In 1961, I bought an abandoned and bankrupt sawmill property in Newport, NH, a town with about 6,500 residents and, at that time, had 2 lumberyards. I paid $5,000.00 and it included the sawmill building. My wife, Gerry, and I, along with our 4 young children, were living in Claremont, a much larger town with 13,000 people. Gerry was working in a bank between taking care of the kids, and she was home with our infant son. In the spring of 1962, I left the lumberyard I was working for to start our own business in Newport.We had $20,000 in cash, and Gerry and I borrowed $15,000 from the bank where she had worked. Gerry did the bookkeeping in the bedroom that we also shared with our baby son. Our lumberyard did not have water or any facilities, but it did have a sawdust pile, and no one bothered anyone if there was a need to go there.
I bought a new ¾-ton truck with a 12' stake body and a larger used truck with a 16' flatbed body. I started with one employee and quickly added 2 more. I do not believe we ever sent a truck to make a delivery that was not overloaded. This growing pain of the business meant blown tires and other problems. We were very fortunate to begin in a small town without zoning or building codes. Our competition was not aggressive and not as well-located as our sawmill property. My first employee at LaValley followed me from my previous employer, and he was very good. He ran the yard and waited on the few curious customers that stopped by. I had bought a saw, and he was a very experienced shop person and very helpful to our customers. My second person made deliveries and later took my place calling on potential customers when I was needed to do the ordering and other company needs.
Are you using any new technologies in production of trusses or wall panels? If not, do you see that on the horizon?
In trade magazines, one was beginning to read about people building trusses with plywood gussets or split rings. I saw an ad from a company in Detroit, Michigan, which was producing a metal plate with fingers punched out of it. We began building trusses with a jig on the wall in a part of our sawmill building 16 ft wide by 40 ft long. All the cutting was done with a skill saw. We developed patterns for the needed truss webs. The market was for 24 and 26 ft trusses, and that was all the capacity we had.
In 1964, we built a new truss shop 40 x 80. At that time, there was a genius in Florida working to develop machinery and a plate design. I bought Carrol Sanford's roller press and a flip jig and his plates, which we pounded in enough to hold and put it through our roller press. The biggest truss we had to build in that building was 40 ft.
Our store in Newport borders a river, and on the other side of the river was a large tract of land that I was able to buy for $42.00 per acre. Unless you had a boat, there was no way to access that property. A couple of years later, we had completely outgrown our sawmill property. I had a bridge built and then built a new truss shop 70' by 220'. We were also building panels, and I moved my panel jig to the new building. Using Sanford's design, we built a steel table and bought his gantry system that set the plate before they were rolled through the large roller that completed the process of setting the plates.
One of our people was very smart and built a way of lifting trusses off the outside rollers onto a rack where the packaging was completed. If someone told me ours was the best truss stacker built, I would believe it. We have a Vertex system on the ceiling that reflects the proper placement of the plates, and our tables are computerized, which makes setup very quick. We can build 4 trusses at the same time. The longest we have ever built is 82 ft. Over the years, I have had 3 floor truss machines. The sawing is done in a separate building and close to our truss lumber. We use 4 saws that do amazing things from cutting stair treads to mailbox posts and everything else in between. We cut truss joists on our German Hundigger saw and market the precut trusjoist as four fast framing systems. Crane service for our trusses is very popular. We have 3 truck cranes.
In what ways are you looking to grow your business? Are your customers more residential based or commercial?
We have always tried to find a way to make it difficult for our competition. From the beginning, we sold a package of materials that guaranteed the purchaser enough materials to build his project. When competing with others offering a material list, it was always easy to find things left off their list and without a guarantee of enough of anything. Our package was perfect for the homeowner who wanted to do his own building. Often collaborating with a builder, we included shell erection in our packages. We developed a number of simple ranch houses which we sold shell erected with all the other materials supplied. That type of house is no longer built. We still sell a guaranteed enough material package, but no labor supplied. We do not get involved with piece take-offs. We sell a guaranteed number of materials to do the job. Often our package sales include our wall panels and trusses. Our approach to the building supply business has always been a dual approach to homeowners and contractors.
How has being an LMC Dealer impacted your company?
We joined LMC in 1975. I was working hard to find the best price, and it was a constant battle to get that extra discount that I suspected was out there. I thought I was doing very well. When LMC came around, I was not certain they would be worthwhile for me. At that time, there was a lot of prefinished panels and moldings sold. I had just talked my supplier into giving me the last column. I confidently asked for the LMC price. Turns out they didn't buy off that sheet. I was paying way too much. I was wasting my time and money doing something that was done better by LMC. Anything we can buy through LMC is purchased there. If we are interested in a new supplier, that name is given to LMC. If they end up as a supplier, we generally don't know our exact cost, only that we have a better deal than we could secure by ourselves. We buy about 65% of our needs through LMC.
I was fortunate enough to join an LMC committee, then their board, and eventually became chairman. LMC has many smart people, and the opportunity to learn is great. Later, our son-in-law and now our company president, Larry Huot, was on the board.
We operate 14 store locations and are interested in buying other lumberyards, paying with cash. The third generation is now in place, and Larry and Nancy (son-in-law & daughter) have made them stockholders. Larry and I want our company to last over many generations, and we are planning for that. Our third generation makes us proud every day. To condense 61 years into a few paragraphs is no easy feat.
