BEN BATY SHARES WHAT HE LEARNED AT TARLETON 70 YEARS AGO

It was a spring afternoon in the late 1940s, and as Ben Baty walked from Tarleton’s campus to his home east of the Bosque River, a thunderous rainstorm struck. When he reached the bridge, which was being rebuilt, he faced a decision: walk across it or detour and go a longer distance.

As he balanced on a slick, narrow beam above the roiling river, Baty realized his choice was risky.

But he persevered and returned to classes the next morning.

“I had a burning desire to be somebody and accomplish something,” Baty, the son of a pastor, later recalled. “Tarleton was the only opportunity I had to go to college, and professors gave me a gift—the understanding that I could achieve my goals. They instilled in me that I could be successful and that hard work, drive and determination would be key.”

The bridge decision is telling.

A certain tenacity, courage of conviction and willingness to take risks have marked Baty’s days.

Now 87, he served in Tarleton’s Corps of Cadets and Wainwright Rifle Drill Team as a student and graduated from Texas A&M as a distinguished cadet with a degree in marketing.

Following a tour of duty in the Army, he joined Shell Oil Co. His perseverance as a marketing executive for 38 years earned him the nickname “Bulldog.”

His Shell career featured a succession of assignments of increasing responsibility that moved him, wife Nellie and their two children to locations all over the country. In the early 1970s, Shell appointed Baty director of a new department, Strategic Planning and Research.

Shell executives charged Baty and his team with developing a strategy to increase the company’s market share of national gasoline sales and vault Shell from the middle of the pack to No. 1, all while increasing return on investment. This came against a backdrop of fundamental changes occurring in the business, including improved automobile design and drivers who preferred speediness over service. “My perception was that customers wanted convenience,”

Baty said. “Faster get-in and get-out. Despite the fact that prices were lower, convenience was their major reason for preferring self-serve gas.”

Nellie and Ben Baty

Marketing research confirmed Baty’s observations about a growing synergism between gasoline sales and convenience food sales. On a visit to South Carolina, he watched customers gas up at an independent self-serve station and then wait in line for several minutes to pay. That moment, he had a revelation.

“I thought, ‘Holy cow! Could we create an automatic pay dispenser to speed up the convenience of self-serve?’”

Shell’s technology experts found a way to make Baty’s pay-at-the-pump idea a reality. Next, he and his staff developed a cost-effective strategy to reposition Shell’s full-service stations as convenience stores with self-serve gas and card readers at the pumps.

Tests in three markets scored phenomenal results, but Shell was hesitant to change.

Then Baty made a presentation to the directors, and soon the company approved a plan to convert up to 75 percent of its stations. When fully implemented in the mid-1980s, Shell became the top marketer of gasoline in the country.

After retirement from Shell, Baty became executive vice president of an international company doing business in 100 countries. In 2000 he established his own consulting business.

He and Nellie have moved for the 30th and last time, returning to Stephenville, where they devote their expertise to the university. Baty is a Tarleton Distinguished Alumnus and former president of the Tarleton Foundation, Inc. and the Alumni Association. He is a member of the College of Business Advisory Board and regularly meets with student groups. “When I speak to students, I focus on what I learned at Tarleton 70 years ago,” he said. “Be sure you have goals and never lose enthusiasm for the pursuit of excellence.”