Blue Rhino

Ferrellgas

Type	Master Limited Partnership
Traded as	: FGP
Industry	Retail Propane Distribution
Founded	1939; 78 years ago (1939) (as A.C. Ferrell Butane Gas Company) Atchison, Kansas, U.S.
Founder	A.C. Ferrell
Headquarters	Overland Park, Kansas, U.S.
Key people	James E. Ferrell(CEO) Geoffrey L. Berger, (executive vice president, blue rhino & senior vice president, ferrellgas) Daniel Giannini, (president, bridger logistics) Trent D. Hampton, (senior vice president, legal & risk) Alan C. Heitmann, (chief financial officer & executive vice president) Randy V. Schott, (senior vice president, retail operations) Thomas M. Van Buren, (executive vice president, ferrell north america & midstream)
Revenue	$2.0 billion USD (2016)
Number of employees	3,908 (2016)
Website	www.ferrellgas.com

Ferrellgas Partners, L.P. is an American supplier of propane. Ferrellgas has corporate operations in the Kansas City suburbs of Liberty, Missouri and Overland Park, Kansas.

The company was founded in 1939 by Alfred Carl (A.C.) Ferrell in Atchison, Kansas. Established as A.C. Ferrell Butane Gas Company, the business prospered during World War II and the immediate post-war years. The company sold gas heaters and floor furnaces from its storefront on Commercial Street in downtown Atchison. In 1947, A.C. Ferrell erected a bulk plant on a rail siding in East Atchison to help supply bottled gas to local customers. A.C.'s wife, Mabel, was active in the family business, serving as office manager and bookkeeper. The business began a slow, steady decline when Mabel died in 1952. The business continued on, with A.C. electing to diversify by selling furniture and televisions. A massive flood in Atchison in 1958 destroyed much of the company's merchandise, prompting A.C. to move the business from Commercial Street to rented space across the river in Missouri.

A.C. and Mabel's oldest son and middle child, current company Chairman James Ferrell, enrolled in the University of Kansas in 1958. That same year he married a 19-year-old freshman from nearby Benedictine College named Elizabeth (Zibbie). James Ferrell graduated from college in 1963 with a business degree. As an undergraduate, he participated in R.O.T.C., enjoying the discipline and the regimen while learning the principles of leadership that would aid him throughout his career as an entrepreneur and international businessman. After graduation, he went to Fort Benning, Georgia, to attend infantry school. After being stationed for a year in Korea, James and Zibbie Ferrell moved to Fort Lewis, Washington. It was there that James received a letter from A.C. Ferrell asking if he could return home to Kansas to help with struggling family business. It was 1965. The company had reverted to selling strictly propane and had dwindled to only four employees.

James Ferrell renamed the company Ferrellgas. The company expanded across the Missouri River to acquire a Rushville, Missouri dealer in 1968. In the next 10 years, the company acquired other Midwestern dealers and established a wholesale operation, and profited amid the energy crises of 1973 and 1979. During that time, the Ferrellgas headquarters shifted, moving first to Platte City, Missouri before moving further east to Kearney. Its expansion continued, opening Ferrell North America, a propane and feedstock distribution arm, in 1977. To accommodate a growing staff, new offices were constructed in Liberty, Missouri, in 1981 and 1983. Those offices, which remain in use by corporate support employees today, would serve as Ferrellgas' headquarters until 2004, with the company moved its executive offices to their current location in nearby Overland Park, Kansas.