CLARION, Pa. (EYT) — With over 670 locations in the company that spans all along the eastern United States, Sheetz Store #58, located on East Main Street in Clarion, was announced as the winner of the companywide annual “Bob Sheetz Store of the Year Award.”

(PHOTO ABOVE — Kneeling (from left to right): Gage Minnick, Sheila Vasbinder, Patrick Phillips, and Tony Baker. Standing (from left to right): John Campbell, AVP; Tom Shaffer, District Manager; Terry Allen, Regional Director; Sarah Theiss, Adam Sheetz, Executive VP; Serria Amis, Winter Magrino, Vicki Theiss, Katie Thomas, Jarrett Furnish, Tyler Ohls, Baron Snyder, and Samantha Kuntz.)

The “Bob Sheetz Store of the Year Award” is given to the store within the company which is “the best representation of Bob Sheetz’s vision of what the perfect Sheetz store is.”

Bob Sheetz is the founder of the renowned convenience store chain that was originally founded in 1952 in Altoona, Pa.

“When Bob Sheetz founded this company, he set out to create a store that was centered around something he was really passionate about–taking care of people. And, he wanted to create a place where his customers could quickly and easily get what they needed,” according to Sheetz, Inc. “That was Bob’s goal back in 1952, and that’s still what we strive for today. We exist to make people’s daily lives easier.

“Winning Store of the Year is a true testament to the dream Bob had for this company so many years ago.”

Stores in the running for The Bob Sheetz Store of the Year Award must not only have two years of profitability and sales and a full year of report card metrics, but also a minimum culture score of 5.5 and be top performers in culture, staffing, execution, service, and sales and profitability.

For Katie Thomas, who has been a Sheetz employee for 20 years and the Store Manager of Store #58 for 11 of those 20 years, winning the award is a moment of affirmation.

“To me, when I became a manager and I heard about Bob’s vision for Sheetz (in which) he thought the most important thing was how well you treated your employees, I always felt like my core values aligned with Sheetz’s core values. So, to me, it means everything I ever dreamed or thought of as being a store manager or leader for this company,” Thomas explained.

Thomas said Kitchen Manager Gage Minnick and Hospitality Manager Winter Magrino are a big part of the reason the store was able to win the award.

“I give a huge amount of credit for what we achieved this year to Winter and Gage,” Thomas credited.

“I always tell my management team I can’t be here 24 hours a day, so they need to carry what I, and Sheetz, find important, throughout,” Thomas said. “It starts with me, goes to them (Magrino and Minnick), and then, they need to communicate that with the supervisors and the supervisors to the salespeople. Everybody needs to carry on that same mission. The same goal in mind. They carried the goal I set out for them, and they ran with it.”

When asked what the key factors to their success were, Minnick credited the store’s culture.

“For me personally, I’d say it was definitely working on the store culture part of it,” Minnick said. “Making sure that our employees were being taken care of. Making sure that when they came to work that they enjoyed it.”

“I feel very accomplished with everything and it proves what we all can do here.”

Winter Magrino, who is the Hospitality Manager, echoed Minnick in that sense of accomplishment.

“It’s a huge teaching moment for me; I feel very accomplished with how things have turned out,” Magrino said. “It was a lot of what needs to be done in the correct way and how to do it with the heart, instead of just showing up for work.”

Adam Sheetz–Executive Vice President of Operations and grandson of Sheetz founder Bob Sheetz–was in attendance for the store celebration on Wednesday and commented on the competitive nature within the company.

“We have a lot of very competitive store managers and store employees, and they want to win,” Sheetz commented. “That’s one of the DNA markers of our company–being driven to win. So, we feel it’s important to recognize winners and outstanding performance.”

How the company measures the award involves five main categories–Store Culture, Store Staffing, Store Execution, Store Service, and Store Sales and Profitability.

“We get a report card,” Magrino said.

The report card grades each store on everything from the culture of the store to the sales and profitability. Each store is ranked in 27 different metrics within those categories and the lowest score wins the award.

There was only one store in the entire company that finished with two top fives this year in those overall categories — Store #58, Clarion, scored in the top five in both the Staffing and Execution categories.

Regarding the metrics, Thomas and her team proudly ranked Number One in the entire company for Food Safety Quality Assurance and had a companywide best Culture Score of 6.88 out of 7.

Magrino thought the inclusion of the entire store’s staff in viewing the metrics for the award was vital in the success of the past year.

“I think a big factor of what played into the success this year is that we opened up the store report card, not only to management but to the salespeople, as well, and it showed them that we are all working on a common goal,” Magrino added. “We had every person in the store working towards this goal. Everybody was on the same page and wanted the same thing, so we got the same outcome. Everyone understood the reward for the work that they were putting in.”

[Adam] Sheetz shared his praise for Clarion’s Sheetz store and their achievements: “I know from coming here that this store has had a really good culture and a good crew for a long time, and I’m happy I get to see everybody and meet the ones I haven’t met already and congratulate them–because what they achieved is really special.”