This story appears in the July 2025 issue of Utah Business. Subscribe.
Growing up in Brigham City, Utah, Crystal Maggelet was often picked last in team sports. She describes her younger self as impossibly shy and largely uncoordinated. She also says she consistently had the highest grades.
“I was going to do well in school. If I did that, every opportunity would be available, whether I wanted to do more with my education or secure a good job,” Maggelet says. “Early on, I felt that doing my best helped keep doors open. That’s played out in all aspects of my life.”
Since earning degrees from Harvard Business School and Pepperdine University, the opportunities Maggelet has acquired have been frequent. In addition to being CEO and chairwoman of FJ Management Inc., one of the largest privately held companies in the country, she manages a diverse portfolio that comprises petroleum refining, convenience stores and hotels, including the Crystal Inn Hotel & Suites chain, TAB Bank and, as of 2023, the Des Moines, Iowa-based convenience store company Kum & Go.
Not bad for a formerly “impossibly shy” girl.
As the daughter of the late Flying J founder O. Jay Call, Maggelet never expected to become the company’s CEO in 2009. At the time, she had four children at home, all under 13, so signing on for 60-hour workweeks wasn’t attractive.
However, Maggelet was serving as a Flying J board member and saw the opportunity to have more influence in an industry she was already committed to. At 44, she accepted the challenge, then guided Flying J away from Chapter 11 bankruptcy and paid back the $1.4 billion the company owed to its creditors.
She never quit working to get out of bankruptcy, a subject she writes about at length in her 2019 book “Building Value to Last.”
“I was ready and willing to do whatever it took to get out of this mess,” she writes. “No longer would I sit on the sidelines watching as the company unraveled.”
Maggelet remains proud of the company her father started and has kept his reputation strong by keeping his businesses strong.
Foundational values
Though neither of Maggelet’s parents had degrees, both urged her to attend college, a decision she’s happy to have made. The daughter of entrepreneurial parents, Maggelet learned a lot about business around the dinner table, long before deciding on her career.
“I learned through their actions what values I wanted and wanted to pass on to my children, like honesty, integrity, humility and transparency,” Maggelet says. “Hard work. Confidence over ego. Understanding that it’s OK to make a mistake, and to remove the fear of failure.”
These values have given her the strength to tackle the unknown, regardless of experience. They have helped her make smart decisions and execute big decisions under pressure.
She demonstrated these characteristics when she saved her father’s legacy from financial ruin. Today, Maggelet’s focus is on FJ Management’s future and shining a light on all her organization is accomplishing now.
Inn-ovation
When Maggelet’s dad approached her with the idea of building and running a chain of independent hotels throughout the region, she trusted his judgment. She opened her first Crystal Inns & Suites in 1994.
“I truly believe that if you are given an opportunity that interests you, you figure it out,” Maggelet writes in “Building Value to Last.” “You might not do everything right, and you might mess up along the way, but you figure it out.”
Sometimes figuring it out meant organizing her to-do tasks on 100+ color-coded index cards organized by category (construction, marketing, operations and so on) to stay on task. Other times, it meant offering a free hotel stay to her newlywed friends if they would help move furniture into her first location, ensuring an on-time grand opening in Salt Lake City.
“The biggest lesson I learned during that whirlwind of a year was to believe in myself, to make decisions on the fly,” she writes. “There was no other choice.”
That outside-the-box thinking served her well. Today, Crystal Inn & Suites has locations in Brigham City, Murray, Salt Lake City, West Valley City and Great Falls, Montana.
Maverik: Maggelet’s next stop
After founding and running Crystal Inn for over a decade — a venture that shares her name, thanks to her father — along with her role at Flying J, Maggelet was interested in further diversifying the company portfolio.
As luck would have it, she never had to look further than her extended family.
In 2012, her cousin Mike Call shared that he wanted to sell Maverik, his gas station and convenience store chain.
“And I said, ‘Are you going to sell to me?’” Maggelet says.
Within months, Call did just that. Maggelet effectively doubled the number of Maverik stores, growing organically from 240 locations to over 400 in 10 years. Acquiring Kum & Go in 2023 was another feather in Maggelet’s cap. Now, FJ Management has over 800 locations across 20 states.
Maggelet says Maverik matches FJ Management’s culture and reminds her of the important lessons her father taught her.
“One of the most important ones was that, when you make a deal with anyone, both parties feel good about it afterward. You’re never taking advantage of anyone,” Maggelet says. “I have always tried the best I could to make sure people feel that way, and I’m proud of that.”
Building solutions
Service is where Maggelet’s heart is. Through her Call to Action Philanthropies — which include the Call to Action Foundation and also Call Foundation, its grantmaking arm — she’s able to invest in early childhood education, early childhood and family mental health, food security, scholarships and affordable housing.
“When we came out of bankruptcy, we only had 1,000 employees. Today, we have 16,000, far more than Flying J ever had. The fun part is we built ourselves back to become far better and much more profitable than we once were.”
— Crystal Maggelet
“Forty years from now, when someone looks back on how I chose to live my life, will they see that I balanced … family, career, community?” Maggelet says. “That I left a legacy by making an impact in those ways? That I left a mark?”
One of the issues she is currently most focused on is addressing the affordable housing problem in Utah, partnering on an ambitious plan to build 850 affordable housing units — a combination of townhomes, condos and apartments — over three years.
“There’s an acute need for affordable housing in Utah right now, and too many Utah families can’t afford an average home,” Gov. Spencer Cox said of the partnership in 2023. “Together, we can change this narrative and build a brighter future for all Utahns.”
Maggelet’s Call to Action Foundation has been operating since 2007. In 2024, the foundation donated $38 million toward securing and preserving affordable housing for working families throughout the state. The same year, its first leasing project — Innovation Park at Holbrook Farms, a 240-unit affordable townhome community — opened in Lehi.
While there’s still plenty to do, they’ve made great progress, says Drew Maggelet, Crystal’s son and director of housing at Call to Action Philanthropies.
“When you’re left to wonder how you will ever be able to afford a home or if you’re going to remain living where you are, if you’re deciding between feeding your family or paying rent every month, you’re just trying to hold it together,” he continues. “At Call to Action, we’re trying to alleviate that in our way.”
Crystal’s brightest vision for the future is to continue helping businesses, communities and FJ Management thrive. FJ Management’s CFO, Sheri Widerburg, shares this vision.
“We talk about building value to last as the mission of FJM — a desire toward longevity,” Widerburg says. “We want to invest in businesses for a long time. We’re looking toward the long term in our multifamily program for generational assets. We can provide value long into the future at the same time. We can be agile and make adjustments to go the distance and stay around for a long time.”
Navigating change
Building a successful business can come with unexpected ramifications.
When Crystal’s ex-husband Chuck retired from their business, she assumed control over Maverik, becoming its CEO and chief adventure guide. For some, it was an unexpected change in leadership, but it was tied to a larger change for Chuck and Crystal. In 2024, they announced they were divorcing after 30 years of marriage.
In a business often fraught with challenges, the dissolution of Crystal’s marriage remains top of mind. She says she didn’t expect this ending and is still trying to process it. She wonders if she could have saved it. Maybe she needed to sacrifice her career, losing one part of her livelihood to hold on to another. In her opinion, though, she says her dad’s business became their family business. Losing the business partner she was so used to having by her side has taken getting used to, and it may take longer.
“Maybe in five years, when you ask me about it, it won’t even come to mind, because that’s who I am. I move on and try to get over [problems]. This one will be harder, but I’m here,” Crystal says. “I have a business to run, and we have made tremendous progress. But [getting divorced], to me … was a large hit.”
She says she still has four exceptional children, and that fact alone is akin to having it all.
A lasting legacy
Years ago, when Crystal approached her father about what his initial business goals were, he offered advice she still adheres to. He said, “Every morning I would look in the mirror and ask myself if I was going to work because I loved it. Since the answer was always ‘yes,’ I didn’t have to think about an alternative to the foreseeable future.”
What Crystal wants most is for her story to continue. Under her direction, her father’s small family business is larger than ever. She considers the people who have joined the company since she took over to be an extension of her own, and it continues to grow.
“When we came out of bankruptcy, we only had 1,000 employees,” Crystal says. “Today, we have 16,000, far more than Flying J ever had. The fun part is we built ourselves back to become far better and much more profitable than we once were.”