Jeff Cornish, chief financial officer, chief information officer and senior vice president of Pilot Travel Centers LLC, has received the 2003 Outstanding CPA in Business and Industry Award
from the Tennessee Society of Certified Public Accountants.
As the state’s honoree, he is automatically nominated for the American Institute of CPAs’ Business and Industry Executive Committee Hall of Fame, which will be announced in May 2004.
"Jeff has played a major role in our growth from a $250-million company to a $5-billion company over the past 12 years," said Pilot Travel Centers CEO Jimmy Haslam. "He has negotiated and financed Pilot’s most important joint ventures, and developed the infrastructure that has allowed us to grow 25% a year."
Cornish came to Pilot in 1990 from Coopers & Lybrand in Florida, where he directed strategic consulting services. Key projects during his three-year tenure there include restructuring front-office financial operations for the New York Yankees baseball organization and implementing a point-of-sale system for the Hard Rock Café chain.
Knoxville-based Pilot Travel Centers LLC operates 272 travel centers in 37 states. It is ranked No. 68 in the 2001 Forbes magazine Top 500 Privately Held Companies in America and is one of the 50 Most Influential Franchisees named by Nation’s Restaurant News magazine. Its sister company, Pilot Food Marts, includes 67 convenience stores in Tennessee and Virginia. All offer a wide variety of merchandise in addition to fuel and convenience items.