Peek at Martin Dawson’s LinkedIn profile and one will find a single experience listed: president of Arizona Propane, November 1972 to Present.

Growing alongside Fountain Hills, this month marks Dawson’s 50th year at Arizona Propane, the Town’s oldest established business under the same ownership.

It's a rare accomplishment to spend a half-century in one company, and even more, to spend it in one role. Looking back, Dawson counts himself lucky to have come out as the victor of two recessions and one depression.

“Politicians like to call it a recession and that’s a bunch of crap,” Dawson said. “We were knocked to our knees... ‘06, ’07, ’08 was a depression, and getting through that [would] probably be our biggest challenge.”

Dawson remembers when the entire business consisted of himself, a truck and a handful of propane tanks.

“I went around and knocked on doors, shook hands and said, ‘I’m here. I will supply your propane.’ That’s how I got started,” Dawson said.

Today, Arizona Propane employs nearly 80 people in six locations across The Valley, with long-haul drivers transporting gas out of Colorado, Utah, Texas, California and Wyoming on a regular basis.

“I don’t just sit here at this desk,” Dawson said. “If we’re short a driver or something, I’ll deliver gas. If we need parts chased or whatever, I go do it.”

Dawson grew up in Ypsilanti, Mich., working in the family business, where his great grandfather Martin Dawson I, worked in the ice trade, cutting massive blocks of ice out of the river with large crosscut saws to be loaded on railroad cars and shipped to Detroit.

As years went by, the business took on various shapes including feed and grain supply, coal supply, building supply and eventually fuel oil and propane. At an early age, Dawson’s desire to take over the family business was great, but when he wasn’t given the opportunity, Dawson, who suffered from asthma and hay fever, moved West to join his uncle and aunt who lived in the warmer climate of Arizona.

At the age of 24, Dawson began working for a Phoenix-based propane company, delivering propane tanks in Payson, Heber and Pinetop. Driving up and down the Beeline Highway three days a week, Dawson witnessed Fountain Hills sprout out of the desert and eventually welcome him and his young family into the community in 1972.

In Fountain Hills, Dawson began working in plumbing and irrigation, digging ditches to install sprinklers along a gravel Saguaro Blvd. and at the old Fountain Hills Golf Course. On a shoestring budget, Dawson started his business near the corner of Saguaro and Panorama boulevards before leasing a plot of land from Fort McDowell, where he spent the next 26 and a half years. Arizona Propane corporate office and refill station is now located in the Shea East Plaza on Shea Blvd.

Prior to 1970, the Fountain Hills area was part of one of the largest land and cattle holdings in Arizona

“In 1969, ’70 and ’71, the trend was that people wanted out of the inner city and wanted to be in the outlying areas,” Dawson said.

At that time, those leaving the metropolitan areas were what Dawson described as “horse people,” who would purchase anywhere from a quarter-acre to five-acre lots to establish their desert ranchettes.

“A lot of times they would move a mobile home on that property and they needed propane,” Dawson said who would gladly supply the growing number of horse people.

Dawson’s company was initially named Fountain Hills LP Gas Co., but as the business expanded, Dawson later changed the name to Arizona Propane, which today contains the largest inventory of new propane tanks in the Southwest.

“I didn’t have anything. I just had a dream,” Dawson said.

Back at Arizona Propane HQ, award plaques climb the wall outside Dawson’s office which he’s accrued over the years. A 1991 Businessperson of the Year award hangs between six Best Propane Delivery and Service plaques. One of Dawson’s most cherished awards hangs unassumingly near the bottom - an induction into the Lower Verde River Valley Hall of Fame.

“I’ve always tried to be a humble person, and the fact that my peers recognized me was, I thought, very, very rewarding to me,” Dawson said of his induction, who was later joined by his wife, Susan Dawson, who was inducted for her work at Rescue Pals in Fountain Hills.

An active volunteer in the earliest years of the community, Dawson served as president of the Fountain Hills Jaycees, Fountain Hills Rotary and the Fountain Hills Chamber of Commerce. He also worked on the first Town Incorporation Committee and was involved in the creation of White Castle days, an annual fundraising event that popularized White Castle in Arizona.

One of Dawson’s fondest memories was being involved in the creation of the Nessie, the Fountain Ness Monster who made its presence known every year with large footprints across Saguaro Blvd., appearing also in Fountain Park on St. Patrick’s Day.

According to the 2010 memoir, “Rising Above the Rest,” written by L. Alan Cruikshank, Jean Linzer and Jerry Miles, Nessie was the product of the early members of the Fountain Hills Shamrock Society, Terry Gill, Bob Evans, Bill and Jim Lavoie, Dick Sear, Bob Travis, Steve Nelson, Sid Apps and Martin Dawson, who would meet periodically to plan yearly activities.

Built from 55-gallon drums, wood and papier mache, Nessie was designed by Dawson’s eight years old son Justin Dawson.

Chasing hay

In recent years, Dawson has been spending time on his 100-acre plot of land in Montana. When asked what it is that he does up North, Dawson simply says, “Bale hay.”

“It’s a beautiful country and I really enjoy it, so I try to get up there as much as I can,” he said.

This year, Dawson baled 331 hay bales to sell to his Montana neighbor and long-time friend, Terry Gill, also a former Fountain Hills resident. Ironically at an early age, hay fever is one of the reasons that brought Dawson to Arizona, and now, the Montana hay fever is what’s pulling him away.

“I never started this business with the intent that I was going to build it up to sell it…I wanted something for my children to have and I have one of my children involved in it. That was my original goal.”

Dawson plans to pass along the business to his son, Justin Dawson, who has worked for his father since high school. With 27 years of experience, Justin now serves as Vice President of Arizona Propane.

“To say that you’ve been in business 25 years is an accomplishment,” Dawson said. “If you’ve been in business 40 to 50 years, that’s outstanding.”