Business sustainability

Requarth Lumber

The 150-year milestone is a rarity in corporate America. Even more rare is a family business successfully handed down across five consecutive generations. Requarth Lumber—founded in 1860 by Frederick August Requarth (pictured on the cover) in Dayton, Ohio—is one of those companies.

By itself, the milestone doesn’t pay the bills, and it doesn’t close deals. But the distinction does have a real-world value, according to Alan Pippenger, president and great-great grandson of Frederick Requarth.

“The 150 years is nice, and there’s a place for that, and we’re proud of that,” Pippenger said. “But ultimately, we have to be the best choice for our customer today, and that’s where we’re spending most of our focus.”

One thing that 150 years of open-for-business does to a staff is it gives them a sense of accomplishment, and that’s an important ingredient for a pro dealer competing for sales in 2010, he said.

“I think it’s something that’s a lot more important to us than it is to the marketplace,” Pippenger said. “Particularly given this recession, it gives us a sense of confidence that we survived the Civil War, the great flood of 1913, the Depression,” Pippenger told Home Channel News. “There is a certain confidence that comes with that.”

Over the years, Requarth Lumber changed directions and priorities to keep up with the market. An early example came in 1895 when the company changed locations. More recently, in the late ’50s and early ’60s, Requarth opened three home centers, and in order to refocus on the core, sold them (acquired by what is today ProBuild Holdings, Pippenger said). The company also switched gears when it abandoned its operations in treated lumber, farming out preservation services to third parties.

“For us, adaptability was the big thing. We aren’t the same company that we were 150, 100 or even 50 years ago. You have to be willing to give up on what’s not working anymore.”

The most recent example of thinking and acting anew is a recent rollout of a SpruceWare.Net total business management software package. Plus, a major warehouse renovation is underway this winter. “It’s keeping us relevant,” Pippenger said. “More of our business is special-order business, and having a warehouse will better accommodate that business.

“The big thing is we’re continuing to invest in the business.”

When asked for the company’s level of optimism approaching 2010, Pippenger said he is beginning to hear the kind of news that indicates an upturn.

“I just had lunch with a remodeling customer, and he told me he had 10 good sales appointments in December,” he said. “I’m actually becoming more optimistic than I’ve been in a while.”

Rochester Lumber

Burial vaults were big sellers at Rochester Lumber in the early 20th century. So were concrete building blocks, made on the premises.

The 100-year-old, three-unit Rochester Lumber experimented in a vertically integrated lumber company in the first half of the last century, buying a lumber mill in Maine, which it sold after World War II. And visitors to the city on Lake Ontario, if they look closely enough, can see examples of homes built by Rochester Lumber, during the company’s home-building phase in the 1930s.

The 100-year-old pro dealer has had a number of strategic initiatives come and go inside and outside the boundaries of the core lumberyard. And according to current president Jerry Stahl, it will continue to test the boundaries of business.

“If there’s one thing that pertains to all businesses today, it’s if you’re going to be successful—and everybody wants to be—you need to change the way you think,” Stahl said. “Otherwise, you’re going to get caught up in doing business as usual, and that’s truly a downfall to a business today.

“That doesn’t mean you need to jump on every new plan that comes along,” Stahl added. “But it gets people’s creative juices flowing about where’s the next opportunity.”

Stahl has been with the company since 1961 and has been president since 1982—a time that has been compared with the current economic downturn. Stahl was thrown into a leadership position at a difficult time for lumberyards—interest rates were hovering around 20%. He learned early that for companies that survive serious economic downturns, there are positives. For instance: “It taught you to knuckle down and look at every expense—something you normally don’t do when the business is sailing right along.”

Under Stahl, the company continued to reinvent itself. The company closed a retail DIY branch in Honeoye Falls, N.Y., in 1998, and has since pursued a more direct focus on the core customer, the builder and remodeler.

The next big thing to hit Rochester Lumber is an effort to attract multi-family construction. “We’re trying to build on that business today, and we’ve been somewhat successful,” he said. “There seems to be a lot of government money out there in support of housing programs, and there’s an opportunity for us.”

Stahl said his company doesn’t have an official motto, but visitors to the Rochester Lumber Web site are shown a pretty good slogan: “After 100 years, we’re not out of the woods yet.”

The slogan works on several different levels and speaks clearly to the challenges that face any company doing business in 2010. Stahl, a third-generation president of Rochester Lumber, has another slogan that guides his management style: “Success comes before work only in the dictionary.”

“Any time you find success, you find somebody who worked hard to get there.”

Moynihan Lumber

Sure, the early 1980s were difficult for lumber dealers. But at Moynihan Lumber, which opened its doors in North Reading, Mass., 50 years ago, the current environment is the toughest challenge yet, according to Jack Moynihan, who along with his brothers Gerard and Michael manages the three-unit pro dealer and Ace Hardware store.

At Moynihan Lumber, there hasn’t been a lot of celebrating over the 50-year milestone.

“It’s been so rough for so long. The whole point now is to survive this thing and get through it,” Jack said.

Flexibility has been a guiding business principal for the company, which was profiled in Home Channel News in 2007, when it was cautiously entering the field of home installations. When opportunities presented themselves, the company expanded—first to Beverly, Mass., in 1986, then in Paistow, N.H., in 1995. And again in 2005, the Beverly location was made over with an extensive home center showroom on the second floor, featuring kitchens, doors and windows.

But like Requarth and Rochester, the big business ideas that helped the company reach its milestone focus on corporate cultural and employee morale, according to Jack.

“If there’s one thing we’ve tried to instill in our people as we’ve grown, it is to reach out and allow them to own their job so that they feel confident in making their decisions,” Jack said. “And that has helped us tremendously over the years.”

The three brothers—ranging in age from 63 to 71—are carrying on from their uncle, John Moynihan, who delivered lumber in horse-drawn wagons in the 1920s. Quality backed by a desire to please was his motto.

“We adopted that, and we live by it today,” Jack said.