Company History

J.E. DeWitt, Inc. (JEDI) is a family owned business that was founded in 1945 by John E. DeWitt. "Hap", as he was referred to, started in the business in 1925 hustling gasoline at a truck stop in Coachella. He later moved to a Signal truck stop west of Indio with his two brothers Floyd and Cotton. In 1930 Hap and his wife Kathryn moved to South Los Angeles and Hap went to work for Signal Oil as a driver. Hap moved up the company to become division manager and finally bought the distributorship in El Monte from Charles Drown in 1945. At that time the jobbership had a monthly volume of 83,000 gallons.

A strike in 1960 brought Hap's son John back to the family business and along with his uncles they drove trucks to get through the difficult time. JEDI stayed with Signal Oil until 1967 and had a brief relationship with Humble Oil and then began a long relationship with Texaco. John likes to say he was humble for ninety days.

Our first key lock (unattended fuel site) was simply a pump with a pad lock and a clip board. Customers would note their usage and were billed monthly.

In 1972, JEDI moved to its current location in South El Monte. Shortly after the move they built a multi-key lock on site. Customers were assigned a key for their company, later an optical card scanner was installed with cards assigned to a company and their vehicles.

Un-attended fuel sites were very convenient for customers and in 1988 John DeWitt with others members of the industry joined Fred Bertetta to start the Commercial Fueling Network. The CFN network allows JEDI's customers to refuel at any CFN station nationwide and still maintain control of fuel purchases.

Mary DeWitt Wilson joined the family business in 1992 working in sales. Under Mary's leadership, the Company has seen significant growth. In 2001 JEDI purchased Pinto Petroleum located in Ventura, Ca. In the same year JEDI purchased controlling interest in AMF Distributing onsite fueling division. Advanced Mobile Fuels has consistently increased gallons sold and together with Pinto Petroleum, has made J.E. DeWitt a stronger, more competitive fuel supplier. In 2002 Mary was named President of J.E. DeWitt, Inc..

Since 1945 JEDI has grown from 83,000 gallons a month to over 100 million gallons annually. In addition to great leadership, our suppliers have been an integral part of our success. Their expertise, integrity, and knowledge have provided our customers with the highest quality products for each specific requirement.