Christensen is honored to receive the Business On A Roll 2020 Award from the Tri-City Regional Chamber of Commerce!
Christensen would not be in the position we are today without the hard work of our amazing team and the support of our community.
We are so incredibly proud of all that our team has accomplished, and the dedication that was shown to provide for our customers to keep our community running over the past year.
Christensen is a distributor for fuels, biofuels, lubricants, and propane. We operate throughout the western United States, we have over 300 team members, and we’re headquartered in Richland, Washington.
Over the past ten years, Christensen has grown eight times faster than our industry average. As our team rolled into 2020, our team had tremendous momentum and energy, and then COVID-19 hit.
Like many businesses, we were severely impacted by pandemic. Our revenues dropped steeply, and as a team we tried to work through the crisis. We made the decision to go ahead and not have any layoffs, and even though our business slowed down tremendously, we looked at it as an opportunity to use the slowdown to refocus our efforts on key initiatives that we felt would help the company’s growth accelerate in the years ahead.
Christensen is really a story about a successful family. Gary and Annette Christensen invested everything that they had back in 1980 to move their family to Grandview, Washington. They purchased a small fuel distribution company and primarily served gas stations and cardlocks through Central Washington.
We serve several industry sectors. In Eastern Washington, we’re primarily agricultural-based, but we also service the construction, transportation, and manufacturing industries.
Christensen is really a family business success story. We’ve successfully transitioned from one generation to the next, and we’ve set ourselves up to leave a legacy for all family members and Christensen team members.
Christensen’s purpose is to be a company where passion for life grows as a result of celebrating our successes and failures, discovering our unique talents and shortcomings, and bringing out the best in each other. We also refer to that as “Winning Together.”
Part of “Winning Together” also means giving back to our community. Not only does Christensen serve small to mid-size businesses across the Pacific Northwest, but we do our best to give back in any way that we can.
Christensen is dedicated to supporting events and programs within our community. We recognize that there is a need for interest in the trades, and we want to make what we do and what our customers do exciting for the next generation.
We do this through a variety of avenues. Recently, we’ve been working with local schools in Eastern Washington to put together scholarships and funding for commercial driving programs for young adults.
Additionally, Christensen supports our own employee’s education through our Education Tuition Assistance Program (ETAP). Over the past few years, Christensen has invested over $100,000 back into our own team’s education. That has gone towards certifications, bachelor’s degrees, and even master’s degrees.
In addition, we support events like “Kids Dig Rigs” and “Dozer Days” where we bring out our large Christensen-branded trucks and let kids climb in them, learn, and be educated about the industry that we operate in.
Our team is honored and humbled to receive the “Business on a Roll” award, especially during a challenging year like 2020. We appreciate the Tri-Cities Chamber of Commerce for recognizing the amazing efforts put forth by our entire team to help our communities move forward during a tough and challenging year.
ABOUT CHRISTENSEN, INC.
Founded in 1935, Christensen is family-owned and operated. Headquartered in Richland, Washington, the company employs more than 500 people across the Pacific Northwest and nationwide. Built on decades of industry experience and the latest technology, Christensen is revolutionizing the way fuels, lubricants, and propane are ordered, delivered, and managed. For the past 10 years, the Christensen Company has grown 8x faster than the industry average and has emerged as a market leader.