In Texas, the real McCoy’s

This year, Home Channel News named McCoy’s Building Supply Pro Dealer of the Year, and Home Lumber Independent Pro Dealer of the Year.

Past Pro Dealer of the Year honorees are:

“Hurricane Carla gave us a pretty interesting jump start,” McCoy observed.

Fast forward to 2008, and McCoy’s has 73 locations in Texas, where it’s known throughout the state for its endowments to educational institutions and its contributions to Habitat to Humanity, the American Red Cross, animal care centers, domestic violence shelters and other charitable causes. The company has moved its headquarters to San Marcos, about 30 miles south of Austin, but nine locations still serve the Galveston Bay area.

Enter Hurricane Ike. On Sept. 13, 2008, Ike made its final landfall at Galveston, and the storm surge that followed filled Brian McCoy’s childhood home with 5 ft. of water.

“In all my years in this business, I’ve never seen a weather event of that magnitude,” McCoy said. “The impact on my hometown was just unbelievable. Salt water does some really messy things.”

Several of McCoy’s locations sustained damage, and the main Galveston yard lost all its inventory and had to close. But McCoy’s has started rebuilding, along with the rest of Galveston Bay and parts of Houston. The Galveston yard reopened after seven weeks, and the company’s overall sales climbed 7.4%, to $608 million, by the end of 2008.

While some of those revenues can be attributed to Ike, the McCoy’s empire is too far flung to pivot on one market. The storm surge didn’t reach any of the company’s 10 stores in Arkansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico or Mississippi. It was business as usual in Brownsville, right on the border with Mexico, and all across Texas Hill Country. Professional builders and remodelers, who make up 72% of McCoy’s customer base, experienced a slowdown last year, but it was not as dramatic as in the rest of the country. The other 28%, which McCoy describes as the “heavy duty consumer,” continued to shop for farm and ranch supplies.

“Home Depot and Lowe’s have deep penetration into our markets, so we try to differentiate ourselves,” McCoy explained. “It’s hard for us to get the occasional buyer of building products. So we market to the do-it-yourselfer who always has a project going on.”

This translates into less mass advertising, such as newspaper inserts, and more attention to services like same- or next-day delivery, McCoy said. And McCoy continues to strengthen its ties to the communities it serves with sponsorships of youth clubs like 4-H and Future Farmers of America, in addition to events like rodeos and livestock auctions.

“As a regional company, we want to be as local as possible,” McCoy explained. Another big emphasis—it’s in the mission statement—is quality of life for McCoy’s employees and their families. For that reason, McCoy’s stores are all closed on Sundays.

The McCoy family has brought its fourth generation into the management ranks with Brian’s daughter, Meagan McCoy Jones, serving as director of field services. As a teenager working summers, Jones spent time in McCoy’s accounting, advertising and training departments. She went to college in Virginia, tried other jobs, but returned to Texas for graduate school. She already knew where her future lay.

“I’ve been drawn to this business my entire life,” Jones said. “I feel like I’m doing what I was made to be doing.” She has worked as a sales associate in one of McCoy’s Austin-area stores and also spent a year and half at headquarters, rotating through the departments to learn different aspects of the business. Her first management position was in South Austin, where she served as assistant manager before being promoted to director of field support.

“I’ve also spent a lot of time traveling to our other locations to help me better understand how my experience was both similar and different from what happens in our other 82 locations,” Jones said. The 27-year-old executive is also active with the Lumbermen’s Association of Texas and Louisiana, where she serves on the board of directors and co-chairs the legislative committee.

Jones seems to enjoy working with her father, whom she calls “a great teacher and mentor.” Although she describes their relationship as “very professional” at times, Jones adds that her dad “is sensitive enough to understand he’s more than just my boss.”

The company is facing some new challenges this year, as many Texas markets are now catching the tailwinds of the recession. A prolonged drought has hurt the framing communities, and low commodity prices haven’t helped, either. Overall, company sales are off by about 10%, according to McCoy. “We’ve definitely felt the slowdown this year,” he said.

But the McCoy family is in the LBM business for the long haul. This past July, the company moved into a new three-story facility, located three-tenths of a mile away from its previous headquarters in San Marcos, and 30% of the building’s 73,550 sq. ft. is set aside for new growth. Other features include solar shades, light sensors and office furniture made from recycled materials or indigenous wood.

McCoy’s has also been chosen by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to host periodic “hurricane preparation” sessions at its stores. FEMA’s “mitigation specialists” give advice to homeowners and contractors on flood- and wind-resistant building techniques, safe rooms, wind straps, flood insurance and other measures to protect homes and their inhabitants the next time a hurricane comes calling. Regardless of when that happens, McCoy’s plans to be in town before, during and after the event.