Article created for the June digital issue of
Nick Stanley, vice president of back of the house for JJ’s Travel Plaza, started in the family business when he was five.
“I started making copies in the office and doing all kinds of stuff,” he said while talking with Amy Toner, executive director of the NATSO Foundation, during NATSO Foundation’s the Truck Stops Here Podcast.
Stanley worked outside of the industry after getting his degree in IT but returned full-time in 2014. Now, he and his sister are the third generation involved in JJ’s Travel Plaza, which their grandfather Ralph Johnson started in 1980. “It was originally started as Johnson Junction, and we shortened it to JJ’s,” he said, adding that his parents, Darlene and Brent Stanley, purchased the business in 1999.
Today, the company operates JJ’s Travel Plaza along with seven convenience stores. As a family-run business, family members are involved in the day-to-day operations. “The team members see us out in the stores and our hands-on involvement in what's going on and not just ruling for the boardroom, so to speak,” Stanley said.
Employees are a top priority for the Stanleys, and the company offers several benefits, including enrollment in the Financial Peace University which teaches people how to save for emergencies, pay off debts and invest in the future.
JJ’s Travel Plaza also provides a way for customers to make the most of their money and offers the JJ’s Excellence Card, which links with customers' bank accounts and provides them with a discount. It is an ACH product that Stanley said saves the company a lot on interchange fees. “We pass that savings right on to the customer today,” he said, explaining that there are about 2,000 people and 30 to 40 businesses signed up for the card.
In addition to running the travel plaza and c-stores, the company runs a laundromat next to its location in Huntington, Indiana, and offers drop-off laundry services. “It's a service that we saw that was needed on that in that part of town,” he said. “We have quite a few workers from the factories around that area. They're working 12-hour shifts, seven days a week, and overtime, and they didn't have time to do their laundry.”
Stanley said he is proudest of how much the family cares about the business, their employees, vendors, customers and community. To help give back, members of the family are involved in several aspects of the community. Stanley serves on several boards, but his biggest passion is his work as a volunteer firefighter.
He has been a volunteer firefighter since 2018, but he was involved in public safety before that. “All through college, I worked third shift as a 911 dispatcher. I got the bug, so to speak, for public service that way,” he said. “I love every minute.”
// This article was created for Stop Watch magazine, the magazine of the NATSO Foundation. The NATSO Foundation is the research, education and public outreach subsidiary of NATSO, Inc. The NATSO Foundation provides programs and products aimed at strengthening travel plazas’ ability to meet the needs of the traveling public through improved operational performance and business planning. Visit www.natsofoundation.org for more information. (Donate to the NATSO Foundation here.)
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