LMC names new south central regional manager
LMC, the lumber and building materials buying group, has named Mike Tester as its new south central regional manager.
For the past 23 years, Tester has served as LMC’s Southeast Regional Manager.
In an announcement released by LMC, Tester said he is “preparing to dive into his new role, region, and the dealers who come with it.” The opportunity also allows Tester to replicate his work and the success achieved during his tenure in the Southeast.
“Recruiting and bringing on new dealers have always been my strengths,” Tester says. “What I’m looking forward to most is building the relationships with those new dealers, learning and looking at a different area of the country. Every section of the country is a little different.”
LMC said the regional manager brings 23 years at the buying group along with a history in the lumber and building materials industry that began in 1988.
“I graduated from college and the next day started working at an OSB mill,” Tester says.
Tester’s role before LMC was at a forest products distributor who brought him to LMC. In 2000, the owner of the business was preparing to retire with Tester already instrumental in helping build a relationship between the distributor and LMC. His boss picked up the phone and referred Tester for a regional manager role at LMC.
“When I joined LMC in 2000, a huge percentage of the LMC dealers were long-standing dealers,” Mike says. “There’s a big difference today: over half our dealers today have joined in the 23 years that I’ve been around.”
Tester continues to work closely with dealers, particularly in the recruiting and onboarding phases of the partnership.
“Onboarding is so much more important to the role today because there are so many new dealers onboarding,” Tester explains. “While we used to onboard in two or three years, we now get them buttoned up in under a year.”
His passion for onboarding dealers comes from his enthusiasm for people as well as the role that LMC plays in the broader LBM industry.
“The LBM industry is a relationship-driven industry. Without a relationship, you can’t gain trust. People buy from people; they don’t buy products,” Tester says. “And I am a relationship person.”
The LMC network includes more than 1,600 dealer locations throughout the United States and in the Bahamas.
