Wawa's Four C's – Customer, Communication, Convenience and Coffee
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| (l to r) Dr. Larry Newman, dean of the College of Business Administration, Wawa CEO Howard Stoeckel and Jonathan Meer, vice president of University Advancement |
Stoeckel, a member of the Rider University Board of Trustees, shared his thoughts on change and every other aspect of business with a capacity crowd inside Sweigart Auditorium on March 13. His appearance, billed as “My Choice, My Wawa,” was sponsored by the Leadership Development Program, the focal point of the Center for the Development of Leadership Skills.
In espousing his tested leadership theories and the Wawa philosophy, Stoeckel said that the Wawa chain, first founded in 1803 and incorporated in 1865 as the Millville Manufacturing Company, exists to “simplify our customers’ lives,” a purpose that apparently rings true with consumers. Each year, Wawa sells 195 million cups of coffee, 92 million quarts of its own dairy products, juices and teas, and serves in excess of 400 million customers. Stoeckel said that while he realizes the competition is always trying to close the gap, Wawa and its customers enjoy a deep mutual appreciation, something he sees as the extension of the company’s belief that “quality drives quantity.”
Stoeckel detailed Wawa’s evolution from a textile manufacturer to a convenience store with more than 16,000 associates across five states. At various points in between, the they even produced cannonballs and fire hydrants, he said, but the one constant was that a member of the Wood family sat atop the company’s structure for 200 years. Upon being named CEO in 2004, Stoeckel became the first non-Wood to run Wawa, but he is resolute about maintaining the outfit’s family-first values.
“At Wawa, the most important people are our associates, the people who work in the stores” he explained. “I work for them. My job is to support the 16,000 people who deliver the Wawa brand experience.”
During his college days at Rider, heading up a $6 billion company would have seemed unlikely for Stoeckel, by his own admission. “Someone once asked me what my claim to fame was,” he recalled. “I thought for a moment and said that my only claim to fame was that I only found out two weeks before my high school graduation that I was going to march.”
Stoeckel went on to say that as a student at nearby Hamilton High School West, he was more concerned with baseball than schoolwork. At Rider, he remained an unspectacular student, graduating with the Class of 1967, again, he said, without total certainty beforehand.
“So how did I become a CEO?” Stoeckel asked. “Through leadership. I’m learning more today than I ever have that good leaders are great communicators.” He continued to say that it’s necessary to challenge yourself if you’re going to succeed, and that true success can be measured by the amount of joy your work brings you.
“Be unafraid to fail and you’ll undoubtedly succeed,” he said. “I’ve had what seemed like pretty good jobs, but I didn’t love what I did. There were jobs I hated. So, I figured that if I was that miserable, I’d quit and find someplace where I could find the love.”
He did at Wawa, and enjoyed a career as an executive at various levels before being entrusted with the company’s future. To Stoeckel, the fit could not be any better. “If you’re lucky, your personal DNA matches the company DNA,” he said.
As for the future he says you can expect Wawa to keep changing. For instance, Stoeckel said that Wawa no longer erects stores were it can not also include a Wawa gas station as part of the facility, and that customers have indicated that they want one-stop convenience for all kinds of fuel – personal and automobile. The facts bear this out.
“We have passed Hess, Sunoco and ExxonMobil in every market where we have fuel,” said Stoeckel, who added that Wawa gasoline accounts for 1 percent of all fuel sold in the United States.
But even as he eyes developments like going green and the possibility of text-messaging sandwich orders to stores, Stoeckel believes that ultimately, Wawa’s success depends on not losing its focus on doing the things you do well.
“Keep things simple,” he said. “The more complicated things are, the more likely you are to fail.”
Submitted on March 28, 2008
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