WICHITA, Kansas, Oct. 24, 2007 -- If you live in Wichita or the surrounding area, you know what QuikTrip is. It's where we get our gas, snacks -- everyday essentials.

Chester Cadieux wanted to test the entrepreneurial waters before he turned 30. In 1958, he was 26 and had a chance meeting with an acquaintance who attended junior high school with him in Tulsa.

"He was looking for that last guy to get in who didn't like his job well enough to quit and go try this," said Cadieux. "And that was me."

Chester borrowed $5,000 to match his partner's and they opened their first QuikTrip in Tulsa. Keeping ahead of debt was their mantra. While they were successful starting up their stores, it was touch and go for years.

"We were in business 13 years before the company was worth a million dollars."

And that was with 120 stores up and running.

"We were so dumb," said Cadieux. "We did everything wrong. And that's our company motto -- 'We always do everything wrong to begin with'. And the way we've learned is doing it wrong."

They obviously did something right. QuikTrip now dominates the market in our region. They have nearly 500 stores, mostly in large Midwestern and southern cities.

The concept of combining a gas station with a convenience store was not a new one back in 1958 when Chester and his partner started QuikTrip. In today's environment, a gas station alone without a second form of revenue probably wouldn't do very well but at QuikTrip, two-thirds of the business volume comes from the pump with about one-third of the profit revenue.

Inside the convenience store, it's the other way around. Snack items bear higher profit margins, so one-third of the store's dollar volume provides two thirds of the profit.

Finding good locations was the funnest challenge for Chester -- but as with many businesses, people are the key to his success.

"The whole thing about this company is the quality of people we have and the people we've had for 30 or 40 years who have come up through the organization."

QuikTrip has a reputation as being one of the best places to work, so finding and retaining quality people is much less of a challenge than it once was.