Thelen Oil Company was purchased on January 1, 2004 by Mark and Kerry (Thelen) Jaspersen. The new company name is KMJ Convenience Company. Mark was the Operations Manager for Thelen Oil Company and is the President of KMJ Convenience Company. Kerry has worked in the office.

KMJ Convenience owns 6 Food-N-Fuel and Freeway Tesoro stores in Minnesota with offices in Montevideo, Minnesota.

Prior History:
George Thelen earned a liberal arts degree in history from Bemidji State University.  After graduating, he worked as a salesman for an Amoco Oil jobber, worked for a Standard Oil jobber in St. Cloud, and worked for a brokerage firm, Watson Co., in St. Paul.  While working for the brokerage firm, Thelen trained at the Institute of Finance in New York City and at the New York Stock Exchange.

In his travels, he recognized the shifting of American purchasing attitudes.  People were looking for one-stop shopping after leaving work and heading home.  He had seen, and studied, successful convenience stores in other parts of the country and felt the concept would work in the Midwest.  That led to a decision to strike out on his own and positioned himself to buy into an oil jobber/dealership in Montevideo, Minnesota.  Eventually, he purchased the Montevideo Oil Company, which is now Thelen Oil Company. George opened his first Food-N-Fuel convenience store in Granite Falls, Minnesota in 1977.  

Thelen was President and CEO of both Thelen Oil Company, Inc. and the franchise offices of Food-N-Fuel, Inc.  Food-N-Fuel, Inc. offered franchise units and at one time had 104 stores in Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin.

(From interviews by Bemidji State University for their 1996 Outstanding Almuni Awards with updated information.)