Business View Magazine | February 2018

182 183 theydon’t do the cleanup,theydon’t do the service, theydon’t sell the parts and pieces.They tend to be a little bit more niche thanwe are.In the United States, wherewe compete on a national level,we’re one of the top five distributors of the products that we sell and,at the same time,one of the top five construc- tion companies in the gas station industry.” Today,the Seneca Companies’400 employees cover thewholeMidwest,from the RockyMountains all theway to theAppalachians,with branches in the following locations: DesMoines,IA,Davenport,IA, South SiouxCity,NE,Grandview,MO,Oreana,IL,Tulsa, OK,Denver,CO,andNashville,TN.Its divisions include: Fuel Systems,Waste Solutions,Remediation&Process Controls,Environmental Services,General Contracting, andAutomotive and Commercial Equipment.“About half of our companyconstitutes our construction peo- ple,”says JC.“Andwe have about 75 service technicians; all theydo is service gas pumps and other things on a ‘C’store site.” JCreveals that he intends to continue the company’s entrepreneurial businessmodel byexpanding its auto- motive equipment service division.“We’ve been doing Nothing is convenient or simple when it comes to dealing with insurance. That’s why you need a trusted partner by your side. From New York to California and everywhere in between, Holmes Murphy and Innovative Captive Strategies work with some of the most respected organizations across the nation…to include Seneca Companies. We’re honored to be Seneca Companies’ risk management and employee benefits broker as well as captive partner, and we look forward to years of continued success. (800) 247.7756 WWW.HOLMESMURPHY.COM (888) 753.9254 WWW.YOURCAPTIVE.COM SENECA COMPANIES that for probably20 years, but primarily in the state of Iowa over that period of time,”he says.“We’re expanding that out across our geographyandwe’re going to add a commercial component.Most of the work that we’ve done over 45 years has been in retail petroleumconvenience stores; we’re going to expand that out into commercial petroleum–trucking companies that have private gas stations on their sites, putting our automotive service equipment into their heavyduty repair centers.” In fact,entrepreneurship in the Seneca Companies extends to all its employ- ees.“We are always look- ing for newways to grow and develop the business, sowe encourage our employees to be entrepre- neurial,”JCstresses.“Some- bodycomes to us with an idea–general contracting is one of those examples. We got engaged into that space about two years ago. It came as a result of somebody in the field talking to a customer,identifying a need the customer had and saying,‘I thinkwe can do this.’We’ve built 15 stores, this year,from the ground up and that’s somethingwe hadn’t done previously.” CHRIS RISEWICK JC RISEWICK