After taking a part-time job at a fuel retailer in Minneapolis during college, Jared Scheeler didn’t initially set his sights on building a career, let alone a convenience store chain. More than a decade later, he co-founded The Hub Convenience Stores, now a five-location chain across western North Dakota’s Bakken oil region and one of the industry’s notable independent operator success stories. Scheeler himself has become one of the industry’s most visible advocates, having served as 2021-22 chairman of NACS, the trade association for the convenience and fuel retailing industry. Now, Scheeler is applying the same instinct that built The Hub to its current endeavor to enhance their customers’ journeys.

A Partnership Born From a Return Home

The Hub's roots trace to 2011, when the Fitterer brothers purchased commercial property in Dickinson to support the fuel distribution network of their company, Fitterer Oil. The original plan was for a modest small retail store on a well-positioned lot.

Meanwhile, according to The Hub’s website, “Jared Scheeler was growing restless in the company he worked for and yearned for an opportunity to start his dream company on his own in the convenience industry.” He had built a career in convenience retail at Bobby & Steve's Auto World, taking a part-time job at the company’s Minneapolis supercenter in 1998 while attending the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. After 15 years at Bobby & Steve’s, he and his wife decided to relocate their growing family to their hometown of Dickenson, North Dakota.

After connecting with Chris Fitterer, The Hub concept was born. “Chris and Jared coined The Hub name collectively because it represents what they hope to deliver each and every day in the business – a hub of energy, the source of fun, and the premier convenience destination for residents of North Dakota,”

Scheeler has described wanting the stores to serve as a hub for their communities in more than one sense, a convenience destination and a source of local involvement, according to comments he made on a NACS podcast and reported by CSP Daily News. The gear icon at the center of The Hub's logo, along with sub-brands built around it including The Grind Coffee and The Chill Refreshments, play on that theme.

"The Hub just stuck with us, and we built our logo around it using a gear as an iconic part of it," Scheeler said, according to the CSP Daily News profile. "It's not just a word anymore. It's really our lifeblood."

The mission, stated on The Hub’s website, is to break every negative stereotype associated with convenience retail through quality food, clean facilities and strong customer service. The Hub built its foodservice program around that promise, developing a proprietary Hub Cafe concept and adding a Godfather's Pizza franchise, a bet on foodservice that has become one of the chain's defining traits in a region built around fuel, according to a NACS announcement.

A Voice for Small Operators

Scheeler's path from part-time cashier to NACS Chair is a story he has told often, and one the industry has taken note of.

He attended his first NACS Show in 2001, an experience he has credited with hooking him on the scale of the convenience industry, Convenience Store News reported. He went on to join the NACS Member Services Committee and later its Board of Directors, building nearly two decades of involvement that included work in NACS Government Relations Committees and an appearance testifying before Congress.

That record and passion led NACS to name Scheeler its 2021-22 Chair, a role in which he led the NACS Executive Committee, providing strategic direction and financial oversight for the trade group, according to the NACS announcement.

Scheeler used the position to champion for small independent operator issues. With more than 90,000 small operators at the time in the U.S., Scheeler said his goal as Chairman was to encourage those retailers to get involved in government advocacy and to invest in modernizing their businesses, Convenience Store News reported, arguing that scale should not determine who gets a seat at the table.

It is advice Scheeler has clearly applied at home in Dickinson, most recently in the form of a mobile app built to compete with brands many times The Hub's size.

Betting on HubPerks

In July, The Hub launched HubPerks, a loyalty app built with Liquid Barcodes. The app services all five Hub locations in Dickinson, Hazen, Beulah and New England, giving customers a faster, more rewarding experience at the pump, in the store and beyond.

For a five-location chain competing against national fuel brands, HubPerks is a notably full program. Members earn points on fuel and in-store purchases, save 3 cents per fuel gallon, can join a beverage subscription program, earn digital stamps on certain foodservice categories, and enjoy digital coupons and birthday points. Additionally, those who complete age verification can access manufacturer-funded tobacco discounts.

Building all of that meant solving problems well beyond the app's surface. Scheeler has been direct about the complexity behind the scenes.

"Our customers are the reason The Hub has grown from one store in Dickinson into a name people trust across western North Dakota," Scheeler said, according to a July Liquid Barcodes press release. "Working with the Liquid Barcodes team, we built HubPerks from the ground up, tackling complex integrations across our fuel, POS and other systems to make sure every part of the app works the way our customers expect. HubPerks lets us give something back every time they visit, whether that's a few cents off a gallon of gas or a free stamp toward their favorite drink."

Mats Danielsen, CEO of Liquid Barcodes, said the partnership reflects the kind of retailer his company built its platform for. "The Hub has built a loyal following by treating every visit like it matters, and that's exactly the kind of retailer our platform is built for," Danielsen said. “HubPerks gives their members a simple way to earn on the things they're already buying at the pump and in the store. We are proud to be their partner."

What makes HubPerks stand out is not any single feature but the breadth of the program packed into an app built for a five-store chain. Subscription beverages, fuel loyalty, gamification, and tobacco loyalty are tools more commonly associated with national chains running hundreds of locations, not a regional operator in the Bakken. That gap is where Scheeler appears to be placing his bet, wagering that a small chain willing to invest like a large one can hold its own against bigger competitors moving into the region.

The new HubPerks has been live for only a few months, but member growth and redemption habits are already strong. Scheeler commented, “I am really happy with the early results of our beverage subscription program and loyalty app performance. We've seen more than 200 times increase in app usage and a nearly 20 percent increase in active HubPerks members since launching this new app.”

As he said in a 2022 Global Convenience article, “We are centered about being heavily involved in our communities and it’s an important part of what we value as a business.”

The ambition behind it fits a pattern that has defined the last several years of Scheeler's career. Whether he was pushing small operators to claim a bigger voice in Washington or pushing his own team to integrate systems most chains The Hub's size would not attempt, Scheeler's approach has stayed consistent. Treat the size of the operation as a reason to move faster, not a reason to wait.

For a chain that started with a single store and a handshake between two North Dakotans, HubPerks looks like the next expression of that same idea.