Allen Moore died May 25 from injuries sustained in a fall. He had retired from his position as the executive director of the BP Amoco Marketers Association (BPAMA) four years ago. A professional association exec, Allen came to what was then the BP Oil Marketers Association (BPOMA) as its third exec in 1992. He took over from Bert Frost, a former Gulf Oil marketing vice president, and made BPAMA into the nation’s largest direct member-jobber association with almost 500 members. He began his job knowing little about the petroleum marketing business, but as a skilled professional association executive, he was quickly able to overcome that lack. He had a special gift for meeting management. It allowed him to put on some of the more spectacular, fun conventions that I have ever attended. From Banff Springs to Coronado Island, from London to Nashville, Allen’s meetings were always fun and memorable.
Allen’s passing caused me to reflect upon the fact that BPAMA’s history tells a lot about the evolution of the petroleum marketing business during the last 35 years. Allen’s predecessor, Bert Frost, had taken the association from its roots as one representing Gulf consignees. He watched over name changes from the Southern Gulf Oil Distributors Association to the Gulf Oil Wholesale Marketers Association, to the BP Oil Marketers Association and, finally (or at least for today), BPAMA.
SGODA had been founded in Tennessee in 1974 to redress an oversight in the then-new Federal Energy Office’s (later the FEA and then the DOE) price and allocation regulatory scheme. This oversight was that the 700 Gulf, 1,100 Amoco, 500 Arco and 400 Unocal commissioned wholesalers (and a few others) had no place in the new regulatory scheme. Their existence was simply not recognized. The organization’s founding was spearheaded by Tennessee Gulf consignees Charlie Canter, Joe Downey and others. They traveled to Washington to get the government to fix the problem. They sought the help of the National Oil Jobbers Council (now PMAA) through its commission wholesaler committee.
Along the way, the handful of tiny Southeastern wholesale consignees transformed into hundreds of large, mostly multi-branded, jobbers not only in the South, but in the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest as well. BPAMA’s current exec, John Kleine, a former Amoco marketing official, took the association Allen handed off to him to an even higher level. During Allen’s tenure, the association was able to convince its supplier to become a member. With BP having two nonvoting members of the BPAMA Board, the collaborative is, I believe, the strongest in the industry. Not that the sides always agree. Oftentimes, they disagree strongly. But they do work together very closely for the common good.
SGODA’s first executive director, an ex-admiral named Ed King, worked with Tennessee congressional contacts and NOJC to get this regulatory oversight fixed. Out of this crisis, a strong trade group was born. Over the years, the Association fought many battles for its members, beginning with their conversion from consignee to jobber status in 1981, moving to the Gulf’s takeover by Chevron in 1985 (after a breakup attempt by J. Boone Pickens), to the purchase by Sohio of the FTC-ordered divestment of the Gulf’s marketing in 10 Southeastern states (plus the Alliance Refinery in Louisiana) later that year. Next were the takeover of Sohio by BP and the 1998 merger of BP and Amoco.…But Life Goes On
As the industry continues to evolve, and the majors look to the turning over virtually all of their branded marketing to the jobber channel of trade, brand collaboratives on the BPAMA model will become even more important. This is particularly true because, if majors do not have retail outlets of their own, their reliance on the experience of their jobbers for advice on the impact of proposed marketing decisions, will grow even greater. Allen knew how to represent his members to their supplier. He was a tenacious advocate for their well-being and had a gift of finding a compromise that worked for all.
Allen was a wonderful man who served his family, his community and this industry well. All of those who knew him will miss him greatly. The part he played in the industry’s history demonstrates its ever-evolving nature. The names of the oil companies, trade associations, their directors and, most importantly, the jobbers (oops, “marketers”) themselves, may have changed, as well as the price of gasoline and diesel fuel, but the work of bringing energy to the American public has remained the same for the last 100 years.
Reprinted with permission from the PMAA Journal
“I’ll really miss Allen,” Sof said as we headed down to Alabama for his funeral. “I will, too. He was a really special guy,” I replied.
