Family is not an important thing. It’s everything, said Michael J. Fox.
Bruce McLaughlin would agree, according to Mark McLaughlin, who along with wife, Patti, are at the helm of the family owned and operated business that his late father and mother, June, started in 1954. “McLaughlin’s is now the last major family-owned fuel distributor in our area,” Mark noted.
Celebrating its 70-year anniversary, McLaughlin’s Energy Services at 11931 Buchanan Trail East in Waynesboro is “dedicated to providing your propane (LP) gas and heating oil needs.”
“Dad was proud that the business he started could give a living to so many employees and their families over the years,” Mark said. “He worked until he was 92, and until two months before he died, he came in nearly every day. He was proud of what the family had accomplished to that point. I don’t think he would have kept it that long if he didn’t want it to continue in the family.”
After serving in World War II, Bruce McLaughlin returned home and began “working with cars and selling cars,” at a Gulf station on South Potomac Street in Waynesboro, noted Mark. Gulf Oil built a new station on Walnut Street and Bruce purchased it, he added.
“That’s when a lot of people were converting their furnaces from coal to oil. People with oil furnaces were looking for places to get oil and told Dad, ‘We’d buy oil from you if you could get it.’ That’s when he bought his first truck. He delivered oil and Mom was the bookkeeper.”
The business grew and storage tanks were built on the then “new” Route 16 in Rouzerville (site of the current business), so that his father wouldn’t have to travel to Chambersburg to fill the delivery truck each day, according to Mark.
The McLaughlins later sold the gas station in Waynesboro and installed an office trailer near the storage tanks. The business outgrew the office trailer and a new office was installed with a showroom to display new products. “We then added a warehouse to house gas and fuel oil appliances,” said Mark, who has worked full-time at the business since 1974. His brothers Jeff and Vaughn retired from their positions at McLaughlin’s in 2018.
To offer customers more options for their energy needs, the LP gas division was started in 1993, Mark said. “My brother-in-law at the time was working for one of the big propane companies and said, ‘You guys should look into this. We had been refilling the 20-pound grill tanks for a while so we were accustomed to handling propane. It was a safe product. We got our first Bob Tail delivery truck and a few large cylinders and took on a few new customers in 1993. Mark drove the truck the first winter until McLaughlin’s hired a gas delivery driver. That part of the business is nearly twice as big now as the oil. It has grown considerably. We now have four modern computerized Bob Tails and 60,000 gallons of onsite propane storage.”
McLaughlin’s products include gas and oil furnaces and boilers, oil and gas parts and fittings, gas logs, fireplaces and heaters, custom order premium grills, tanked and tankless water heaters, outdoor living products and gas and diesel emergency generators.
“In the early 2000s automatic whole home generators to use during power outages became popular. We were setting the tanks for these and thought, ‘Why don’t we sell them? We could install everything. The generator business has grown tremendously. It’s very, very popular. We install an average of two or three Generac generators a week,” added Mark.
The company also recently purchased a transport truck so that gas can be bought directly from the refinery and brought to the business instead of buying it from other companies for delivery.
Many businesses like McLaughlin’s have been bought by larger companies, “but we’re trying to keep this a family business and we have the opportunity to pass it on to Mark Jr.,” who serves as dispatcher for fuels and operations manager, Mark noted. “That was important to Dad. We would sit on the swing on our back porch in the evening and that’s what we talked about. That small business aspect was important to him and it’s important to me.
“We take pride in serving our local community and have built our reputation on our trustworthy and dependable service. We support our local community, businesses, sports teams, and much more, including being involved in various community projects and initiatives.”
For more information about McLaughlin’s, call 717-762-5711 or visit:
