Lessons from my Dad’s service station: brand, ethics and impact

By Brian Lewis

I didn’t know it at the time, but I first began to learn about brand strategy, customer service and ethical conduct - in both life and business - when I was 14. From my Dad.

That’s when I started working summers at his service station, Lewis & Son Shell, in our small, rural Northern California town. This was in the day when you couldn’t pump your own gas. As soon as a car pulled up, two of us, not one, would run, not walk, out to the pumps. We’d fill the tank, wash the windshield and rear window, and check the oil and tires. Service wasn’t an option. It was inherent in my Dad’s approach to work and life.

By the time I was 17, I knew my way around the station. But one day that summer I made a mistake - I don’t remember what it was - and my Dad chewed me out. An hour later, he pulled me aside and said, “You know why I did that, don’t you?” I paused like a deer in headlights. “I want you to always hold yourself to high standards,” he said.

I have never forgotten those words. 

Grounding in brand and ethics

My experiences at the station (which we affectionately called “the grease pit”) carried lessons I wouldn’t recognize until much later, long after my Dad died when I was 24, and long after my own family and career began to grow. 

My Dad had started the business with his father, and at different times, my older brothers all worked there. From the beginning there was something unspoken, but abundantly clear about how he approached his work and his life. 

Lewis and Son Shell. Service is our business. He called it a motto. Today, we call it a tagline. And just like effective taglines of today, it called-out something central and authentic, and reinforced what made him and his business different. Today we call this differentiation in the marketplace. Service wasn’t just a concept. It was real, made so by word and deed.

My Dad’s approach to customers went above and beyond. He extended credit to people who couldn’t always pay on the spot. He treated them with dignity. The ethic was simple: people matter, and trust is worth more than a transaction. That sense of ethics – that doing right by people wasn’t optional - became foundational to how I see business and leadership.

I still have an ink pen with those words printed on the side: Service is our business. At 14, I didn’t know I was holding my first piece of brand merch. But the message was clear: service wasn’t just what we did; it was who we were.

Lessons in community and volunteering

My Dad’s influence wasn’t limited to the station. He was deeply involved in our community. Neither of my parents had gone to college, but both were committed to all five of us kids going. My Dad modeled service through his volunteer work, both personally and as a business owner.

What struck me, even if only by osmosis, was that he didn’t do it for show or self-aggrandizement. Yes, a good reputation as an honest and contributing member of the community helps a business. But he never leveraged his volunteering as self-promotion. It was contribution, plain and simple.

I was reminded of that reality when I was serving as an advocate for public education in my first nonprofit organization. My boss said to the team, “Just do the good work. There’s credit enough to go around and it will find its way to you when the work is done.”

When I began volunteering as a young adult - from the school district attendance boundary task force to the community health foundation - I carried that same spirit: to give, to learn, to help. And the real benefits of service were intrinsic: what I learned, who I met, how I grew. 

The throughline to Core Intent

When I look back now, it’s obvious how much those early lessons shaped the way I approach my work today. At Core Intent Consulting, my conviction is simple: every organization has a core intent - a cause that should guide every decision.

That conviction didn’t come from textbooks. It came from the way my Dad ran a service station and served his community. It came from watching values lived, not just spoken.

The connection between those teenage summers pumping gas and my career today might not be obvious at first. But when you peel it back, it’s the same story. Service is the brand. Integrity is non-negotiable. Contribution matters. And growth - your own and the organization’s - is the real return on investment.

And that’s why my tagline is Cause as CompassTM

It’s about standards, accountability, impact and the expectation that you show up with integrity. It’s why I believe in clarity of cause. It’s why I believe governance is about duty, not perks. And it’s why I believe service is not an extra - it’s the foundation.

That foundation, learned at a gas station in a small town, is the heart of Core Intent Consulting.