Page 6 - June 2023

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 ›
4 • KING AIR MAGAZINE
JUNE 2023
After purchasing the King Air F90, 5-blade MT props and an all Garmin panel, including the Engine Information System (EIS), was added.