EDITOR'S NOTE: This is one in a weekly series of profiles on locally owned and operated businesses in Southern Oregon.

What do you do and how long have you been doing it?

We run a combined gas station and convenience store. We built it in 1998 on the site of an old gas station that been been closed for many years. There was a small station downtown that was going to have to close because of (Department of Environmental Quality) tank restrictions. I talked to ARCO and they thought it would work. We run a 24/7 operation.

How long have you lived in the Rogue Valley?

We moved here in 1972. My husband was born and raised in Eugene and I was raised in northern Idaho.

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What inspired you to go into this line of work?

I've always been interested in business and I had a nephew that owned several stations in the Tri-Cities area in southeast Washington. That got me thinking about it and I was fortunate enough to have PremierWest Bank give me a large loan.

What decision or action would you change if you could do it again?

I would've started out younger, because I could've been more physically involved. I have a station manager, Perry Parton, who runs the station and handles all the employees, while I handle the books.

What's the toughest business decision you've made?

A big decision was whether or not to accept credit cards. Dealers make pennies on a gallon and I have to pay a percentage every time someone uses a credit card and it goes through the processors. In Oregon, we have to pay pumpers and, except in New Jersey, dealers in other states don't have to do that and it makes it more expensive. ARCO in general won't take a credit card, but we decided to take credit cards. I considered not doing it because it's so expensive. But how many people carry around $70 today? It's a struggle for people to buy gas and very often they don't say "fill it up"; it's just whatever they have: $5 or $10.

I used local contractors to build the station and when they were digging up stuff, they came across an area with an ugly, oily-looking slime and I thought "oh no, it's contaminated." That would've been very expensive to dig out, but it turned out to be an old septic tank.

Who are your competitors?

Everyone in the Medford area. If someone has a lower price in Central Point, people are going to go there. We try to keep a competitive price so we can have volume.

How do you define success for your business?

If I can pay the bills. When they rebuilt Highway 62 around 2000 they put in a median and it made it difficult for drivers to get in here. There had been several accidents when people tried to make a left turn and they would get rear-ended, so I guess that was the right thing. But people try to get in some way, because we always try to give a good price. With the market, we really run two businesses. Without the market it wouldn't be a successful business.

What are your goals?

I think our business will survive because it's such a growing area. For an individual to go in and start another business, it would be very expensive. It would cost over $1 million to do it today.

What training or education did you need?

I have a degree in bacteriology and then I became a medical technician and later became involved in a retail business. I attended the ARCO training school in LaPalma, Calif., for three weeks. A lot of the training there involved accounting and everything about the gasoline business. Before that, I didn't know how many gallons were in a tanker — 11,300 gallons. Right now, every time a trucks comes in, it costs over $30,000 ($2.655 per gallon).

What's your advice for budding entrepreneurs?

I think very often people don't realize the commitment it takes. It's not an 8-to-5 job. People have to realize the work it takes to be successful. Even though I have a manager, I go out there once a week and am working all the time at my home office. I never dreamed of owning a gas station when I was a little girl, but it's funny how things turn out sometimes.

To suggest an idea for this column, contact reporter Greg Stiles at 776-4463 or e-mail business@mailtribune.com