Sandri History

Learn about the history of our company! We would like to share with you the story of how our family-run energy business began nearly a century ago—right here in Greenfield, Massachusetts.

A. R. & W. A. Sandri

The history of the Sandri Companies is an old-fashioned American success story. It is of two men who, over the course of nearly seventy-five years, with hard work, intelligence, and savvy grew a successful family business that has worked to benefit its community as well as their family.

A.R. Sandri came to Greenfield, Massachusetts, from the granite quarrying town of Barre, Vermont, where, due to the death of his father, his mother urged him to find another, less hazardous line of work. In 1929 he found work with the Pan-Am Oil Company, and after a brief internship he was officially hired as chief clerk. At Pan-Am, his supervisor could not remember or pronounce his given name, Acilio Remo, so he nicknamed him Bill (a name by which many still call him today). In 1930 the young Sandri was offered a lease on a gasoline station at 155 Main Street in Greenfield. So began the Sandri family businesses.

By 1962, A.R. was a successful Cities Service distributor in Franklin County with 26 service stations, a strong farm and commercial account base, and a fuel oil business of about five million gallons yearly. A.R. was searching for more ways to expand and grow his business, and in 1964 Sun Oil Company offered him just that. The conversion to Sunoco products was completed by the next summer, and by 1969 Sandri’s service stations numbered almost 50, with about 2,200 heating oil customers and 230 commercial and farm gasoline accounts. A.R. Sandri, Inc. had now grown to serve two counties in Massachusetts and also the lower portions of Vermont and New Hampshire.

In 1969, William A. Sandri, son of A.R., came to work for the business full- time. W.A. had a very successful academic career at Deerfield Academy and the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. W.A. began working in the business when he was very young doing various jobs during his summer vacations. After managing a restaurant and tending bar in Stowe, Vermont, W.A. came back to Greenfield to start a family and continue the family business.

Expansion throughout New England

By 1973, W.A. took over as President of A.R. Sandri, Inc. and began a series of steps to take the company to the next level. The most impressive of these moves came in 1976 with the buyout of all of Sunoco’s gasoline stations in Vermont and Southern New Hampshire. That move single-handedly put the Sandri corporations in the forefront of Fuels Distribution in New England and became the largest distributor of Sunoco gasoline, fuels, and lubes in the United States. Under the direction of W.A., Sandri Sunoco was the first to attain the five million gallon mark for gasoline sales in one month, and the first to attain the 50 million gallon mark for gasoline sales in one year.