Don Zietlow Net Worth 2026: Kwik Trip Owner, Retired CEO

No reputable outlet publishes a net worth figure for Don Zietlow, so this page does not give one. The $22.2 million number shown on an earlier version of this page had no source and has been removed. What is on record is the business behind his wealth: Zietlow was one of the early owners of Kwik Trip, the La Crosse, Wisconsin, convenience store chain, ran it as president and CEO from 2000 to 2022, and his family has owned it outright since buying out its partners in 2000.

What is Don Zietlow's net worth?

Forbes, Bloomberg and Celebrity Net Worth do not list him, and Kwik Trip is a private company that does not publish its accounts. That means any exact personal figure you see online is a guess. The earlier $22.2 million estimate on this page is also hard to square with the size of the company his family owns.

The published facts give a sense of scale without a number. BizTimes Milwaukee reported in 2022 that Kwik Trip was said to do nearly $7 billion in annual sales, and that the Zietlow family has held sole ownership since 2000 (BizTimes). By its latest profile, the chain had nearly 900 stores and over 38,000 employees. The value of a stake like that is not public, but it is the core of the family's wealth.

Don Zietlow's salary and income

His pay as CEO was never disclosed. The yearly, monthly and daily income figures that appeared on this page before ($1 million a year, $84,000 a month) had no source, so they are gone. Because Kwik Trip is family owned, most of the family's return comes from owning the company rather than from a salary.

One pay-related fact is well documented, and it concerns Kwik Trip's workers rather than Zietlow himself. He pushed for the company to share 40% of its pretax profits with employees each year, a policy Convenience Store News and BizTimes both credit to him (Convenience Store News). Milwaukee Magazine reports the plan started in 1989 and pays workers a year-end bonus of roughly 8% to 12% of their gross wages (Milwaukee Magazine).

Early life and family

Zietlow grew up on a farm near Chaseburg, a village of fewer than 200 people about 10 miles southeast of La Crosse. According to Milwaukee Magazine, he hoped to become a minister as a young man, but a stutter he had until age 32 changed those plans. In 1958, at 24, he was driving a delivery truck for Gateway Foods, a La Crosse wholesale grocer (Milwaukee Magazine). That puts his birth year around 1934; no source we found gives an exact birth date.

Don Zietlow's wife

His wife was LaVonne Zietlow (born Hoeth). The two met at Central High School in La Crosse and married on May 14, 1955. According to her obituary, she volunteered for decades with the American Red Cross, running local blood drives, and was recognized by the organization in 2015. She died on March 4, 2023 (obituary).

They had three children: a daughter, Vicky, and two sons, Scott and Steven. Scott Zietlow became Kwik Trip's president and CEO in January 2023.

Education

The only education detail in the sources we checked is his high school: he attended Central High School in La Crosse, where he met his wife. The earlier claim that he went to university before joining a "family business" has no source and does not match his documented start as a delivery driver, so it has been removed.

Career: from delivery driver to Kwik Trip owner

An earlier version of this page said Zietlow founded Kwik Trip from nothing. The fuller story, as told by Milwaukee Magazine, is a little different.

• 1958 onward: works at Gateway Foods and rises through the ranks to become its president.
• June 1965: John and Donna Hansen open the first Kwik Trip, a small grocery store in Eau Claire, in partnership with Gateway owner D.B. Reinhart. There were no gas pumps.
• 1970: Kwik Trip adds gasoline.
• 1971-1972: Zietlow buys a La Crosse grocery store on the spot after a challenge at an industry meeting, then joins Hansen and Reinhart, with each taking a one-third stake in what had become six stores. Convenience Store News dates his ownership position to 1972 (Convenience Store News).
• 1983-1986: the chain grows from 50 to 100 stores, mostly in western Wisconsin.
• 1989: Zietlow and Hansen buy out Reinhart; Zietlow takes the majority and starts the 40% profit-sharing plan.
• 2000: the Zietlow family buys the Hansen family's interest and Don becomes president and CEO (C-Store Dive).
• 2015: inducted into the Convenience Store News Hall of Fame.
• December 31, 2022: retires after 52 years with the company; son Scott takes over on January 1, 2023.

BizTimes, which named him to its Wisconsin 275 list of influential business leaders, calls him a co-founder, while Milwaukee Magazine's history shows he joined the ownership a few years after the first store opened. Both agree he was the person who built the company into its present shape.

How Kwik Trip grew under his leadership

According to C-Store Dive, the chain went from roughly 300 stores to over 800 during his 22 years as CEO. By the time he retired it had 839 stores in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois and Michigan and about 36,000 workers (C-Store Dive). Milestones under his watch included:

• a hot food menu and the Glazers doughnut brand in 2003, and a fresh food program in 2005;
• what the company called the country's first compressed natural gas station, in 2012;
• the Kwik Rewards loyalty program in 2018, which reached a million users that year;
• the 2017 purchase of PDQ stores around Madison and Milwaukee, and the 2021 purchase of Stop-N-Go;
• mobile ordering in 2022.

A big part of the model is vertical integration. BizTimes reports that Kwik Trip makes about 80% of the products in its stores through its own commissary, bakery, dairy and distribution center in La Crosse (BizTimes). Wikipedia notes the chain trades as Kwik Star in Iowa, Illinois and the Dakotas and also runs Tobacco Outlet Plus, Kwik Spirits and Stop-N-Go stores (Wikipedia).

Recent changes

Zietlow has been retired since the end of 2022, and his family still controls the business. His wife died in March 2023. In a November 2025 feature, Milwaukee Magazine described a chain with more than 500 stores in Wisconsin and nearly 400 more elsewhere in the Upper Midwest, opening over 30 new locations a year (Milwaukee Magazine). We found no reporting on any sale, outside investment or change of ownership.

Age, height and weight

Based on Milwaukee Magazine's account that he was 24 in 1958, Don Zietlow was born around 1934, which would make him about 92 in 2026. The earlier version of this page said he was 60, stood 5 feet 8 inches and weighed about 90 kg. None of that had a source, and the age was clearly wrong, so we have removed it. His height and weight are not publicly documented.

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Why there is no reliable figure

Private family companies are the hardest businesses to value from the outside. Kwik Trip files no public accounts, so there is no audited revenue, profit or debt figure to work from, and the family has not disclosed how the company is split among its members. Social media posts put the family's wealth in the billions, and older profile sites put Don's at around $22 million, but neither cites a reputable outlet, so we repeat neither as fact.

What can be said with confidence: the family owns 100% of a chain with close to 900 stores, tens of thousands of employees and reported annual sales of about $7 billion as of 2022. We removed the phone-number and contact sections from the old page; Kwik Trip can be reached through its official website.