Family-Owned Businesses 2024

Ramos Oil Company
The Ramos Family

Founded in the heart of West Sacramento by Bill Ramos in 1951, Ramos Oil Company has been a family business for nearly its entire existence. Bill’s son, Kent Ramos, who serves as the company’s president today, started working summers for his father’s business when he was just a teenager. “I started when I was in high school, before I even had a license,” says Kent, who marked his 50th year working full-time for the company last June.

Eventually, Kent’s brothers Kyle and Kris joined the business as well, and as the decades passed, more members of the family joined the company in all kinds of roles.

Bill passed away at age 93 in 2018, but today, three generations of Ramos family members—eight of them in all, ranging from their 30s to their 70s—carry on the family legacy. “I think one advantage of a family-owned business,” says Kent, “is that everyone is working toward that common good rather than being out for themselves.”

Collectively, they have built Ramos Oil into one of the 500 largest Hispanic-owned businesses in the United States, providing fuel for school districts, police and fire departments, hospitals, farms and ranches, and anyone else with large fleets who need fuel within a 100-mile radius of Sacramento. The company also owns similar businesses that serve Southern California and Northern Nevada.

Ramos Oil Company continues to operate its fuel business based on the spirit of longevity, community involvement and family values instilled by Bill Ramos, who always treated his customers like family.

“Kindness, compassion and unconditional love are our family values, and as a family business, naturally, these values overlap and are woven within operations,” says Kent. “We sell a generic product, so living out these values with our customers is incredibly important and really the thing that sets our company apart from the rest.”

888-347-0805. ramosoil.com