Love at first site

f, No uow DrD You spend your honlaeymoon, Kevin? Visiting a lumberyard that was for sale.

True love. That was back in 1985 when Kevin Kilbourne, a young 20something, got the call. Growing up in Whalen, a tiny town in rural , upstate New York, he'd spent summer vacations working on roofing and siding crews and had gotten to know the yard's owner.

"It was a good, old-time business-lots of room and a very loyal following," Kevin recalls. "So I told him, 'Whenever you're ready to sell, give me a call, no matter where I am"'-honeymoon included. Be still, my heart.

Nothing tops falling in love with this crazy business. The owner of Whalen's Rogers & Tenbrook had just died and his son, of retirement age himself, who wanted out, picked up the phone. Kevin, with a degree in mechanical engineering and close to an MBA, was already on the executive-development track at Mobil Chemical when he got, um, distracted. "Okay, I'll be there tomorrow," he said.

Upon meeting, the owner offered to hold onto the mortgage for the real estate if Kevin could come up with the cash to cover the inventory. So he turned his graduation assignmentassembling an imaginary, 5O-page, minutely detailed business plan-into a real-life proposal to take to the bank. "Never saw anything like this before," they gee-whizzed. "How much do you want?" The kid walked out with $275,000. And on April I, 1985-no fooling-the business was his-all400 sq. ft. of retail space, potbellied stove included.

By 1987, he'd expanded the place to 4,000 sq. ft., built up the SKUS, joined Do it Best, and business was doing fine, as predicted. Then he got another call.

A yard in nearby Danville was for sale-"a larger town, where it was doing a fair amount of business. It was an important market for us, so, although at 3l I was not too excited about the further debt, I bought it. You've gotta expand," he realized. "And you've gotta protect your flank."

Along with the store, he purchased a boom truck, because shingles represented an important product niche and sheetrock had become a strong natural outgrowth, along with landscaping blocks. "You've got to provide a little more service," he figured.

By 1992, having tripled his employee base to 18, he added another 3,600 sq. ft. onto the 1990 renova- tion and bought a couple more booms. On a roll, by the mid-2000s, Kevin began thinking about building a store in Danville, where he'd been leasing the property-"not ideal. It was dirty and didn't protect the products. Not a good situation," he knew.

But just then Home Depot announced plans to move into town, so Kevin decided to wait and see. Four years later, the Depot decree had come to nothing, so Kevin decided to make his move. He bought a derelict nursery-"a nice space in a good location"-and kept the sheds, but tore down the office to erect a new retail store, which opened in June 2009, in the pit of the worst recession he can remember-only to be followed by one walloping winter snowstorm after another.

But, as he explains, "The decision had been made earlier. Plus, one little advantage of being in a rural community is, you do many things, sell lots of different products-plumbing, roofing, insulation, drywall, lumber, hardware-so because we'd diversified, we had a pretty good selection to offer our customers and were not dependent on new-home construction-rather, maintenance of real estate, remodeling, and agricultural needs."

"Sure, it's more challenging today," he's honest to admit, "to keep additional product lines up to date and competitive. It's more labor-intensive, but it also better serves the community. I tell people, 'Northern New York State went into recession 20 years ago; you people are just catching up!"

(It was back then that Rochester , a 2Omile workers' commute away, lost Kodak and Xerox overnight.)

"Compared with metro areas, we don't experience deep downturns. But this time around," he adds, "it's been pretty heavy on us."

Kevin keeps his customer mix at 60Vo retail and 40%o contractor business-"and even that is a blend, because people buy their lumber themselves and then call on a contractor to do the work. We do hold contractor events, and both yards have separate contractor salesmen who expedite, give quotes, and speak the language. Plus, those contractors like that we itemize each of their jobs separately, notjust one big bill.

"We still do accounts manually, not with a POS," Kevin declares. "I have to have a reason to spend money-such as, to improve service-and I'm just old enough that I don't scream, 'We've got to have technology!' But we do use our computer system to enter Accounts Receivable and Payable. Now that the [POS] system capabilities have been improved, the prices have dropped and they do a lot more things than they did at first, like scanning, I'm probably ready," he allows.

"But, physical projects first"-like the brand-new Danville store, filled with old-time eye candy like tonguein-groove wood ceiling and a high 16-ft. peak, plus a greatly expanded kitchen and bath showroom, which serves Whalen's customers, too. "Also, now everything's under cover in the yard, with drive-through facilities. We expanded most lines and added a housewares department; we're still learning that. It's still all evolving, but it's built for future capacity. With more space, we're adding what we hear customers want. For instance, for the first time, we had a Christmas section, and we learned a lot. One step at a time. We also added Sunday hours, after comments we'd heard from customers.

"We want to fill the needs of the area and keep business local, not send them to Lowe's 20 miles away." Plus, what this owner calls "other strong local, well-run, very similar independents" are raising the bar. Together, these dealers have joined a local co-op to increase buying clout. Yet, this winter has been particularly challenging because the season's mainstay-drywall work-has dried up: no new houses. None ofRogers & Ten-brook's 28 employees have been laid off, however, thanks to participation in a workshare program offered by New York State, which gives everyone four days at regular salary, then a fifth at reduced wage.

Launching the new store was distinctly the right move, Kevin is convinced-and, more important-so are his felIow townsmen. "It's important to a small community to have small businesses, and once one is lost, there's no capital to bring it back. And people are beginning to realize that if it's lost, it's gone forever, so they're consciously deciding to spend locally. Indirectly," he points out," they're helping themselves. When people come into the new Danville store and say, 'Gee, thanks for investing in the community,' it makes me remember why I enjoy this business. It's very rewarding. You get a sense of accomplishment when, after 25 years here, they say, 'We're lucky to have you!' It makes my day."

Carla Waldemar cwaldemar@ comcast.net

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