Industry Technology Pioneer John Hervey Dies

ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- John Hervey, former NACS employee and PCATS executive director, died Aug. 5, 2010, according to NACS. Hervey had a long and distinguished career in the convenience and petroleum retailing industry beginning 40 years ago at Mobil Oil Corp., where he served in a variety of capacities for 25 years, including providing retail automation solutions for its 1,000-plus convenience stores.

"John knew how to make things happen," said NACS President and CEO Hank Armour. "He moved our industry from being laggards to having state-of-the-art technologies. He brought all the relevant players together to develop the standards that allow technology to more effectively support our businesses and our customers. John's impact on technology standards was instrumental to our success and he will be truly missed,"

Hervey retired from Mobil in 1992 and began a second career as an industry consultant. In 1995, he joined Minit Mart Foods in Bowling Green, Ky., as its director of IT, where Hervey was an early proponent of data standards. In 1997, he returned to consulting with Gerke and Associates, where he led the industry standards initiative that was to become the Petroleum Convenience Alliance for Technology Standards (PCATS). Hervey also was a retired U.S. Navy Captain, having served more than 35 years both active duty and in the Navy Reserve beginning in 1955 as a seaman recruit.

His career at NACS began in 2000 as its chief technology officer, where he took the helm of the NACS Technology Standards Project. In 2003, the NACS board of directors agreed that a spinoff of the project into its own organization was appropriate, thus forming PCATS. Hervey was named executive director of the newly formed association, and guided its growth and standards adoption work until his retirement in 2009.

During his tenure at PCATS, Hervey's guidance and expertise helped develop today's commonplace industry standards -- from POS and back office integration, to electronic business-to-business document exchange, payment systems and device integration. After his retirement in 2009, Hervey created his own consulting firm, 1148 Consulting LLC, providing IT and management solutions to convenience and petroleum marketing companies.

John Hervey is survived by his wife, Hettie, his daughter Elizabeth, his son James and his granddaughter, Abby.