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“There’s nothing exciting about getting gas for your car,” explains Matthew Onken, the director of construction at Wawa, Inc., but the Wawa experience is much richer and more important than that. Wawa is a community—an experience of both comfort and excitement that residents of eastern Pennsylvania and the surrounding states know well.
Wawa is a chain of gas stations and convenience stores headquartered outside of Philadelphia with approximately 1,000 locations throughout New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Florida, and other parts of Pennsylvania. One of Onken’s primary responsibilities is the support of the company’s growth across new states. “It’s really exciting to expand our wings and reach new areas,” he says. “We get to tell our story for the first time and show what we do; we look forward to serving new communities.”
Recently, the company has grown at a pace of about 50 to 60 stores per year. Wawa enjoys a loyal following and strong recognition across the Atlantic coast, so the team is excited to bring that dynamic into adjacent and new markets throughout the south and the Midwest. Most notably, the Florida panhandle, Alabama’s Gulf Coast, Georgia, and North Carolina are the next areas for expansion.
“It’s really exciting to expand our wings and reach new areas. We get to tell our story for the first time and show what we do; we look forward to serving new communities.”
Matthew Onken
When looking into a new market, the team’s first step is to build relationships with communities in the area and show what they are about. “It is important for us to engage local businesses and talent.” Every new store is an investment in the community and takes a team of partners to develop each site. “We always try to employ local partners and suppliers,” says Onken. “There are also some examples of long-standing partners that have built our stores in other markets and are expanding to Florida to support our growth.
“When we make a jump into the Midwest in Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky, we will be looking for local talent and partners to help us build our stores from the ground up and produce stores that are assets to their communities,” he adds. “There will be insights we need that will drive the need for new partnerships to develop.”
Like other organizations, Wawa has experienced supply chain disruptions throughout the COVID-19 pandemic years. In order to continue company growth, Onken and his team have worked with contractors to find solutions, including their own adaptations. The crucial tenet of their approach has been transparency: open communication with departments and suppliers has kept projects moving forward despite unpredictable delays.
For example, crucial materials sometimes went out of stock without warning in 2022. Roofing materials and refrigeration panels held up store openings. Fortunately, transparency preserved these supply chain relationships under the stress of the circumstances. It made sure one of the company’s essential goals are met, which is the ability for Wawa to service the community even in the face of challenge and unpredictability.
“We have to be transparent about our intentions and needs, not over leveraging,” Onken explains. “We saw others in the industry doing that, and they ended up negatively impacting a lot of relationships. We stay very loyal to our suppliers wherever possible while looking for ways to grow.”
As Wawa expands, that loyalty has paid off; in competing with a great deal of other construction projects, Wawa has maintained reliable relationships with suppliers. Lead times are still longer than it was pre-pandemic, but they have mostly stabilized. Construction managers are also more confidently resequencing work when necessary.
“If there were delays with refrigeration equipment, for example, we would have the carpenters frame out that area and then bring in the refrigerators at the end,” Onken says. “It adds more labor on the jobsite, but it keeps things moving to open on time.”
Living in West Virginia and western Pennsylvania produced some loyalty to the region’s other famous service station, but Onken knew Wawa’s reputation as a great employer. Some of his colleagues have been with the company 20 years or more, and newer associates benefit from the company’s loyalty and growth opportunities.
“Wawa is a people-culture first,” Onken says. “We focus on developing our associates first, knowing that results will come. We have the benefit of people with 20 to 30 years of experience with the company, and that allows us to do a lot of things with a reasonably lean staff; tenured folks make confident decisions. Meanwhile, the development of newer talent brings our values forward to meet the needs of growing markets and allowing for innovation.”
While methods and situations might change over someone’s long tenure, it’s important to keep them engaged, so that the team can return to their knowledge base over time. As for new associates, Wawa provides training programs and mentorship opportunities so that new go-getters can become high-contributing veterans in time.
“We make sure that associates on the front lines are supported and set up to make timely, impactful decisions that demonstrate our commitment to the community and lead the business forward. Our associates are a huge part of what makes Wawa different from others in the industry.”
Matthew Onken
One example of this is Wawa’s commitment to “servant leadership.” As a servant leader, Onken is dedicated to the growth and development of associates at all levels. “The past few years have shown us that things can change at any point in time and that we all have a lot we can learn,” he says. “Through all of this though, I couldn’t be prouder of the associates that drive our program.”
Onken seeks opportunities for new associates to own the process and make impactful decisions. “If you have somebody who’s eager to learn, it’s easier to mentor them,” he says. “We make sure that associates on the front lines are supported and set up to make timely, impactful decisions that demonstrate our commitment to the community and lead the business forward. Our associates are a huge part of what makes Wawa different from others in the industry.”
With his team, Onken is thrilled these ongoing opportunities show other parts of the country what’s unique about Wawa. “We have a lot of first impressions to make in the coming years,” he says. “We’ll be going into areas where people have never heard of Wawa. We strive to add value to these communities, partner with them, and show how much we have to offer with our unique purpose of ‘fulfilling lives every day.’ We can’t wait to get started!”
