After a long drive on the highway, motorists might need to take a break, grab a snack or buy supplies when they stop for gas. Tom Love made them a home away from home.
Love (1937-2023) created a retail concept that combined grocery and convenience store formats with fuel stops. The new idea addressed a need. And it built a multibillion-dollar company — Love's Travel Stops & Country Stores — around it.
Under Tom Love's leadership as founder and executive chairman, Love's grew into the nation's leading travel stop network and an outstanding financial performer. In 2022, Love's Travel Stops & Country Stores was worth $9.7 billion, according to Forbes.
At the time of Tom Love's death, the company had more than 39,000 employees and operated about 600 travel stops in 42 states. It generated an estimated $25.5 billion in annual sales. Since then, the store count has grown to over 640 travel stops.
That's some feat considering Love started his journey as an entrepreneur and retailer because he needed money to pay the bills.
Start Small
Love built his empire from the ground up. In 1964, Love and his wife Judy used a $5,000 loan from family to lease an abandoned service station in Watonga, Okla.
"I had just gotten out of the service, was married, had two very small kids and no job," Love told American Trucker, according to a 2018 article in FleetOwner. "I leased it on the cheap and that's how we got started. That location was not a Love's store. It was just a very low-grade filling station."
It didn't stay that way for long. "Yesterday's trophies don't win tomorrow's games," Love used to say.
See A Bigger Vision
As time went on, Love used his talent as a visionary, and entrepreneurial instincts, to establish his country store concept. In 1972, Love's opened what the company says was the first combination grocery-convenience store in the nation with a gas station in Guymon, Okla.
Based in Oklahoma City, Love's provides professional truck drivers and motorists with 24-hour access to clean and safe places to buy gasoline, diesel fuel, fresh coffee and food. And it remains family-owned and operated.
Love had leadership qualities that propelled him on the path to success as an entrepreneur and retailer.
"He was a very optimistic, positive person," said Jenny Love Meyer, Tom Love's daughter, who is the chief culture officer and executive vice president of Love's Travel Stops & Country Stores. "He was confident in others and when you are confident in others, they have confidence in themselves."
Tap Your Skills
And Love shined as a leader. He was a smart visionary, who always imagined the next thing. Love wanted to know what the company could do better, she says. He built strong ties with customers, employees and vendors.
Love knew a positive attitude plus good relationships with people was the winning combination, says Love Meyer.
"Whether it was with business partners and team members in our local stores or customers, those relationships enabled him to know ideas and opportunities and identify ways we could get better," Love Meyer told Investor's Business Daily. "People saw the confidence he had and the way he approached the business. That gave him confidence in the company."
Focus On The Customer
Love made sure five core values that mirrored his own beliefs drove the company. Those values are: focus on the customer in everything, integrity in day-to-day actions, a strong work ethic, creating new opportunities through innovative thinking and perseverance.
Love's dissatisfaction with the way things were drove him. He constantly strived to do things better. "He was always willing to challenge the status quo," said Lisa Mullings, CEO and president of NATSO, the organization representing travel centers and truck stops.
Know Your Customer
Love's initially focused on the truck driver. But, Tom Love saw he could help other drivers, too. He was willing to make changes and shake up what drivers usually saw off the freeway, says Mullings, who met Love in 2000.
In 1981, nine years after opening Love's first country store, Love's opened its first travel stop catering to professional truck drivers and the motoring public. Both found convenience and efficiency traveling across the country on Interstate 40 in Amarillo, Texas. Throughout the decades, Love's has expanded to include hot and fresh food items, truck care maintenance and warm showers.
Success followed. Love's has been on a "huge growth trajectory," said Mullings. "That comes from … his (Tom Love's) ability to serve the customer and see what the future needs of the customers are before they (the customers) did."
He knew how to retool when things changed. "When the oil embargo hit in the 1970s they (Love's) were concerned," said Mullings. "But instead of seeing the sky falling, he (Tom Love) saw the opportunity to add another value, which was food. It was very much that he was able to take the challenge and make it an opportunity. That was very much Tom."
Put In The Extra Effort
Love's work ethic is legendary.
Once, he was working in Colorado. It was so cold that while Love was doing business using a pay phone, the receiver froze to his ear, recalls Love Meyer.
Willingness to put in the effort turned Love into a great retailer. "How he got to be a great retailer started with the natural curiosity and drive to be better every day," said Love Meyer.
Love learned on the job. He found the way to help build his stores was to use customer and employee feedback. From the early days until around 10 years ago he would go into store locations learning from the store teams and locals, says Love Meyer.
Enhance And Improve
Love explored how to do things better. He'd go into competitors' stores and talk with people there. Such competitive insights sparked new ideas for Love's.
Love built lasting customer relationships by using a basic form of market intelligence — talking and listening to customers. Early on, he'd go into stores and talk with customers to find out what they liked and didn't like, says Love Meyer.
His market intelligence in recent times was aimed at finding out "how are we doing and what is Love's doing for you?" she says.
Trust Your Talent
Love also fostered confidence in his own talent. He knew what he was good at and what he wasn't good at. To help "mitigate the gaps" he hired people who knew merchandising better than he did in the 70s and the 80s.
Tom Love's approach to leadership was to "hire the right people, enable them to do their job (and) get out of their way," said Love Meyer.
Love credited the company's success to employees. "The people piece of the business is key to the success of the business," Tom Love once said.
Help Others Succeed
Love received many accolades for his leadership. A Chickasaw citizen, he was inducted into the Chickasaw Hall of Fame in 2019 and the Oklahoma Hall of Fame in 2000.
But he didn't go the extra mile to win awards. He simply trusted people's abilities and encouraged them to succeed.
"Regardless of who you were he saw something in you," said Love Meyer. "Using what he found he put people in roles where they would be successful and gave them the free rein to do the jobs to be successful."
Love Meyer said her father encouraged her, too. After she graduated college, Love encouraged her to work somewhere else first. If she was still interested in working at Love's, she should come back. Love Meyer returned to Love's. In 1998, she ran Love's communications team and in 2019, she became its first chief culture officer.
Be The Example Of Excellence
Love drove the family business by example.
"It was how he showed up and respected people, regardless of their position," said Love Meyer. "That fueled our culture. Even through the (tough economic times) of the 1980s he retained people in the business, and they worked hard because of him and how he treated them."
Tom Love's Keys
- Founded Love's Travel Stops & Country Stores in 1964.
- Overcame: Risk in building a retail company from scratch and launching a new store format in a highly competitive industry.
- Lesson: "Yesterday's trophies don't win tomorrow's games."
