{"id":21691,"date":"2013-05-22T13:07:25","date_gmt":"2013-05-22T17:07:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/?p=21691"},"modified":"2017-04-11T15:54:30","modified_gmt":"2017-04-11T19:54:30","slug":"hightowers-petroleum-named-company-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/2013\/05\/22\/hightowers-petroleum-named-company-of-the-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Hightowers Petroleum Company of the Year"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_21694\" style=\"width: 470px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/2013\/05\/22\/hightowers-petroleum-named-company-of-the-year\/8782-denise-robinow-steve-hightower-for-wsu-magazine-6-1-12-2\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-21694\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-21694\" class=\"size-large wp-image-21694\" src=\"http:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/files\/2013\/05\/8782-721-465x700.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"460\" height=\"692\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-21694\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Stephen Hightower credits much of his business success to communication abilities he developed while a student at Wright State University from 1974 to 1978. Majoring in management and communications, Hightower took part in speaking competitions that sharpened skills he would later use to build business relationships and sell his products and services.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Hightowers Petroleum Co., headed by Wright State Foundation board member Stephen Hightower, was named <em>Black Enterprise\u2019s<\/em> Industrial Service Company of the Year.<\/p>\n<p>The honor was announced May 16 at the 2013 Black Enterprise Entrepreneurs Conference in Columbus, Ohio.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe CEOs of our Companies of the Year are among our nation\u2019s most outstanding entrepreneurs,\u201d said Earl \u201cButch\u201d Graves Jr., president and CEO of <em>Black Enterprise<\/em> magazine. \u201cThey set a standard of achievement to which all of our Entrepreneurs Conference attendees aspire.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The $300 million, Middletown, Ohio-based Hightowers Petroleum has grown by more than 25 percent a year over the past three years. The company is flourishing among the Goliaths of Big Oil, and counts Kroger, Ford Motor Co., Duke Energy, AK Steel and General Motors as customers.<\/p>\n<p>Hightower credits much of his business success to communication abilities he developed while a student at Wright State University from 1974 to 1978. Majoring in management and communications, Hightower took part in speaking competitions that sharpened skills he would later use to build business relationships and sell his products and services.<\/p>\n<p>Read more\u00a0about Stephen Hightower in the fall 2012 <a href=\"http:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/community\/2012\/fuel-efficient\/\">Wright State University Magazine<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hightowers Petroleum Co., headed by Wright State Foundation board member Stephen Hightower, was named Black Enterprise\u2019s Industrial Service Company of The Year. <a href=\"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/2013\/05\/22\/hightowers-petroleum-named-company-of-the-year\/\" class=\"morelink\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":21693,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[733,4299,725,715,719],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-alumni-profile","category-home-news-sidebar","category-news","category-special-categories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21691"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45046,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21691\/revisions\/45046"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}