Top Women profile: Kate Weissmann
Kate Weissmann was waiting tables and tending bar before she answered an ad in a newspaper to provide counter help at a lumberyard. Who could have predicted that from that beginning would grow a 35-year career in the lumber and building materials industry?
“So, there I was in 1986, dusting shelves for Windsor Building Supplies in Poughkeepsie, New York,” she told HBSDealer. Then came an offer from a contractor to help answer phones. It wasn’t long before she was delivering materials and reading blueprints. After several more career twists and turns, today Weissmann manages a sales territory from New York to West Virginia for LBM Advantage, the Windsor, New York-based LBM co-operative.
“For me it has always been about going beyond the job description,” she said. “And it’s a line I’ve shared with my kids: ‘Don’t be limited by your job description.’ And I kind of always have felt that way.”
Weissmann entered the Top Women in Hardware & Building Supply class of 2024 in the “business excellence” category. Here’s a line from her nomination form: “Throughout her career, Kate absorbed invaluable industry wisdom and decorum, such as the significance of building personal relationships and the importance of respecting industry norms. She embodies the essence of perseverance, innovation and leadership.”
In her current role, she’s responsible for a territory generating more than $1 billion in sales in back-to-back years across six states.
Part of her drive comes from a deep appreciation for the relationships that seem to be particularly strong in the world of co-operatives.
“When you’re working for a co-op, we’re very aware that it’s our stockholders’ money,” she said. “When I’m renting a car, when I’m taking a member out for dinner, when I have a line-item expense, it essentially comes out of the stockholders’ rebates. And when I started back in 1989, we were keenly aware that we worked for a co-op, and we never took that for granted.”
Today she’s the only female on the member-development team, but she doesn’t spend a lot of time thinking about genders in the workplace. That wasn’t always the case. “Believe me, back in 1989, when we answered the phone, I’d hear comments like, ‘Sweetie, put one of the men on the phone.’”
It took only a couple years before that script was flipped to something like: “Put Kate on the line, please.”
Like most careers, Weissmann has had her mentors, including Tom Molloy, EVP of products and programs. She worked for him in 1989 at ENAP, the forerunner of LBM Advantage. And she continues to work with him. “He shows you how to work hard by demonstrating hard work,” she said. “He’s one of those leaders that makes you want to be a better person.”
Along the way, through mergers with PAL and IBSA, through ups and down of the market and pandemic disruption, she picked up an invaluable piece of advice: “If you don’t ask, you won’t know.”
“How many people out there don’t ask for the order? Don’t ask for more information?” she said. “You need action to succeed in this business.”
She’s found another important path to success is an all-in mindset. Her motto is “How can I help?” And the mindset is “what will it take for you, sir, to give me that order, to apply for co-op membership?” she said. “It’s working on your day off. It’s all of the above.”
The LBM Advantage representative is also an ambassador for the hands-on, people-first industry. “Yes, there’s been some competition with online sources and Amazon, the 800-pound gorilla in the room,” she said. “But this industry is going to thrive because people are always going to want to touch and feel the building materials that they choose when they build their dream homes. And we’ll thrive because we’re building communities.”
“It’s a great industry.”
