Larry Bull and Mike Deuser have been selected by the New York Association of Convenience Stores (NYACS) to be inducted into the New York Convenience Store Hall of Fame.
NYACS will induct them at its annual Chairman’s Banquet on Thursday, May 11, in Syracuse. The Hall of Fame honors retailers and suppliers for exceptional achievement in, and service to, the convenience store industry. The Chairman’s Banquet will conclude the 2017 NYACS Convention.
Bull is president and CEO of Bull Bros. Inc. in Utica, New York, and a managing director and part owner of Fastrac Markets LLC in East Syracuse, a convenience store chain operating throughout Upstate New York.
Bull, along with his brothers Bruce and Marty, purchased Bull Bros. (formerly Herkimer Petroleum) from their parents in 1984 and proceeded to transform the heating oil and motor fuel company into a convenience operator with retail locations in central New York.
In 1998, seeing the need for a greater presence throughout the Upstate area, Bull Bros., Clark’s Petroleum and Glider Oil merged their convenience store operations to form Fastrac Markets. Fastrac currently operates 50 stores under the names Fastrac Markets and Fastrac Café from Watertown to the Pennsylvania border and from Buffalo to just west of Albany.
Bull is active in the community, having served on numerous boards, including the Valley United Way, General Herkimer Scout Council, Mohawk Valley EDGE, Herkimer County Community College Foundation Board, Faxton-St. Lukes Hospital Board. He also has served as trustee and chairperson of the Community Foundation of Herkimer and Oneida Counties Inc. He currently serves as trustee for the Mohawk Valley Health System as well as trustee and past chairperson of the Utica College Board of Trustees.
He served on the NYACS board for 12 years, including three years as Legislative Committee chairman.
Deuser of West Seneca, New York, is VP of food service for Tripifoods Inc., a family-owned wholesale distributor headquartered in Buffalo, New York.
Deuser has spent his entire 50-year career in the food industry, starting as a dishwasher in restaurants and working his way up through the ranks to management while in high school and college.
After graduating from Erie County Technical School with a degree in Food Service Administration, he went to work for an industrial feeding company and then moved on to Bells Supermarkets, first as a deli specialist and then as director of retail foodservice. He joined Tripifoods in 1996 as director of foodservice and was promoted to VP in 2001.
Deuser is an eight-year member of the NYACS Associate Board and served as its chairman in 2013-14. He has served on the NYACS Convention Committee since 2001 and produces the Tripifoods-sponsored NYACS Chairman’s Banquet each year. He co-chaired NYACS’ Chairmen’s Open golf tournament in 2014 in Ellicottville, New York.
Deuser received the Carl Tripi Award from NYACS in 2015 recognizing his contributions to New York’s convenience store industry.
