Chesapeake is celebrating 50 years

Chesapeake petroleum is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.  In doing so, Chesapeake has reached a significant plateau; one that only about 18 percent of companies in the United States reach.

Rex Davis started Chesapeake in 1961 as a Quaker State distributor. He had an entrepreneurial spirit and found his area of expertise in the car dealer business where he outperformed other lubricant suppliers in the Washington, DC metro area. He loaned oil tanks, spigots and command systems to dealers willing to go on his program and soon captured 70 percent of the car and truck dealer business.

In the 1970s, Rex realized that after-market products were a rapidly growing part of the dealer repertoire, so he brought in the Auto Armor product line and hired Paul Maymon to run the business.

The company continued to grow through the 1980s. Unfortunately, Rex passed away unexpectedly in 1988. It was the end of an era.

Fortunately, his only child, Victoria McCullough, decided to keep the company and elected Tony Santy as its president. One of Tony's early decisions was to buy the local mobile distributor, P&W Lubricants, doubling the size of Chesapeake.

As the company grew, the Board of Directors of Chesapeake promoted Tim Sullivan to president and Tony became CEO.

Together, Tim and Tony decided to expand the company's geographic service area. They talked the board of directors into buying Skyline Oil, located in Winchester, Virginia. That purchase added Shell, Pennzoil, and Quaker State to the company's existing line of nationally known brands. As an added benefit, Chesapeake became a distributor for Rotary Lift and Champion Compressor.

Today, Chesapeake is one of the largest independent suppliers of lubricants in the Mid-Atlantic States. It continues the theme that Rex originated 50 years ago:  “Service and quality have been our main priority since 1961."