LP Gas Hall of Fame profile: Rita Pecilunas

The 2025 LP Gas Hall of Fame dinner and induction ceremony will take place April 3 at the JW Marriott Charlotte in downtown Charlotte, North Carolina. This year’s inductees are Tom Knauff of EDP, Rita Pecilunas of Otodata, Walter Smith of Smith Pumps and Full-Circle, and Ken Taylor of White Mountain Oil & Propane. Visit the LP Gas Hall of Fame website.

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Rita Pecilunas jokes that she could have been promoting Bruce Springsteen concerts. But, through a twist of events, she wound up spending 34 years promoting the widespread use of propane, and she swears she couldn’t be happier.

Pecilunas, who started her career in event promotion and hoped to work in the music industry, stumbled into media relations with the National Propane Gas Association (NPGA) and never looked back.

“I took a wrong turn, and I just kept going,” Pecilunas says with a laugh, quoting Springsteen’s “Hungry Heart.”

Now, she’s being inducted into the LP Gas Hall of Fame and honored as a pivotal player who made a colorless, odorless gas almost – dare we say? – sexy.

Born and raised outside Chicago, the former journalism student decided in college that she wanted to be an event promoter like the Miller Brewing Co. executive she met while on spring break in Daytona Beach, Florida. At the time, the closest degree was in public relations, so she completed college and went to work for a large firm where she planned high-end VIP events.

“I went from being a beer-and-burger girl to having to know fine wine,” she says.

But a hostile takeover of her company meant job cuts left and right. Suddenly, the marketing job she’d been told about with the NPGA didn’t sound so bad.

She didn’t have experience in media relations, but NPGA flew her down to Nashville, Tennessee, for a final interview with 14 men seated around a boardroom table.

“I walked in, and it was intimidating; nobody was smiling. They were all middle-aged white men, and I almost threw up; my stomach was lurching,” Pecilunas recalls. “I said, ‘I gotta tell you off the bat; I have an alibi for last night.’

“They roared laughing.”

This was the moment, she learned later from key players, that she won the job over a more serious-minded candidate.

“They said, ‘She was really smart and overqualified, but we knew you could make it in the propane industry.’”

Boy, were they right.

Still clinging to the hope of one day returning to concert promotion, Pecilunas got to work learning about propane. As a young woman, it was no small task in an industry dominated by men.

Except for the late Billie McWhorter, president of Sequoia Gas, Pecilunas didn’t have many female role models. Owners’ wives helped where they could, but most of them weren’t in the board meetings at that time. Many of the men there, though, kindly helped her find her footing.

“When I came in, I didn’t know anything about propane,” Pecilunas says. “I can’t tell you the grace these people showed, allowing me to ask stupid questions.”

In some ways, she acknowledges, being a woman in the field at that time helped because she stood out in a sea of individuals. Her ready laugh, hard work and natural ability to build consensus helped her put together collaborative teams that excelled despite limited budgets and a small staff. Almost without exception, industry members were eager to help.

“I think my best skill is bringing fun to work. I don’t think anyone should work eight to 10 hours a day with crabby people and not be laughing and enjoying the day,” Pecilunas says.

To meet tight deadlines, she rallied her team by planning almost-monthly pizza-and-dog nights in NPGA offices. To counter the late hours, she’d send her team home to get their dogs, which they would bring to the office to keep them company while they worked..

Hugh Hinton Jr., past president of the North Carolina Propane Gas Association, says Pecilunas quickly overcame any initial disadvantage she might’ve experienced by launching new programs that positioned propane among the major industries.

“She was a key force behind some major initiatives at the onset of her career, including partnerships with the natural gas industry to join forces against electricity; orchestrating a sizable impact at the National Association of Home Builders’ show, national restaurant and farm machinery shows, among others; creating Pinnacle 2000, the first industry educational retreat of its kind; leading crisis and media management classes for propane marketers; and serving as the industry’s media spokesperson – all with a very limited marketing budget,” Hinton says.

She modernized marketing efforts within the industry by growing the association’s marketing and development committee, adds Joe Bonadio, president/owner of Pennsylvania Propane Gas Co. Pecilunas educated propane retailers about the importance of networking and, long before social media, taught them how to get the word out about their businesses.

Among her key accomplishments was establishing Pinnacle 2000, which ran from 1995 to 2006, as the industry’s first national educational conference. She also helped revitalize a flagging Southeastern Convention, which remains the industry’s largest event.

In 2012, Pecilunas championed the industry’s Centennial Celebration that culminated in the acclaimed “Clean Air Parade” around downtown Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Park. She rounded up every conceivable kind of propane-fueled vehicle – from ice cream trucks to motorcycles – to show off the fuel as relevant, reliable and clean-burning. Such out-of-the-box thinking, she says, is one of her strengths.

“Propane isn’t very exciting, but if you put a propane-fueled race car out there it becomes sexy,” Pecilunas says.

At NPGA, she went on to manage three departments and, at 29, earned the distinction of being the first woman to serve as a vice president in the association.

Married to Jim, a special education teacher who coached high school basketball and tennis, and raising four children, Pecilunas eventually exited full-time work for greater flexibility with her family. It wasn’t long before the Propane Education & Research Council and the World LP Gas Association were asking her to manage projects.

Eight years ago, as a facilitator for the NPGA Benchmarking Council, Pecilunas saw how tank monitors could be vital for propane retailer operations.

In 2019, Montreal-based telemetry company Otodata hired Pecilunas to represent it in the field – a role that she sees as merely helping her friends in the industry solve a problem that threatens their livelihood.

“My whole job has been helping this industry for 34 years, and this is a continuation of that, so it’s extremely rewarding,” she says.

While Pecilunas has enjoyed mingling with the top names of the propane industry, she says she was surprised and humbled to be named alongside them in the Hall of Fame.

“I’m typically the behind-the-scenes gal who will get a program or project that needs to be fixed or launched, and no one wants to take it on. I’m not the one standing at the podium,” she says.

But, over time, she’s come to appreciate that she served a role that has helped to position propane for success, and she’s honored to be recognized for her hard work.

Thirty-four years might be a long way from the glory days of concert promotion, but, like Springsteen, Pecilunas knows you can’t start a fire without a spark – and she has been happy to provide it where she can.

“In looking back for industry and career pictures for the Hall of Fame, I came across a lot of letters and thank-you notes that I received following projects or initiatives that really made a difference for the industry,” Pecilunas adds. “Maybe not everyone noticed who was behind the effort, but that’s OK; I made an impact. I’m very proud and flattered to be recognized by my industry family.”