Be Sure With Pure
Approaching 20 years as a Cooperative, and 100 years as a leading independent American petroleum brand.
Two new board members join the ranks to fill unexpired terms
Hardy Peacock and Craig Lynch now representing Districts 1 and 4, respectively
Craig Lynch (second from left) of Lynch Oil in Kissimmee and Ocala, Florida, is a new PURE Co-op board member representing District 4.
When their PURE Co-op needed them to step forward to fill the unexpired terms of two board members this year, they were more than willing to accept these leadership roles.
Hardy Peacock, President of Cleveland County Oil Company and P&W Oil Company, Inc. in Rison and Dumas, Arkansas, respectively, and Craig Lynch, of Lynch Oil in Kissimmee, Florida, are the two newest members of the PURE Co-op board of directors. Peacock fills the unexpired term of PURE board member Tommy White, representing the Co-op’s District 1, while Lynch fills the unexpired term of long-time PURE member Bob Oliver, representing the Co-op’s District 4.
Hardy Peacock (far left in photo below right) joined the jobber business in 1973, when he purchased a share in P&W Oil Company, an operation he owned entirely by 1981. P&W Oil was one of the first PURE customers in the state of Arkansas, says Peacock, who transferred the PURE membership from P&W Oil Company in Dumas, Arkansas to Cleveland County Oil Company in Rison, because of an opportunity to bring the PURE brand to this untapped market.
With 36 years of experience in the industry, including service as a past president of the Arkansas Oil Marketers Association, Peacock notes the challenges of managing an evolving business.
“I’m not sure if I have 36 years of experience, or one year of experience 36 different times,” he says. “What we do now bears little resemblance to what we did when we first started.”
The rationale for his joining the PURE Co-op dates back to 1976, when P&W Oil and Cleveland county Oil were AMOCO jobbers, only to lose this sole supplier when the major oil company announced they were getting out of Arkansas.
“My orientation back then was to get with a major oil company, but after that, I vowed to never be caught with a single supplier again.”
Hardy says he is excited about the direction of the Co-op, to improve its leverage as a group of petroleum marketers who should be able to negotiate better contracts for supply and other services. He calls the cooperative buying power of a group like PURE “the new paradigm for the future of oil jobbers.”
Craig Lynch says Lynch Oil Company has a strong sense of commitment to their customers, employees, and community, evident in his company’s 99.8% reliability rating for assuring customers don’t ever run out of fuel, even with more than 3,000 deliveries per month throughout central Florida.
Founded in 1969, Lynch Oil is a petroleum wholesale distributor for Shell, Chevron, Pennzoil, and Quaker State lubricants, as well as being a PURE oil jobber. This year Lynch Oil celebrates its 40th anniversary, currently employing more than 30 professionals, working out of two warehouses, with a fleet of 16 trucks serving 16 counties.
Lynch Oil customers range from golf courses to hotels; from attractions to construction; from agriculture to governmental agencies; and from general commercial to industrial companies. The company provides tank fills, equipment fills, fleet fueling, bulk oil and grease, packaged lubricants and grease productions, as well as tanks and accessories.
As for the direction of the PURE Co-op, Craig notes that jobbers need additional supply sources to remain competitive in a changing environment.
“With PURE, we have another supply source in our arsenal,” he says.
Media contact:
Chris Wood, Ph.D.
770-757-1681 (cell)
jcwood@uga.edu (email)
Tagged: pure oil jobbers cooperative, pure branding, pure coop board members