New Member Profile Snapshot

PetroChoice LLC

(219) 699-0274 www.petrochoice.com

by Meta L. Levin

PetroChoice™ Lubrication and Fuel

Solutions is exemplified by an email sent by Robert Crowe, Director of Fuel Operations. “Our success starts with our staff and industry leading products,” it says in part.

Ticking off those who Crowe believes have made the company successful and able to grow, he lists: drivers, warehouse employees and sales people.

“Without our drivers, things don’t happen here,” he says. The drivers are the face of the company to customers. “Our drivers help personalize the company to our customers,” he says, adding that they often are the ones who notice a problem first and report it, so that it can be addressed immediately, “sometimes before the customers themselves are aware of it.”

He pays tribute to the warehouse employees, because they are primarily responsible for maintaining the product’s integrity. It is, he says, “only as good as the way it is handled.” Warehouse employees oversee inventory, repackaging, loading the trucks correctly and, in some cases, remixing, since PetroChoice blends some of its own line of lubricants.

The salespeople are given “a lot of flexibility and can achieve personal goals,” says Crowe. He believes they respond well to that it is part of the reason the company does well.

PetroChoice was founded in the late 1940s as Boncosky Oil, a lubricant and fuel oil company based in Elgin, IL. “In the 1940s there was a large need for home heating oil and machine lubricants,” says Crowe, an Elgin native, who grew up living on Boncosky Road.

It has grown through mergers, acquisitions and a relationship with Exxon Mobil Oil, becoming, says Crowe, the largest Exxon Mobil Oil distributor in the United States. “Exxon Mobile is a valued name,” he says.

In 2006 the original company merged with four others to form PetroLiance, which, in 2014, was bought by PetroChoice. In May 2022 MOOVE acquired the company. It will, says Crowe, continue to do business as PetroChoice.

The company has done business in the landscape market for a long time and has many longtime customers. “Landscape contractors require fuel and oils for their equipment,” he says. In Illinois they serve their landscape customers out of the Elgin location, as well as through their Crown Point, IN facility. There are 10 sales representatives covering the Chicago area, northern Indiana and southeastern Wisconsin alone.

In 2022 they decided to join ILCA. “We wanted to support our landscape customers,” says Dennis Hyde, Regional Sales Manager. “The landscape industry is a large part of what we do.”

Crowe already was familiar with ILCA from his time working for Hicks Gas, which had a booth at iLandscape. It is, he says, “a good show.”

Crowe and Hyde believe much of their growth can be attributed to an emphasis on customer service. “We focus on creating long term sustainable relationships with our customers,” says Hyde. “We understand their challenges.”

It is, says Crowe, “all about finding solutions,” whether about equipment, delivery schedules or the full line of products they provide.

It is also about the employees. “They’re happy,” says Crowe. From postings on an internal PetroChoice website, he sees that “they enjoy what they do. We provide an environment in which people can set goals and achieve them.”

Before joining PetroChoice, Crowe was in the propane distribution business, but “things changed during COVID,” he says, and he came to work for PetroChoice. Since he grew up in Elgin, he remembers driving past the facility from the time he was in high school. Throughout his career his focus has always been on customer service, something that drew him to PetroChoice.

Crowe has three adult children and three grandchildren, with whom he enjoys spending time. They help him get the most out of life, he says.

Hyde is a US Army Veteran. Born in Texas, he moved to the Chicago area in 2010. He is married with two children – an eightyear-old daughter and four-year-old son.

With a wire and cable background, he likes to work with people who are “out there working with their hands. This varied industry is exciting to me.”