Biography & Early Wealth Journey

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Haslam's wife Cynthia passed away suddenly in 1974. Their eldest son Jimmy, a college student at the University of Tennessee, took her place on the board of directors. Not long after, Pilot expanded into convenience stores. Then, in 1981, Pilot opened its first travel center in Kentucky. Marathon Oil didn't like Pilot's expansion efforts, so in 1988, Haslam bought back the 50% share of the company. In 1994, Pilot acquired 11 Pro Stop stations, which officially made it the second-largest truck stop chain in the U.S. A year later, Pilot had 80 travel centers in 33 states as well as 51 convenience stores in Tennessee and Virginia. The same year, 1995, Jimmy Haslam moved into the CEO's office. Haslam became the company's chairman and his other son Bill the president.

Expansion continued in the early 2000s, and by 2008 Pilot was the largest chain of truck stops/travel centers in the U.S. In 2010, Pilot merged with the Flying J truck stop chain, which was going bankrupt. The new company came to be known as Pilot Flying J and operates over 550 travel stops in 23 states and Canada.

Primary Income Streams & Multi-Million Contracts

These days, Jimmy Haslam is the billionaire owner of the Cleveland Browns. Bill Haslam is the former Governor of Tennessee. He sold Pilot Flying J to Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway for $2.8 billion, making the Haslam family another beneficiary of Warren Buffett's business strategy.

The Haslam family still oversees the day-to-day operations of Flying J. Jimmy Haslam is still the CEO. Today there are more than 750 Pilot Flying J locations in 44 states and six Canadian provinces. In 1996, the company sold 1.1 billion gallons of fuel. Today, it sells more than seven billion gallons annually and serves 1.6 million guests a day.

The Haslam family now has a collective net worth of more than $6 billion, with Bill Haslam accounting for $2.1 billion of that and Jimmy Haslam $4 billion.

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