Many of Natalie Morhous’s earliest memories involve RaceTrac, the company started by her grandfather in 1934. “RaceTrac is a part of who I am,” says Morhous, who became CEO in January 2024 after serving as the company’s president for five years. Since its founding 90 years ago, Atlanta-headquartered RaceTrac has grown to employ more than 10,000 across nearly 800 stores in 13 states and through affiliated companies Metroplex Energy and Energy Dispatch. The people-driven leader is making her mark quickly: She was named a “Most Admired CEO” by the Atlanta Business Chronicle in 2024. Here, Morhous shares more about how she’s helping to drive the company forward.
What does it mean to be a third-generation leader of RaceTrac? Being a part of a family business is an interesting thing because what sets us apart is that our shareholders also have personal relationships with one another. I feel a real sense of stewardship as a family member leading a family business, both in carrying on the legacy of the past and fostering a future for generations to come.
Did you grow up working in the business? I’ve worked in many stores, but never as my full-time job. My first job at RaceTrac was in our store support center when I was in high school. I worked in our accounts receivable department as my first full-time job.
Was it always your goal to lead the company? I always knew that RaceTrac was an important part of my life, but [not necessarily] the place I would build a career. I graduated from college and moved to Washington, D.C., where I was a strategy and management consultant. Then I went back to business school and interned at General Mills. During that time, I started to feel like my own career interests aligned with something that I could do at RaceTrac. After business school, I joined the company in our special projects department. I grew up thinking of RaceTrac as a gas station. We are still that today, but we’re so much more [including a retail business]. That kind of evolution really interested me.
Strategically, why do you think Georgia is the ideal place for the company headquarters? There’s a reason Georgia is always ranked as a top place to do business. It’s just such a wonderful place to operate and for businesses to grow, but also, it’s a great place to live and to get an education. We are able to attract a thriving workforce both for our stores and for the many roles that we have at our store support center. We are even able to relocate people because Georgia is not just a great place to conduct business, but a great place to live.
You launched your first EV charging station in 2023. How else is RaceTrac innovating? The list is long, but I would call out our food innovations. We are setting ourselves up as real competitors to the restaurant industry, not just among our direct competitors in convenience. We are making pizza and frying chicken in stores, and we have many of our own proprietary food offerings. We have been able to position our-selves as truly a one-stop shop for people on the go. We offer fuel and snacks, but they’re also able to get a hot meal that doesn’t require a second stop. We have a chef on staff and an entire food innovation team that’s always developing new recipes.
What has the 2023 acquisition of Gulf Oil meant for the brand? It’s been really fun. It’s the largest acquisition in our history, and Gulf Oil is such an iconic brand. Gulf has really expanded Metroplex Energy (a RaceTrac subsidiary for wholesale fuel supply).We now have some sort of brand presence in 40U.S. states and Puerto Rico. We have fun future plans for Gulf, hopefully bringing it back to the Southeast, where our roots are.
Your father, Carl Bolch Jr., was named chairman emeritus earlier this year after five decades of service to the company. Can you share the best piece of advice that he’s given you? I was lucky to grow up with him as my dad, and certainly he’s given me much personal advice over the years. But my dad is known for one-liners around RaceTrac. One that comes to mind is, “Make failure your friend, but if you’re going to fail, fail fast.” Another was, “Let the marketplace be your teacher.” Perhaps my favorite is not something he said: [It was] his humble attitude. My father quite literally never, ever met a person he didn’t think he could learn something from. I try to live that every day.
What’s on the horizon for RaceTrac that you’re most excited about? We’re a growing organization. We opened roughly 30 stores in 2024 and expect to open 40 in 2025. We’re expanding to new geographies, which is really exciting for us. We’ve been a brand that operates across the southern United States for a long time, as far west as Texas and as far north as Virginia. In recent years, we’ve expanded to Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio. I’m very excited about our geographic expansion and also the evolution of the types of stores that we’re building. Our stores in recent years have been around 5,000 to 6,000 square feet, and some of our newest travel centers are over 8,000 square feet. They are serving professional drivers with truck merchandise, entirely new high-flow diesel canopies, and special ser-vices. It gives us an opportunity to bring RaceTrac’s great offerings to a whole new community of guests