“Money isn’t the most important thing to me.” So says Maximo Alvarez, president and owner of Sunshine Gasoline Distributors Inc. Alvarez has both business and personal reasons for his statement.
First, the business reason. Based in Doral, Florida, Sunshine Gasoline Distributors “doesn’t operate like other companies,” Alvarez explains. “I’m not in the profit business, I’m in the volume business. And with a volume of about 1 billion gallons a year, even at a penny a gallon, the money takes care of itself.”
More important, however, is Alvarez’s personal perspective. “It’s about values,” he relates. “Time and health are the most important things. I got my core values from my parents and their example. That’s why I feel that if I gave away all that I have today, that would be only ten percent of what’s been given to me.”
Understanding those values starts with Alvarez’s personal story. Born in Cuba, Alvarez was eleven years old in 1959 when Fidel Castro came to power in a Communist revolution. The Catholic Welfare Bureau organized Operation Pedro Pan and, between 1960 and 1962, resettled more than 14,000 Cuban children in the United States. Alvarez, by then aged thirteen, arrived in Miami in 1961. Three years later, he was reunited with his parents.
“I came with nothing and received housing and a great Catholic education, all for free,” Alvarez recalls. Later he began postsecondary studies at Belmont Abbey College, a Catholic institution in North Carolina, and ultimately earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Florida State University. After his 1970 graduation, he spent his next years as a regional marketing representative, first for Citgo and then for Mobil.
Alvarez’s entrepreneurial spirit led him in 1976 to launch a successful citrus gift packing and shipping business. But then in 1987 when expansion of an interstate highway forced Alvarez to make a move, he fell back on his petroleum industry experience. That year he bought four underperforming 7-Eleven stores and founded Sunshine Gasoline Distributors.
“Doing that in 1987, the year after the big collapse in oil prices, was definitely swimming against the tide,” Alvarez remembers. “It was difficult, and some people thought I was crazy. But that made succeeding more satisfying. Since I’m not a person who has to plan everything out, I wasn’t afraid.”
The lesson that Alvarez learned has stayed with him across the years. “Even if I fail, I learn from it,” he states. “That means I’ve never ‘failed’ because failure is really an investment in learning. Besides, I’ve always felt that I was eventually going to win. If you work hard and be the best then, somehow, you’ll always be taken care of, and the money will follow.”
Today, Sunshine Gasoline Distributors ranks among the top 20 in the annual CSP Magazine list of largest convenience store operators. Its chain, spread across South Florida, includes some 450 company-owned locations and 150 dealer-owned sites. Yet Alvarez follows a unique business model based on volume rather than profits.
To begin, Sunshine Gasoline Distributors does not have a prototypical store footprint. “I’ve never bought property and built a store on it,” Alvarez explains. “All our growth has come through acquiring existing stores. For example, I bought sites from BP, Shell, and Chevron when they exited our territory.”
Next, Sunshine’s company-owned locations are leased to operators. Each pays rent, though the rent is offset by a commission that Sunshine pays the operator for handling the gasoline that the company supplies. Operators keep 100 percent of the site’s profits, while Sunshine generates a consistent revenue stream by building volume.
“I can’t control oil company pricing or street pricing, and so I can’t predict profits,” says Alvarez. “From our perspective, we’re dealing with a commodity and work on cents per gallon. Basing things on volume, rather than profits, makes our business simple to run. We have only 40 employees on our payroll. Some areas of the company lose money, some make money. We just look at the total volume of the whole company.”
Alvarez is especially proud of giving Sunshine’s lessee operators a chance to build their own successful businesses. “I’ve rented to people who had no experience in our industry. But I’ve seen families that started with one store grow to as many as ten stores,” he reports. “And we’ve taken store clerks and seen them become station owners. They all become part of our Sunshine family. That’s where my true wealth is.”
From his father, Alvarez learned the Golden Rule: treat others as you would like to be treated. “So when we take on someone to operate a site, even if they have no experience,” he says, “I see that person as being where I was when I started—just needing a chance to show what you can do.”
Another component of Sunshine’s business model is sourcing product from multiple suppliers: Chevron, Shell, Exxon, Mobil, Marathon, BP, and Citgo. Individual station operators and dealers can then choose a brand that best fits their market.
About a decade ago, however, Alvarez faced a decision. “Expansion capacity in South Florida is limited,” he explains. “So the question was how to continue growing our volume.” Yet Alvarez didn’t see geographic expansion into other states as feasible.
“I wouldn’t buy two or three stations in, say, Georgia or the Carolinas. That wouldn’t bring enough volume,” he states. “To be worth it, I’d have to find an acquisition that brought in at least 100 stores to generate the volume needed.”
Instead, Sunshine Gasoline Distributors entered wholesale fueling. Today the company boasts customers across multiple South Florida sectors: fleets, industry, construction, agriculture, government agencies, marinas, and commercial fishing and aquaculture.
To enter wholesaling, Sunshine acquired three fuel distributors with the trucks and drivers to deliver product to customers. By contrast, Alvarez hires independent truckers for deliveries to Sunshine’s retail sites and dealers.
Alvarez has long been active in industry associations. Among many avenues of service, he was elected in 2000 to chair the board of the Florida Petroleum Marketers Association and in 2005 was inducted into the group’s Hall of Fame.
Though Sunshine Gasoline Marketers is fairly new to SIGMA, Alvarez says his company’s involvement is bringing multiple benefits through advocacy, networking, and relationships. “I’ve always been active in legislative affairs at the state and federal levels,” he relates. “So, some friends suggested that our company join SIGMA, with its voice for independent marketers. But SIGMA membership also leads to great friendships.”
Building relationships and giving back to others is the true reason why money is secondary to Alvarez. Sunshine Gasoline Distributors supports a long list of charitable and educational causes; its company website lists nearly 20 national and Florida organizations that have benefited from Sunshine’s philanthropy.
Alvarez himself has served or currently serves in many charitable and community capacities. He has received awards for his work with Hope for Vision and the Transplant Foundation. Among his many involvements, he is a trustee of the Pan Pedro Group, a nonprofit organization for immigrant children; a trustee of First Tee, a program that impacts young people through the game of golf; and a member of the Florida State University Board of Trustees.
Recently, Alvarez realized a longtime dream when Miami’s Centro Hispanico Catolico opened a day care center that now serves more than 300 underprivileged children. The facility was created in honor of the priest, Monsignor Bryan O. Walsh, who first took in 13-year-old Alvarez when he arrived in the United States from Cuba in 1961.
“I’m a firm believer that every new generation must be better than the last,” says Alvarez. He sees that philosophy coming true at Sunshine Gasoline Distributors where his three children, Sandra, Maximo Ricardo, and Eduardo, serve in vital roles. Alvarez is sole company owner but has succession plan in place for passing the company on to his children and wife Esther. For now, though, “I love my work and come into the office seven days a week.”
When asked about the future, Alvarez declares, “I don’t waste time predicting the future. The world runs on oil, even if technology will improve and dependence on oil may become less. God, my family and my country are the most important things to me. My children share these values, and so their future will be good.”
