Meet George Chapa of Lone Star Oil Recovery in Pearland

Today we’d like to introduce you to George Chapa.

George, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Lone Star Oil Recovery was started by my brother Eric and me just over 10 years back.

Six months into our startup; I left to Iraq with the Texas National Guard! Eric was 19 and the responsibility of either maintaining the business or letting it go. It was rough for him alone but I encouraged him to hold strong. Upon my return a year later; we were determined to grow our business. Along the way we managed to develop relationships with key personnel which helped us along our journey.

In the beginning we started with an idea of going into business together with only $900 in our pockets. Today, we have an 8 acre compound. We can store more than 200,000 gallons of product, 4 bobtails (used oil tank trucks), and a box truck. Eric and I had absolutely no idea how to get into this business, or what equipment to use, or where to buy it. You can say, “We came from The School of Hard Knocks .”

Everything we have today came from hard work and determination to succeed.

Within the last year Lone Star Oil Recovery has been successful enough to employ 5 full time persons and 2-3 part-time help. Our goal for the next year is to be able to employ 10 full time employees.

I tell my Soldiers and all young people I come into contact with, “Only you can determine what your future is; through hard work, determination, and setting short-term and long-term goals.”

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
The road we have taken to get where we are today has been the most undeveloped road you can think of! We were young; Eric was 19 and I was 24. We were still living at home with our Grandma, and had no education in business. Everywhere down the road was a new experience and we were forced to learn every aspect of our business and how to be businessmen.

One of our more challenging obstacles was competing with the large corporate environmental companies. Not only are they greedy but they don’t want small independent companies like Lone Star Oil Recovery grow and survive. Another obstacle was becoming completely independent of them. For many years they were not only our competitors but also buyers of our product; so this meant we could only get paid what they wanted to pay and could cut us off at any time. Fortunately today we sell to other sources which do not compete with us.

Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Lone Star Oil Recovery – what should we know?
Lone Star Oil Recovery is classified as an Environmental company. We recovery and recycle Hydrocarbons such as: Used Oil, Hydraulic Fluid, Diesel, Transmission Fluid, etc… Lone Star Oil Recovery also recovers and recycles anti-freeze, used oil filters, and oily water. Lone Star Oil Recovery specializes in mainly recovering and recycling Used Crank Case Oil and is known for being fast, clean, safe, and excellent customer service.

I’m most proud of how professional we all are. Our client retention rate is above 90% and growing every week! What sets us apart from our competitors “is” our professionalism and reliability. Like it says on our web page (www.ls-oilrecovery.com); “Lone Star Oil Recovery was formed from the simple idea of providing customer service unlike that of our competitors. We pride ourselves on safe, fast, and clean service! We don’t believe in making promises which we don’t intend on keeping.’

Being Lone Star Oil Recovery is own and operated as a Small Business; we are able to make commitments the large corporations cannot.

Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
There was one person in particular we would like to personally thank for your success, Felix Cortes of Cortes Truck Welding. He not only rented us a spot to start our business but also fabricated all our trucks. He has played a vital role in our development as not only young men but businessmen as well.

Contact Info:

• Address: 4176 Masters Rd.,
  Pearland, TX 77584
• Website: www.ls-oilrecovery.com
• Phone: (713) 591-8288
• Email: lonestar_oil@yahoo.com

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