20 Minutes With Chris Bame
Rachel Fowler, Managing Editor | TLT 20 Minutes October 2017
Lube-Tech’s owner has a business plan that focuses on niche markets—and encouraging family members to work together.
CHRIS BAME - The Quick File
With more than 35 years of experience in the lubricants, fuels and chemicals industries, Christian N. Bame met his wife and partner, Marna, while working in Bame’s father’s business, Gopher Oil Co., 31 years ago. Bame was educated in engineering at Texas A&M University and business at the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management. Together, Chris and Marna have helped create organizations that blend and package lubricants, chemicals, fuels and process recyclables, as well as deliver those products and services around the globe.
Lube-Tech companies employ more than 500 families as well as a third generation of Bames.
Bame is involved and sits on the boards of several non-profit organizations supporting children with disabilities, at-risk youths, the elderly, addiction recovery, children’s cancer research and Christian mission work around the world.
Bame and his wife live in a small Minnesota town. They are surrounded by the families of their four children with nine grandchildren. The Bames are avid travelers, outdoor enthusiasts and enjoy boating, snowmobiling, motorcycling, hunting and fishing. They believe in the values of family first and instill those values in everything they do.
Chris Bame
TLT: What do you think makes Lube-Tech successful?
Bame: I would say the passion of the people. It’s all about making tomorrow a better day than today for our family, for each other, for our customers and our communities. That is our foundation.
TLT: How have you diversified your company to stay competitive and service your customers?
Bame: We’ve diversified our markets, so we deal with the automotive industry, with fleets, the on-road and off-road industry and all segments of the industrial and manufacturing industry. We focus on not just the products that are used and not just developing new products but also developing business solutions and service. How do we create products to solve the problems and provide more service to the customer so they can focus on what they do best? Like all distributors, we provide conventional lubricants, synthetic lubricants, greases and dry lubricants, but we also look at applications. For example, you’ve got a car dealership comprised of 27 individual car dealers. We look at how long it takes to pump the oil to the engine and if they’re doing 50,000 oil changes a year. If we can improve that by putting a better pump in and save two minutes an oil change when you’re talking 50,000, that’s some real time. So approach customer service by not just supplying a product but also trying to provide a solution to either improve their bottom line or grow their top line.
We’ve acquired companies that install lifts, tanks, pumps, meters and filtration so the customer can handle our fluids more efficiently. Then we’ve acquired companies on the other spectrum after the fluid has been used to recycle it. We pick up the used oil, absorbents or all the recyclables; we recycle them or reuse them for another use. We’ll pick up used oil and have it re-refined and blended into a new oil, or we’ll process it, dehydrate it, filter it and turn it into energy.
We have a company that recycles oily water. We separate the oil from the water, clean the water so it can be released into the sewer, and we either re-refine the oil or use it as energy.
Just recently we acquired a company—a professional vehicle wash service. They install vehicle washes and service them and supply the chemicals. Most of our automotive customers—whether it’s a car dealership, oil quick-lube, tire service center or gas station service convenient store—most of those customers have vehicle washes and need the service and biodegradable vehicle wash product. So that fits with our business quite well. We are already going to that customer and asking—what else can we do for them?
As I look out into the future and as we’ve seen in the past 20 years, oil consumption per person has gone down drastically because of the quality of the lubricants that are manufactured—because of synthetics and equipment having smaller sumps, and some of it is electric. So what else can we do for that customer as their consumption reduces? Maybe we make a better product or educate them on how they don’t need to dump their oil because we’re using oil analysis. So we’ve got trucks going there; we’ve got people working with them. What else can we do for them? We’ve just continuously looked for the other services and products we can provide that aren’t too far out of our capabilities.
Since 1993 we’ve acquired a lot of companies that are just oil companies or lubricant distributors or manufacturers. We’ve also acquired a lot of companies that are service companies. It’s combining that product and service together.
Lube-Tech is a leader in packaging—as well as petroleum innovation—and was the first to use flexible packaging in an oil application. Lube-Tech boasts production facilities in Golden Valley, Minn., and Shreveport, La. (Photo courtesy of Lube-Tech.)
TLT: How have you managed to become one of the largest Mobil distributors while carrying your own private label brand and offering superior custom-branded products?
Bame: There’s a lot of diversity in our marketplace—whether it’s manufacturing or fleet or automotive—and we’ve been fortunate that the Mobil product line is strong in those marketplaces.
Maybe 15 years ago major oil said we’re not always going to be able to fit the need of every customer with the major oil product line. You should have your own house brand or your own Lube-Tech brand, they advised. We already had a product line that was part of who Lube-Tech was, and previously Gopher Oil Co. that we had acquired in 1979, so we just expanded on fleet product line in the industrial and automotive markets. It was a secondary offering if a customer didn’t want to have a national brand. So a lot of times it was a more economical offering, but also it was actually a different product that a national brand didn’t have in their portfolio any longer because it was a discontinued product.
The national brands want to make the products that move. If there’s a product that gets superseded or discontinued, they want to get that out of their slate, however, there’s still equipment out there that older products are needed for, which provides an avenue for a private brand. We have done just that with the Lube-Tech brand. So, as far as Mobil, we’ve also been fortunate enough to roll up our marketplace and acquire several distributors in our area, and that has helped us strengthen our position with major partners.
TLT: What technology have you invested in to service your customers?
Bame: Being that the foundation of our name is
technologies, it’s a cornerstone of who we are. We have five different labs. Some are quality control labs while some are R&D labs and a small engine testing facility.
But more importantly, we invest in the people. We have a staff of 25 engineers, chemists and technicians who are focused on product development, quality control and technology development. We also invest significantly in the relationships we have with our suppliers to learn about new technology and how we can adapt it into our marketplaces. That’s one of the good things about being a little bit smaller. We can react and adopt new technology quicker than the major oil companies.
On our Custom Brand side, we supply the demands of the small engine market and the outdoor power equipment market. It’s unique in many ways so we have to bring in new technology and be able to test, adapt and leverage it. That’s probably one of our biggest competitive edges; the technology side, how fast we can bring new technology to a market and how we can do unique technology for smaller volume applications versus what the major oil companies would do.
What we find is, as engines and transmissions become more unique, they have different appetites than the engines and transmissions of the past. A lot of times everybody used a similar engine. Now each manufacturer has its own unique technology and engine, and therefore it has a unique appetite. The same thing goes for transmissions or shocks. The technology is so diverse and different than the way it used to be and so unique to the application and to the product that the customer is manufacturing. The appetite for a lubricant, hydraulic delivery or friction modification is different than it used to be. A major oil company would like to standardize everything. The consumer market, recreational market or outdoor power equipment market is going to be less standardized. That’s how they differentiate themselves.
At Lube-Tech, innovation comes in many forms, including production efficiency. Dedicated piping for specific fluids is engineered to eliminate production waste and improve manufacturing efficiency. (Photo courtesy of Lube-Tech.)
TLT: What do you believe the future is for the lubricant manufacturer?
Bame: There’s always going to be a need for that unique application or that lower demand fluid that maybe isn’t in a standard product. As the transportation industry changes, the major equipment industry changes and the sumps get smaller or technology changes to electric versus engine, demand is going to continue to decline. But in certain areas or unique applications, there’s always going to be a demand for the independent lubricant manufacturer or the blender compounder for the specialty products. Lube-Tech doesn’t blend a lot of motor oil. We spend a lot of time with the engineered products, which are less volume. Therefore the major oil companies aren’t that interested in it. I also think the lubricant blender is going to become more specialized and focused on more niche markets, or their market is going to become more globalized. So they’ll have to be able to supply more all over the world.
Lube-Tech boasts a full chemical laboratory, which produces more than 100 unique blends each year. Its lab facilities also conduct fuel testing and operate on a strict quality assurance program. (Photo courtesy of Lube-Tech.)
TLT: How do you plan to save the family-owned lubricant manufacturers?
Bame: Our company is unique in that it’s a company of families. It’s not the traditional family-owned one. There are husbands and wives that work here, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters and nephews and nieces. That’s what we embrace and encourage. The opportunity is there and encouraged for children of anyone on our leadership team, managers, production people or sales people to come into the company and evolve, develop and create a career. We have a program called Friends and Family during our high-production months, which are usually in the summertime. Through this program, we invite friends and family to work in the packaging lines, work in marketing or do special projects. That initiates the internship for future generations.
As for the families, our vision is that our companies—as long as we have the progressive drive to continue to grow—have the scale and breadth to compete with today’s public corporations or venture capital rollups. As long as we continue to grow and have that size, we can compete. And we’ll continue to be a company of families for the next 200 years.
A worldwide leader in small engine technology, Lube-Tech has a division dedicated to engine testing and fluid validation called Test Tech. Lube-Tech has the ability to perform Certified Ratings Council parts evaluations in house. (Photo courtesy of Lube-Tech.)
You can reach Chris Bame at ChrisBam@lubetech.com.