Jeff Stewart is the third generation of his family to run Blue Star Gas, and he’s the third generation to be a pilot. He can be credited, though, with being the first to build the family’s propane business around aviation.
Using business aviation has propelled Blue Star Gas from 38 employees with five locations when he joined the family business in 1996 to 200 employees and 16 locations today. The company is based in Santa Rosa, California, and operates a fleet of four aircraft: 1990 Beechcraft King Air B200, 1979 King Air F90, 1956 Cessna 180 and 1969 Cessna 206. Stewart said they considered themselves a Cessna family until realizing in 2018 the versatility and dispatch reliability the King Airs could bring to their operations.
Here’s our interview with Stewart, the president of Blue Star Gas, the incoming chair of the National Propane Gas Association, a 10,000-hour pilot, a husband and a father of four.
Your grandfather Paul Stewart was a barnstormer in Kansas in 1918. How did he come to buy a small utility in northern California?
My grandfather grew up in southeast Kansas, flew a Curtiss Jenny as a barnstormer and used his earnings to help pay for an education at Stanford University. That’s how my family came to California. He started a stock brokerage firm in San Francisco in 1926 and the company survived the Great Depression with work in the securities business, including underwriting for Pacific Gas and Electric. He was astonished at how the utility was able to service their debt throughout the depression. Coming from the Midwest, that appealed to him so he decided that he wanted to be in the utility business.
In 1946, he bought Garberville Gas, a small utility about 200 miles north of San Francisco that had been providing propane sales, equipment and related services to customers since 1938. They rebranded it Blue Star Gas soon after buying it. He never worked in the business, he worked his career in the brokerage firm and my dad ran Blue Star Gas before me.
Are there other family members involved in the business and possibly a fourth generation interested?
My wife Samantha Stewart is director of wholesale and my cousin Alex Gallard is our in-house counsel. As for a fourth generation, the short answer is: we’ll see. I have four children aged 8 to 25. My two oldest, both daughters, are working elsewhere which is a requirement within our family. You must have a master’s degree and you must have worked elsewhere before joining the family business. That approach was established by my grandfather.
Tell us about the business.
Blue Star Gas is a traditional propane distribution business in that we serve residential, commercial and industrial customers and can provide product for any use they have. In addition, we also have two significant divisions: one that focuses on power generation (backup and prime power) and another that focuses on fleet conversions to propane from gasoline usage. Each market is different and has a different mix of customers and uses, but we will engage in all of these services at any of our locations.
We have 16 locations or markets in California, Oregon, Washington, Utah and Arizona that serve 30 counties in those states. Fourteen of those markets span from the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco to the Canadian border. Our other two locations are Salt Lake City, Utah, and Phoenix, Arizona, so we operate in a perfect 600-mile arc from our home office/base of Santa Rosa, California, to Seattle, Salt Lake City and Phoenix.
Why is aviation important to the business?
We operate in rural propane country, places where there is either none or no practical commercial air service. We accomplish things with aviation that simply could never be done otherwise, and we do that every week to grow and foster the business.
We have owned a hot air balloon for 15 years, albeit far slower than a King Air, it also has its mission. It is operated by Wine Country Balloons to fly their passengers over the Russian River wine country multiple times per week. The balloon is part of our brand recognition in our home office market of Sonoma County, and it has been tremendously effective.
Although you were a family of pilots, you didn’t always use aircraft for business, though, right?
Besides my grandfather, my father and uncle both flew, too, so I am also a third-generation pilot in my family. My wife is taking her private check ride next month to become the first female pilot among the family. I grew up in my father’s Cessna 180 and 140. I was my father’s “autopilot” at age 8; I learned to fly instruments as that was all I could see.
My father started flying occasionally for business with our 1956 Cessna 180 in 1964 along the California coast from Crescent City to Santa Rosa, when our home office was Garberville, California (O16). There is a tremendous amount of inclement weather on the northern coast of California and the 180 wasn’t the right equipment for daily operation out of that airport.
I got my private ticket in 1987 and after working in management consulting and receiving my MBA I joined the business in 1996. Blue Star had 38 employees at that time and five locations. The first year I drove 48,000 miles, and I asked myself why I was doing this. I got my instrument ticket, bought a Cessna P210 and began flying 400-500 hours a year to our operations and for industry meetings. We then bought a Cessna 421, then a second 421 because I realized one couldn’t run that aircraft 600 hours a year due to maintenance requirements.
Tell us about the current Blue Star Gas fleet and how the King Air aircraft are used.
We ran the two Cessna 421s for 10 years, and in 2018 we sold both and bought a King Air B200 and a King Air F90. We have always been a Cessna family, we still have the 1956 Cessna 180 and we also have a Cessna 206. We chose the King Airs because of the support and parts availability rather than the Conquest family that we considered.
I have flown 9,800 hours and will be surpassing 10,000 hours in the next couple of months. Approximately 60 hours a year of my flying is in the Idaho backcountry in the 180. I enjoy fly fishing and am able to access great fishing in the Middle Fork of Salmon River drainage about 20 days a year. I host some weekends with friends and we utilize our 206 as well for those long weekend trips with large groups. All four aircraft are used for business missions depending on the number of passengers and range required for the trip.
Both King Airs have been terrific platforms in growing our business. We use the B200 for longer trips, which include industry meetings around the country as well as transporting employees in and out of our training center on the Oregon coast. The F90 is used for the weekly “milk run” to the Northwest primarily. We will leave on Monday or Tuesday morning at 0700 and make five quick turns to drop off or pick up and then drop employees as far north as Seattle. Then on Thursday or Friday afternoon we pick everyone up and get them home for the weekend. We move team members in functional areas of safety, management, sales, auditing, legal as well as specialists like generator technicians, traveling service technicians or drivers to reposition equipment throughout our footprint.
Tell us more about the two King Airs you’re currently operating.
We acquired our F90, N128JP, in 2018 as well as our first B200. The F90 had the American Aviation ram air modification at purchase. We have added 5-bladed MT props, an all Garmin panel including the Engine Information System (no more analog round dials). We have redone the interior and carpet as well.
We sold our first B200 with -42 engines, and concurrently in 2020 bought N222CY that we are flying today. That aircraft has the wingtip extensions with BLR Aerospace winglets, -61 engines and the G1000 NXi avionics suite and wing lockers. We spend a lot of time at FL 350 where we typically burn less than 500 lbs all in, or 70 gallons an hour. We can comfortably fly just over six hours and achieve 1,900-2,000 nautical miles with a modest tailwind of 30-40 knots. Regular nonstop routes include Santa Rosa, California, to Manassas, Virginia; Asheville, North Carolina; or Destin, Florida. If winds are not too strong, Dallas to Santa Rosa is doable. It has also flown the city pair of Garberville to Phoenix Sky Harbor. The B200 is incredibly versatile.
How have the King Air aircraft supported growth of Blue Star Gas?
We really have built the business around aircraft. We are able to move people to support and grow the business into all of our markets to develop them, and then hire behind as demand materializes to support the headcount financially. It is a formula that we continue to do in waves as opportunities present themselves. This allows us to be very opportunistic but also focused and disciplined. The aircraft allow us to have much more face time with employees than we otherwise would, and business aviation allows us to maintain our company culture and achieve the high level of safety we maintain.
We built our whole Autogas fleet business with our aircraft. We are part of a national group called Alliance Autogas and we support customers in seven western states, including locations where we don’t even have operations. We will fly to visit a prospect, advance the sale process to conclusion, then perform system design and permitting as needed. When it comes time for the installation we will dispatch trucks and personnel for the infrastructure installation, and then we select another propane company to make the actual deliveries to our equipment. We maintain ownership of the equipment and billing relationship with the customer. The approach works for all parties concerned. This simply could not be done without the aircraft. We have deployed this model in Tillamook, Oregon; Flagstaff, Prescott and Tucson, Arizona; as well as Burley, Idaho, and Moses Lake and Pasco, Washington.
How does the company manage flight operations?
We have a chief pilot, Byron Barnes, who flies about 50% of the 900 hours a year we fly in the King Airs combined. I fly the balance to meetings that I attend or industry meetings. Starting in June 2023, I become Chair of the National Propane Gas Association and will be using our B200 to travel all over the country to state industry meetings. Being based on the West Coast, that will likely be 250 hours of flying alone.
You’ve also recently started flying the B200 for philanthropic missions. Tell me about your involvement with Canine Companions for Independence (CCI), a national organization that enhances the lives of people with disabilities by providing highly trained service dogs at no charge to the recipient.
I began flying for CCI during COVID when the airlines shut down the live animal transport programs that CCI relied on to move their animals. Myself and three other pilots moved many dogs that were waiting at the breeding center. I have delivered over 150 puppies around the country including Seattle, San Diego, Great Falls, Boise, Denver, Columbus, Dallas, Orlando and Manassas. The most I have had on board was 16 pups; their genetics are so strong to be focused and docile that they are the best passengers I fly!
The King Air is a wonderful platform with the flexibility of easily removing a portion of the interior for crates and having dividers to muffle yelps if needed, which is rare. CCI continues to utilize private aircraft for transportation. The experience for the dogs is so much less stressful than commercial flights. All the same reasons that we like private aviation are the same reasons they will continue to use private aviation. We continue to fly pups in conjunction with business trips we are taking.
As Blue Star continues to grow, are you finding any limitations with the B200?
We have grown a lot, and certainly that growth has been supported going from the 421s to the King Airs. Our organic growth target is 12% to 15% every year of new customers within our footprint. The goal is to double the company every six years and we’ve been doing that for a long time.
With that growth, we are finding ourselves with eight people more frequently and sometimes we have a need for even more than the eight who can fit in the 200. A 350 certainly would fit the bill someday. When we do grow into a larger airplane, it’ll be a King Air absolutely. For the areas that we operate in and the airports that we go into, the King Airs are absolutely the right fit for what we’re doing.