Marathon CEO impressed

Gary Heminger: sponsorship partnership likely to continue past 3-year contract.

7/21/2013

 

Marathon Petroleum CEO Gary Heminger said today that his company has a three-year contract to sponsor the Marathon Classic LPGA event with an option to continue its sponsorship — a partnership that he said the Findlay-based company is likely to continue.

"I'll tell you," Heminger said, "what I've seen so far, it's very, very positive we will want to exercise those options.

"Everyone sees this as an opportunity to step things up, and that's our plan. We want to take this tournament up to another level. If we're going to invest to take it to another level, that says we want to be here for a number of years."

Event organizers announced in January that Marathon Petroleum would become the title sponsor of the event at Highland Meadows Golf Club in Sylvania. Since its inception in 1984, the tournament had been known as the Jamie Farr Toledo Classic. Farr, a Toledo native and actor, said in a statement in January that the tournament would infringe on his professional obligations.