Hartford Business Journal

18 HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | MAY 15, 2023 Michael Frisbie and Abdul Tammo, co-owners of Noble Gas Inc., stand in front of a new service center in Sturbridge, Mass., which will combine unique amenities, including a high-end deli, quality coffee and ice cream shops, latest-generation electric vehicle chargers and more. HBJ PHOTO | STEVE LASCHEVER Service Station Re-Imagined Hartford's Noble Gas prepares for explosive growth with unique combination of amenities By Michael Puffer mpuffer@hartfordbusiness.com M ichael Frisbie and Abdul Tammo grew up more than 5,000 miles apart in different corners of the world but have formed a family-like partnership behind a rapidly evolving line of service stations set for explosive growth. Over the past decade, the partners have built or refurbished a dozen gas stations under their Hartford-based Noble Gas Inc. brand, aiming to offer clean and friendly service that is a cut above the competition. Now, they are building a new genera- tion of larger service centers with more amenities, designed to accommodate future driving and consumption habits. The centers will blend traditional offerings with a high-end deli, quality coffee and ice cream shops, latest-generation electric vehicle chargers and more, with indoor seating and outdoor picnic areas furnished with aesthetic gas stoves. The first three developments — with a combined cost north of $30 million — are scheduled to open this summer, in Enfield, East Lyme and Sturbridge, Massachusetts, according to Frisbie, Noble Gas' co-owner. Noble is on pace to add 20 stations over the coming five years, Frisbie said, including in Hamden, East Hartford and Windsor. "What we are doing now is not your typical gas station," Frisbie said in a recent interview. "It's way more. It's an automotive fueling station we are building for the future of transportation." An atypical pair Frisbie, 54, comes from a blue- collar household in Westfield, Massachusetts, and went to work at 13, cleaning up around the machine shop that employed his father. By 15, he was running CNC machines and drill presses. Tammo, 55, is an ethnic Kurd who grew up in northern Syria and worked in a small-scale apartment develop- ment before immigrating to the U.S. in 1997 seeking opportunity. "We make really good partners," Frisbie said. "We trust each other completely. My kids and his kids are having a sleepover tonight. Our families are connected in a way you wouldn't typically see." Tammo said he immigrated at age 29, arriving at JFK Airport in New York with no English and only $500. He immediately went to work manning registers and stocking shelves at the Seaside Market, a Bridgeport grocery owned by a friend from Syria. Later, he would also help run convenience stores with gas pumps that were leased by the same friend. In 2006, Tammo and friends pooled resources to lease an XtraMart in Willimantic. Eventually, Tammo was a commissioned agent for 20 service stations — meaning he leased service plazas and ran the conve- nience stores while his landlords kept gas-sale profits. Frisbie put himself through Nichols College, a small business school in Dudley, Massachusetts. He gradu- ated in 1990 and went to work as a financial analyst for MassMutual. In 1995, Frisbie moved to Atlanta and took a job scouting and permit- ting locations for RaceTrac Petro- leum, a service-station chain located across the southern U.S. About four years later, Frisbie took a job as a real estate manager with Shell Oil Co., to be closer to family. Within a year, he had 10 locations under purchase agreements and shepherded two building sites through the permitting process. But Shell pulled the plug on the expan- sions and Frisbie opted to leave the company in late 2000. Three years later, when his first son was born, Frisbie launched Hunter Development Co., which developed and then leased to other operators service stations in Massachusetts and Connecticut. But Frisbie was convinced he could do more. "I was finding the best sites and then getting them permitted, and I said: 'Why am I not doing this for myself?'" Frisbie was developing a Stratford location for Alliance Energy when he got a call from Tammo, asking if he could buy the site. It was already spoken for, but that was the start of conversations that eventually led to their partnership. EV infrastructure In 2013, Frisbie and Tammo teamed up on a $1.4-million purchase and renovation of an 1,800-square- foot convenience store with four pumps and a Dunkin' store on a half- acre in Hartford's North Meadows. It went so well, the pair invested in a second station in Danbury, then one in New Britain, and so on. In 2021, Noble opened its 12th station on Farmington Avenue in New Britain at a cost of $4.2 million. The station includes a 4,276-square-foot convenience store with an embedded Dunkin' and 12 pumps. The grander stations under construction include one off Inter- state 95 in East Lyme, another on

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