{"id":22690,"date":"2013-07-15T10:35:18","date_gmt":"2013-07-15T14:35:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/?p=22690"},"modified":"2013-07-15T10:35:18","modified_gmt":"2013-07-15T14:35:18","slug":"pipeline-to-power-bes-industrial-service-company-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/2013\/07\/15\/pipeline-to-power-bes-industrial-service-company-of-the-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Pipeline to Power: BE\u2019s Industrial Service Company of the Year"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong>Excerpt<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Purchasing his father\u2019s janitorial business in 1981 and then selling it two years later, Hightower, who attended Wright State University, also powered his entrepreneurial ambitions by building businesses in construction, industrial materials, and the fuel industry. Although his construction company took off immediately, years went by before Hightowers Petroleum broke even, a luxury he was able to indulge in since it wasn\u2019t his only source of income. He was a quick study, discovering that fuel is a commodity producing razor-thin margins while at the same time requiring a heavy outlay in capital.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI had business sense and an ability to articulate it at a very young age,\u201d says Hightower, who had been selling contracts through his father\u2019s janitorial service firm from the age of 18. He used that competitive advantage to help gain his first wholesale fuel contract through a set-aside program that allowed Hightowers an opportunity to enter what was a closed market.<\/p>\n<p>Three years later, in 1985, BP took Hightowers from dealer to distributor status, when the oil giant selected Hightowers to carry jet fuel to various government installations such as the Ohio National Guard.<\/p>\n<p>Read more at\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.blackenterprise.com\/mag\/black-industrial-service-company-of-year-2013\/\" target=\"_blank\">BlackEnterprise.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Excerpt Purchasing his father\u2019s janitorial business in 1981 and then selling it two years later, Hightower, who attended Wright State University, also powered his entrepreneurial ambitions by building businesses in construction, industrial materials, and the fuel industry. Although his construction &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/2013\/07\/15\/pipeline-to-power-bes-industrial-service-company-of-the-year\/\" class=\"morelink\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[714,730],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-for-the-media","category-wright-state-in-the-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22690","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\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22690"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22690\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22693,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22690\/revisions\/22693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}