too. But I never ran into people who were nasty in the propane business.”
Learning through experience
The YankATank – Moveit Inc.’s signature product for the propane industry – was born about 25 years ago from Casper’s personal experience of trying to retrieve a 250-gallon tank from a trailer park on a hot day. “By the time I got it through the gate and out to the truck, I was dead. And I just said, ‘There’s got to be a better way to do this,’” he says. Casper began the journey of inventing the YankATank, a tank cart/dolly that allows users to pull down on a handle and pick up propane tanks (420 verticals and 120, 250 and 330 horizontals).

The inventor
Casper has invented a host of products throughout his life, including for the tire and agricultural industries. He attributes his enjoyment of tinkering and his ability to make things to his early life on a farm, as he’s one of nine children. “We often had to make do with what we had,” he says. “Then with running the tire store, I’m always trying to save a buck, and just with that frame of mind, I’m always trying to come up with new ideas.”

Book and podcast fun
Casper says he’s had many “crazy experiences” throughout his life, as he admits, “I take a lot of risks that I shouldn’t.” Combined with his joy of writing, he decided to publish a 523-page book titled “Recovering Idiot” in 2015. “If people don’t know me, they don’t believe it happened,” he says of his story. His friends tell them otherwise. He also plans to release it as an audiobook. Casper’s personal experiences of getting his YankATank product to market are also documented in a comedy fiction podcast by the same name, from Voyage Media. He says there’s even hope for a movie.
Hobbies
Casper enjoys playing guitar, but a brake press accident in 2015 damaged two fingers on his left hand, so now he’s “getting by on the piano.” He and his wife, Michelle, have six kids and 18 grandkids.
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