In the early 1970s, Peter Van Alyea took a trip to northern California and decided that he needed to live there. So he quit his job as a sales and marketing manager for Standard Oil in Chicago, emptied his bank account, and headed west with a definitive plan for making his own way.

He bought a gas station in Marin county, drew up a stylized rendering of a redwood tree to serve as his brand, and began selling gas and cigarettes in earnest. Drawing on knowledge gleaned from his MBA studies and his time at Standard Oil, and driven by his entrepreneurial spirit, Peter grew his business by two more stations that first year.

In 1984 he began what would become a long-lasting partnership with Chevron. To this day, nearly all of Redwood Oil’s stations sell Chevron gasoline.