The NPGA Southeastern Convention & International Propane Expo in Atlanta last spring was a time for members of the propane industry to connect, showcase products and services, and learn. For Regina Haig, safety compliance officer for American Standard Manufacturing (ASM), it was also an emotional homecoming. Like many professionals in the propane industry, Regina was brought into the business via family, but returned in January 2018 after a 25-year hiatus. Her father, Coleman Vickary, started the propane exchange company in Lawyersville, N.Y., when Regina was 20. She worked in the family business including traveling with her father to trade shows promoting the new company — and a new concept of exchanging propane tanks. After three years, she left to marry, earn an education degree, have three children,…

Every company needs a Jamie Fargnoli. As office manager of Ehrhart Energy in Trumansburg, N.Y., she is the one her team turns to when they have problems needing to be solved, with an extra touch of customer service. “I’m the very calm one. I have found the ability to step out of my ego and see what people really need. With customers, you cannot be in your ego — that creates problems. The customer is always right,” Fargnoli said. “Harmony in the workplace is a big thing.” A part of her success in maintaining her calmness and harmony is meditation. “I meditate every day. It makes me feel grounded. Exercising also helps alleviate stress that may come in the day. “The escalated calls come to me. People…

All Julie Kraus’ husband, Mike, wanted was help with a hose for his propane grill. When the propane companies in their area, Elko, Nev., were unresponsive, the two considered the possibility of starting their own propane company. It was 1992 — the couple had moved from Wyoming in the late 1980s to take jobs at Newmont Gold Co., one of the world’s largest gold producers. She worked in human resources; he was in the mine maintenance department. Although they had no experience in the propane business, the couple spent more than a year researching the industry before launching Western States Propane 25 years ago. Today, the company not only provides services to rural areas in the Elko area, but most of Northern Nevada from its four bulk…

Elaine Bittner, senior vice president of strategic development for Chesapeake Utilities Corp. (Dover, Del.), recently received a wonderful thank you note along with a necklace made of broken glass representing the glass ceiling. The gift signifies the incredible accomplishments she has made, particularly for a woman in a male-dominated industry who was told in high school “women don’t make good engineers.” “That was a transformative moment for me. I thought, ‘I can and I will.’ That started me on a path to make decisions to go and create opportunities.” Bittner passes this message on to others: “Believe in yourself, and have people around you who believe in you.” After graduating from the University of Maryland, she began her career as a chemical and environmental engineer…

Many successful women in the propane industry have benefited from having at least one mentor who has guided, inspired, and empowered them in their careers. Julie Brown, president, chairman of the board, and owner of Southern LP Gas has been fortunate to have several mentors throughout her career, but the strongest and most influential mentor was her grandmother, Lou Ellen Gray. “When I was in high school, my grandmother didn’t ask me, she basically told me, I needed to come learn the business when I got out of college,” she said. “My grandmother was a typical matriarch. What she said went. She had the final say in any big decision.” Not thinking twice, Brown went to the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Immediately after…

For Sue Handle, owner of Henderson Propane Service Inc. in Ellicott, Colo., a rural community east of Colorado Springs, propane, family, and community are intertwined. Sue’s career in propane started at a young age. Growing up, her father helped build a pipeline, so the family moved as the pipeline was constructed. “We [she and her sister] were always the new kids so we could talk to anyone,” Sue says. When she was in the eighth grade, her father started a propane company in Simla, Colo. “In high school, I took business courses like accounting and typing and I helped my mother with the books and answering the phones.” She and her sibling learned the ins and outs of the propane business—even becoming delivery drivers. In…

Megan Sharp, general manager at Ferrellgas and Blue Rhino in Northern California, describes herself as a “Type A” personality with good time management skills — even on the weekends. She is actually a superwoman of time management with a growing list of accomplishments earned in a relatively short time span. Since joining Ferrellgas as a logistics and routing analyst immediately after graduating from Iowa State University in 2006, she has been promoted four times, transferred to Reno where she earned a masters of business administration from the University of Nevada, and has become active in the local Women in Propane Council (WIP), all while simultaneously climbing the ladder of the Air National Guard. An impressive list of accomplishments for anyone, but especially for a woman; across the…