ABOUT US

E. P. Nisbet Company and Nisbet Oil Company, which have been providing twentyfour- hour services for “as long as anybody can remember” is still headquartered in the historic Cherry neighborhood near downtown Charlotte.

E. P. Nisbet founded the company, which also provides wholesale petroleum products, in 1927. His interest in new mechanical devices led him to purchase a Williams Oil-OMatic oil burner franchise, then an ultramodern innovation in home heating. At his customers’ request Nisbet bought a small oil truck and began home deliveries of heating oil. The business grew as Nisbet’s company “looked after” his customers’ heating needs.

In the 1950s, the E. P. Nisbet Company began installing Carrier air conditioners in homes. Leadership by Jim Kuykendall and F. H. “Bub” Orr contributed greatly to the company’s growth and reputation in the heating and air business.

After a competitor offered to buy his business in 1955, Nisbet asked his son-in-law, Jim White, a Charlotte native who was then working “up north” with giant DuPont, if he would come to work at the Nisbet firm. White accepted and the business stayed in the family.

Jim began building the heating oil business, and operated the company after Nisbet’s death in 1960. Seeing an opportunity in the wholesale gasoline business, he founded Nisbet Oil Company in 1962, and began supplying country stores and “filling stations” in then rural areas of Mecklenburg County, such as Mathews, Mint Hill, Pineville, and Shuffltetown. As the business grew he began purchasing corner lots and building stations. In 1966 Jim teamed up with Wendell Boggs and bought Rhodes and Beal Oil Company, a small firm in Lincolnton, North Carolina, selling petroleum products in Lincoln and Catawba Counties.

In addition to Nisbet’s founder, the business has been led by Presidents Mary McLure Nisbet, 1933-86; James J. White III, 1986-2000 (now chairman); and James J. White IV, 2000-present. William F. Purvis, vice-president, 1964-86; Joseph W. Grier, Jr., Esq.; William S. Johns, Jr., CFO since 1981, have also greatly contributed to Nisbet’s success. The management considers employees the company’s greatest asset.

Nisbet, which grew from about $750,000 in sales in the 1950s to over $100 million in 2005, operates in North and South Carolina.

The company exists to provide customers with service and value, and strives to conduct its business with integrity and fairness. Active in the community, it underwrites programming on WTVI, Charlotte’s PBS affiliate, and contributes to such groups as the Arts and Science Council, American Cancer Society, MDA, and Katawba Valley Land Trust.