Mackenzie Oil was founded in 1945 by Doug Mackenzie and his father, Charlie Mackenzie. Doug was working in Hamilton at the time and saw the opportunity to start a company in Bridgen that would service the farming community. “My uncle Doug partnered with my grandfather, Charlie, to start the business. My Dad, Stu Mackenzie (Doug’s younger brother), was in high-school at the time and joined them a while later,” says Chuck Mackenzie, the current manager. Their primary business at the time was supplying farmers with gasoline, diesel fuel and tanks to store the fuel. Their fuel has always come from Shell Oil. When they outgrew their space, they moved to Sarnia. “Shell built the new refinery and we moved into their old location on London Road. It’s where the Teahen Home Hardware is today,” says Mackenzie. In 1968 they moved to their current location at 1486 Plank Road.
While someone is on call 24/7, it was never as necessary as during the 2003 blackout. All hands were on deck to help people who needed fuel for their equipment in order to keep their businesses operating and their homes powered. “We assisted so many customers during that time. We had to get product to them so that their generators, compressors and other equipment could still operate.” What made it even more difficult was the fact that the Mackenzie Oil offices didn’t have power either. “We emptied our own storage tanks and delivered enough product to keep everyone going.” They have also supplied fuel for many major construction projects in Sarnia-Lambton, including the twinning of the Bluewater Bridge and the excavation and construction of the new St. Clair railway tunnel.
Eighteen staff members work in the operation, including self-service gas station employees, office personnel, drivers and service crew members. Stu still continues to come into work every day. Farming remains a major part of the business, along with commercial and retail customers. “We provide gasoline and diesel fuel, of course, but also oils, greases, anti-freeze and oil additives. Pretty much anything you can use in a vehicle or piece of equipment, we sell it,” says Mackenzie. They supply fuel to their own onsite station and cardlock facility, as well as three other stations in the county. It is important to them that these stations exist. “Having a gas station nearby is critical to people who live in the county. It makes it very difficult for people if they have to drive 30 or 40 kilometers to fill up.”
With the advancement of technology, customers place orders via a cell phone and pay for invoices online. “Our drivers, in a lot of cases, are the ones that have the most contact with our customers and they maintain great relationships with them.” The company offers the same products and services as when they started, just at much higher volumes now. “We are still dealing with farming accounts, but they are now second and third generation owners, just like we are. They remember their grandfather dealing with my grandfather.”
When Annette Hitchins answered the call, she had never made a quilt in her life. I didn't know how to sew a quilt, says Annette, a retired school principal's secretary who moved to Lambton County from Windsor in 2007 and promptly joined the Caring Quilters of Lambton Shores. I had sewin
When he first established Coffee Lodge, Leo Stathakis was inspired by trips he had made to small coffee houses in Seattle, Vancouver and Michigan. I've always loved coffee and coffee houses. I would often venture out in Detroit to visit all the old coffee houses. I loved the coffee and the atmo
When Crystal Boulton's husband Patrick jokingly suggested two years ago that the COVID-19 pandemic might shut down her favourite celebration of the year — Halloween — Crystal not only didn't believe him, it caused her to think of a way to make Halloween bigger and better. Crystal got to work
When somebody asks Darryl Carver what he does for a living, his first inclination is to respond, I'm a farmer. That's not quite true—yet. But he is inching closer and closer to making it a reality. Carver, 42, along with his wife, Shauna, and three sons Gavin, 13, Gibson, 8, and Hudson,
Marcin Bowl was built in 1957 by Steve and Stella Marciniszyn, and is still family owned and operated today by their daughter Patricia Thompson. Her children, Matthew Thompson and Janice McMillan, also help with day-to-day operati...
A passion for horses took Wayne McCormick to Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky to train thoroughbred race horses. Working in the horse training business while raising a family proved challenging and after the birth of their first child, Wayne and his wife Elsbeth moved to Bridgen. George McCor
Bluewater Health Foundation is grateful for the businesses, organizations, and individuals in Sarnia-Lambton who have provided millions of dollars of financial support to aid in the purchase of equipment and provision of patient, staff and family programs for Bluewater Health since 2003. We are f
It was never Joyce Keelan's plan to go it alone, and start her own company, but due to gender discrimination in the engineering world of the 1980s, she became a corporate refugee. And consequently, her own boss. Step one on Joyce's road to independence began when she took a job with Magna Internati