In 2011, Sun Coast Resources was all about rapid growth and expansion.

While the company, which has more than 10,000 active customers, offers a variety of services, including transportation of fuels and a large emergency response team, its main revenue source is physical sales of gasoline, jet and diesel fuels, and lubricants to industrial, commercial and government enterprises in 35 states. It buys products and resells them to customers, including convenience stores that sell gasoline.

Its revenue almost doubled from $876 million in 2010 to $1.6 billion in 2011. Sun Coast also expanded its workforce from about 450 to more than 1,600, of which more than 650 are in the Houston area.

“We’ve grown by internal expansion, where we’ve gone out and signed up new customers,” Sun Coast Senior Managing Director Steve Boyd said. “And we’ve bought existing companies. We have acquired several companies in the last year or so.”

Sun Coast’s revenue last year put it at No. 9 on the Chronicle’s list of top Houston private companies, up from No. 11 the previous year. Boyd is confident revenue this year “will be significantly higher.”

He gives most of the credit for Sun Coast’s recent aggressive growth, which came as many rivals held back, to President and CEO Kathy Lehne, who founded the company at age 23 in 1985.

“She has a very unique knack of identifying an opportunity and executing it quickly, and she has the people and resources in place,” Boyd said. “If she hears about it, she can execute and does execute. And that’s the key in any business, how fast are you at analyzing and executing? On these acquisitions, we beat everybody to the punch.”

About 90 percent of Sun Coast’s total sales are represented by ultra-low sulfur diesel fuels for commercial and industrial concerns.

Among large customers are railroad transportation companies including Union Pacific and BNSF; utility companies including CenterPoint Energy; the Houston Independent School District, coal mines, construction companies, delivery services and sports complexes.

Boyd credits Sun Coast’s size and an experienced staff with helping it beat its mostly smaller competition. The company also offers other services such as the lending of storage tanks.

Parks is a freelance reporter.

louisparks@gmail.com

Overall rank	Company	Type of business	2011 revenue (millions)	Total employees	Houston area employees	Year founded	Top executive
1	Gulf States Toyota	Independent distributor of Toyotas to 154 dealerships in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Texas	$5,000	2,000	1,930	1969	Tom Bittenbender, senior vice president, field operations; Jeff Parent, senior vice president, distribution and strategy, Dan Friedkin, chairman and CEO
2	Vinmar Group	Marketing, distribution, project development, petrochemicals	$4,770	425	120	1978	Hemant P. Goradia
3	Tauber Oil Co.	Independent marketer of petroleum, petrochemical and natural gas products	$4,400	86	85	1953	David W. Tauber, Richard E. Tauber
4	Nexeo Solutions	Connecting producers and customers of chemicals, plastics, composites and environmental services	$4,012	2,313	179	2011	David Bradley
5	Grocers Supply Co.	Wholesale and retail grocery business	$3,200	10,200	6,300	1923	Max Levit
6	Academy Sports + Outdoors	Sporting goods, outdoors and lifestyle retailer with 142 stores in 11 states	$3,000	17,000	4,882	1938	Rodney Faldyn
7	Goodman Global Group	Manufacturer of residential and commercial heating and cooling products and systems	$2,100	4,557	1,944	1982	David Swift
8	Landry’s	Dining, hospitality, entertainment and gaming	$1,800	46,700	7,830	1980	Tilman J. Fertitta
9	Sun Coast Resources	Distributor of wholesale fuels and lubricants; emergency fuel response provider	$1,600	1,244	581	1985	Kathy Lehne
10	EnerVest	Onshore oil and gas acquisition, development and production	$1,204	800	240	1992	John B. Walker
11	The Attachmate Group	Enterprise software company, with principal holdings Attachmate, NetIQ, Novell and SUSE	$1,200	4,000	300	1981	Jeff Hawn
12	Rockwater Energy Solutions	Fluids management services and environmental solutions	$1,030	3,000	970	2011	Larry O’Donnell III
13	Citation Oil & Gas Corp.	Oil and gas acquisition, exploitation and production	$1,016	510	200	1981	Curtis Harrell
14	Universal Weather and Aviation	International flight planning and flight support services provider for business aviation	$973	1,700	647	1959	Greg Evans
15	S&B Engineers and Constructors and affiliates	Engineering, procurement, construction and management services to the refining, petrochemical and chemical, midstream and power industries	$864	3,866	2,300	1967	W. A. Brookshire
16	Silver Eagle Distributors	Distributor of Anheuser-Busch and Modelo products and other beverages	$864	1,258	838	1961	John Nau III
17	Frank’s International	Oil-field services	$850	3,600	300	1981	Keith Mosing
18	FleetPride	Independent distributor of heavy-duty truck and trailer parts	$800	2,500	80	1999	W.M. McGee
19	J.B. Poindexter & Co.	Commercial truck bodies, step vans, pickup truck caps, funeral coaches and limousines, oil and gas industry equipment and packaging materials	$708	3,348	16	1985	John Poindexter
20	David Weekley Homes	Single-family home builder	$624	680	280	1976	David Weekley
21	Triple-S Steel Holdings	Steel service center	$620	600	300	1960	Gary Stein
22	Coutinho & Ferrostaal Inc.	International steel trading and trade services	$600	75	64	2008	Hernan Guajardo
23	Valerus	Integrated gas processing solutions, including compression, processing and treating, production equipment and associated services	$594	1,300	300	2002	Pete Lane
24	Glazier Foods Co.	Food service distributor servicing restaurants, schools, hospitals, hotels, country clubs	$592	570	395	1936	James J. Spring III, chairman; John H. Miller, president
25	Victory Packaging	North American packaging distributor	$585	1,081	93	1976	Benjamin Samuels
26	Amerisource Funding	Working capital financing and outsourced management services to small and middle market companies	$577	65	58	1984	Jason Floyd, D. Michael Monk
27	N.F. Smith & Associates	Electronics distributor	$513	350	185	1984	Marcus Barnhill, Matthew Hartzell
28	G&A Partners	Professional employer organization, human resources and administrative services provider	$475	125	91	1995	Tony Grijalva
29	Doggett Equipment Services Group	18 John Deere construction and forestry dealerships and 8 Toyota industrial equipment dealerships	$457	742	237	1993	Leslie Doggett
30	Lewis Food Town	Grocery stores	$455	1,975	1,975	1994	Ross C. Lewis
31	Crane Worldwide Logistics	Full-service global logistics and freight-forwarding company	$420	1,000	188	2008	John Magee
32	Satterfield & Pontikes Construction	General contractor with offices in Austin, Dallas/Fort Worth, Houston, San Antonio and New Orleans	$416	357	139	1989	George A. Pontikes Jr.
33	Energy Alloys	Global provider of oil field metals and services	$410	552	259	1995	Dave Warren
34	Williams Brothers Construction Co.	Highway and bridge construction	$401	1,830	1,385	1955	Doug Pitcock
35	SpawGlass	General contractor	$398	515	170	1953	Joel Stone
36	Benchmark Hospitality International	Management and marketing of resorts, conference centers and hotels	$367	4,878	215	1980	Burt Cabanas
37	Perry Homes	Home builder	$354	324	300	1967	Bob Perry
38	PFP Technology	Natural polymers and chemicals (oil and gas industry)	$353	29	29	2001	Asoke Deysarkar
39	Aquinas Cos.	Manages a portfolio of operating companies primarily focused on construction and real estate	$345	479	241	1950	Leo Linbeck III
40	Black Elk Energy	Oil and gas	$340	125	94	2007	John Hoffman
41	Triten Corp.	Engineering and construction for the hydrocarbon processing, metals manufacturing	$337	290	200	1946	John Scott Arnoldy
42	McGuyer Homebuilders	Residential construction and land development. (Plantation Homes, Coventry Homes, Carmel Builders)	$325	326	193	1988	Frank McGuyer
43	Strike Construction	Pipeline products and services including construction, maintenance and repair; flow measurement systems	$324	1,800	500	2003	Steve Pate
44	JD Fields & Co.	Wholesale distributor of steel pipe and piling	$307	35	20	1985	Jerry Fields, Jay D. Fields, J. Patrick Burk
45	Ranger Steel	Steel plate distributor	$300	25	22	1958	Ron Whitley
46	Gerland Corp.	Food Fair, Food Town and Grand Market grocery chains	$295	1,600	1,600	1961	Kevin Doris
47	Tellepsen Corp.	General contractor	$280	575	575	1909	Howard T. Tellepsen Jr.
48	The Plaza Group	Marketing services for the petrochemical industry	$272	18	14	1994	Randy Velarde
49	Cosentino North America	Manufacturer and distributor of natural stone, quartz surfaces and recycles surfaces	$271	750	145	1998	Eduardo Cosentino
50	Strategic Materials	Source, recycle and sell glass, plastic and related by-products	$251	1,200	45	1989	Bill Waltz, CEO; Curt Bucey, president

 

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