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Photos by Mark Bolles
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I fully believe that if the right woman is available for an executive-level job, she’s going to get that job. The point is not to try to fit into a traditional mold.
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fter 45 years at Stewart’s Shops, Senior Vice President Nancy Trimbur knows the territory – literally, because you travel a lot of roads when you’re in charge of new and replacement facilities, maintenance, gasoline and real estate for 334 convenience stores across upstate New York and southern Vermont, operated from a corporate epicenter in Malta she refers to as “the ridge.” When Trimbur started with the company, not long after graduating from Skidmore College, with a degree in business, there were just 40 stores and she served as an assistant office manager for about a decade. Then, following the unfortunate death of the head of construction, Stewart’s former president, now CEO, Bill Dake, tapped Trimbur, who, by her own admission, “knew nothing about blacktops,” to run the department. “Bill gave me this opportunity because he believed in me, not because I was a woman, nor did that stand in my way,”
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Nancy Trimbur
Week of May 22 – May 28, 2015
Trimbur says. “He was an incredible mentor, the best, and I have had quite an education.” Originally, the native of Garden City, Long Island, had set her sights on becoming a nurse, “living a life based on the Golden Books of my childhood.” Being launched into the corporate executive arena was a wonderful accident that led to a far happier ending than Trimbur could have imagined, she says. “I grew up at Stewart’s,” she says. “When I look back, it amazes me. Stewart’s is a fabulous company and I feel so fortunate that Bill chose me.” Indeed, during her tenure, Trimbur has seen the enlightened company add employee benefits such as paid maternity leave, generous contributions toward an employee’s YMCA membership, which includes an excellent child care center and summer camp, as well as significant scholarships for the children of employees to help them attend college and unusual provisions for mental health