Robert I. Barbieri started his career in the oil industry in 1958, at the age of 20, when he began driving a bobtail truck for his father, Peter Barbieri, as a Mobil Oil Consignee. Two years later he bought in as partner with his father in the business. He continued to drive truck and solicit new customers and in 1968, Bob had the opportunity to purchase the Mobile consignee business in Healdsburg, CA.

As the business grew, Bob bought a tanker truck in 1972, just after the shortage hit. He started his transportation business, Redwood Coast Petroleum by hauling for the Mobil consignee in Napa. Next, he added the hauling for Bill Bresciani, an Exxon Jobber in Napa. In 1977, Bob met and began hauling fuel for Peter Van Alyea, a retail station operator. This relationship led to a joint venture and together they purchased the Beacon Oil Distributorship from John Gantner in Santa Rosa in 1979. They named their new company Redwood Oil Company. With this new company, they added the Castrol and Valvoline motor oil brands.

In 1981, Bob and Peter purchased Gibson Oil in Sacramento and in 1983, they purchased the local Chevron Distributorship from Jerry Ayers which eventually led to the buy out of Don O'Hair's operations in 1989. This acquisition added a Clearlake plant and our current Ukiah Plant operations. Over the next few years, Bob and Peter continued growing and buying small jobberships in San Rafael, Marysville and Auburn. By 1985, they had built up the bay area lube oil market to the point of adding a warehouse in Hayward.

Through the remaining years, Redwood Oil Company acquired 22 service station/convenience stores and became the largest jobber and distributor in the North Bay. In 2004, Bob and Peter split the company and Bob took over full ownership of the wholesale division and regained his original Redwood Coast Petroleum company name. In April, 2005, Bob acquired another bay area Chevron Jobber, BC Stocking (now located in Benicia ) and continues to be one of the largest totally integrated Petroleum distributors in Northern California.