More and more retailers are taking the plunge and offering higher ethanol blends around the country, but while it has taken some time to get the larger retail chains to make the move, blazing the trail before them were smaller marketers with vision.

Bruce Vollan, owner of Vollan Oil Company in Baltic, South Dakota, and Glenn Badenhop who owns American Freedom Energy in Liberty Center, Ohio, are two visionary retailers who talked about their struggles and successes during a panel at the American Coalition for Ethanol Conference last week in Minneapolis on “E15 & Flex Fuel Roadmap: Small Retailers Clearing Roadblocks and Blazing Trails for Ethanol Availability,”

ACE Chief Marketing Officer Ron Lamberty presented the Paul Dana Marketing Vision Award to Badenhop prior to the retailer panel during Friday morning’s general session of the conference. Badenhop received the award, named after Indy Racing car driver Paul Dana, for his leadership in promoting the expansion of higher blends of ethanol to consumers, as well as overcoming many trials as a station owner. Being one of the first stations in the U.S. to offer E15, while also being one of the most recent to offer E15, Badenhop spent the last 18 months battling his oil company supplier and clearing their red tape to sell E15, alongside the other gasoline grades under the canopy, which he couldn’t do when he initially began offering the product.

“It’s been a long road making the vision I had twelve years ago become a reality, but I kept working at it and this award makes it worthwhile,” Badenhop said. “There is nobody else in my area offering higher blends, so I feel like I have a leg-up on the competition, and this award proves higher blends do work and are accepted by the consumer.”

Vollan received the same award at the ACE Conference in 2013 for his efforts.

Listen to the panel conversation and an interview with Lamberty about ACE’s work with retailers.
2023 ACE - Ron Lamberty, ACE, interview 6:58
2023 ACE Retailer Panel 52:00

2023 ACE Conference photo album