"There's no question that Tom has really been the savior of the company," Bob Maynard, Aloha's vice president and chief financial officer, said yesterday. "He made the Aloha gasoline brand. Before, it was a backwater, second-tier brand. Now we're thought of pretty highly by the community."

Malone invested in upgrading the look of each station while building the company's own fuel storage terminal in Campbell Industrial Park — completed in 1997 — as well as a smaller one in Hilo.

"The key to our survival was that building in Campbell, which allowed us to import product at world market prices," Maynard said. "Without that, we would have been split up, sold off as units or bought up by another entity or entities. Our whole economic structure would have been different."

Personally, Maynard said, Malone had a reputation as a driven, astute businessman who could "be very demanding and tough. But he had the biggest heart and softest side you can imagine and a wonderful sense of humor."

Malone is survived by his wife, Janet; sons Michael Thomas of Oklahoma and Christopher Edward of Texas; daughter Stephanie Gail of California; and his mother, Erma Baskett, of Oklahoma City.

Services are pending.