Two out of four images on Koch Industries Inc.’s website feature a woman. One appears to be building something, while another, decked out in protective gear, is standing in front of a wall of oil barrels, her picture a link to “rewarding careers.”
The petroleum industry was very different when Liz McKinley, founder of Huntington Beach-based fuel distributor Pinnacle Petroleum Inc., went for a job interview at Wichita, Kan.-based Koch in 1981. The company, executives said, would provide on-the-job training—she’d start out as a scheduler and work toward becoming a commodity trader.
“It sounded so glamorous for a girl from Stillwater, Oklahoma,” she said. “So I took the job, and it was not until I got there that I realized I was the only woman.”
She said she doesn’t know why Koch chose to take the gender plunge but that afterward it hired another woman and has had a healthy mix ever since.
The situation wasn’t new only for McKinley but also for her co-workers. She said she made sure they were comfortable around her, and felt “like they could play their frat games, joke around and give each other trouble like they would without me there.”
She recalled, “It wasn’t just a new job and a new city, it was a whole new cultural immersion.” Being one of the guys also meant ample opportunity to advance. “The Kochs treated me very well … I had amazing responsibilities at a very young age. I think that set me off on a pathway to feeling confident that I could do pretty much whatever I set my mind to.”
And she has.
Firmer Footing
After opening an office for Koch in Birmingham, Ala., McKinley moved on to work as a commodities trader at other fuel companies. The job was rewarding but stressful—you were only as good as your last trade.
She instead pivoted to wholesale distribution and established and ran what she says was a successful division for her last employer.
“I felt I had a real knack because it’s a relationship-based sale, and it’s a long-term sale,” McKinley said.
Shortly afterward, the owner sold the company, and in the process failed to honor its promise of an annual bonus to its workforce.
“They say, ‘hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,’” McKinley said. “I had made a ton of money for the company, and I just thought, ‘That’s crazy, I’m out of here.’ I quit and took some of my customers with me.”
She launched Pinnacle Petroleum in 1985, running it with three employees from her home in Huntington Beach for about six years.
“I had the copy machine in the bathtub, and we were all jammed in this little room, but I didn’t really want us to get an office because I enjoyed being home where the kids were after school,” she said. “We finally got to the point where we couldn’t all sit together anymore, and I had to get an outside office.”
McKinley had few peers in the field at the time and plenty of skeptics.
“Most of our competitors started out three generations ago,” she said. “And, of course, most of them are men—there’s only a couple of female distributorships in the United States. I had calls from people saying they just didn’t think I could do it. And … they weren’t saying it to be mean; they were just matter-of-fact telling me that this isn’t going to work.
“At that point, I wasn’t going to fail,” she said, meaning the detractors motivated her.
Big Break
McKinley grew Pinnacle Petroleum’s revenue, which today is just under $200 million, supported by a staff of 22. The firm operates as a wholesaler-distributor—it buys fuel from refiners and sells to end-user accounts, such as government agencies and commercial fleets; several customers are Fortune 100 companies. Its revenue is tied to the price of fuel, while its sales volume has increased steadily over the past 24 years, she said.
Pinnacle also provides a fuel hedging service. A big break came in the late 1990s, when McKinley secured a contract with construction companies building three dams for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MET). The project required excavation of tens of millions of cubic yards of soil, performed using more than 100 bulldozers, loaders and dump trucks.
“We hedged their fuel costs, saving them a ton of money,” she said. “That wasn’t something that they had done at a wholesale level before. And I could do that because of my trading background … Those were huge deals for us, and that was basically how we catapulted the business to the next level.”
Diversification
Pinnacle formed a partnership this year with U.S. Bank to provide a company-branded fuel and service-station credit card for commercial and government fleets. It’s a new source of revenue that McKinley hopes to grow.
Her daughter Maddie, a graduate of the University of Southern California, joined the business last year after a stint at Fox International as marketing manager.
“We’re hoping to be a generational business enterprise,” McKinley said.
Her advice to Maddie and other women considering a career in the petroleum industry?
“I think the very most important thing for success is grit and stick-to-itiveness,” she said. “I tell my kids and my employees all the time that hard work always pays off. It may not be a linear process, but if you just keep plugging away at it, you’re eventually going to be successful. To get knocked down and get back up again requires grit.
That’s true, in my mind, for anything in life.”
