Pretty red - head wins sales contest

ORE THAN a few of the oldtimers laughed when Bob Ryan, manager of O'Malley's Sunnyslope branch store in Phoenix, hired pretty red-head Caron Thorn as a salesman about two years ago.

There was no laughing when Caron (pronounced like Karen) was introduced at a recent O'Nlalley Company awards dinner for the top ten salesman in the entire organization as the third best of the lot! Bob Ryan, incidentally, won the award {or the best store in the chain.

Her sales average around $15,000 per month and the award was based on a percentage of profit. Contractor salesmen in the organization compete in a difierent category.

Caron has encountered no resistance to the idea of a girl waiting on customers, but finds the half of her customers who are contractors easier to wait on than the general public. She says there is no secret to her award winning sales pace, "just try to be friendly and act like you really uant to help them."

Like anyone in sales, she encounters the inevitable grouch. One busy day, after selling a man two bags of cement, slte was unable to get any of the men to load the sacks into the back of Mr. Grouch's pickup truck. Whereupon he said he wanted his money back as he couldn't stand around all day waiting. With that Carol smiled nicely, picked up a sack and lifted it onto the truck. The customer smiled weakly, picked up the other sack, said thanks and drove away. As they say, never underestimate the power of a woman !

She says sex has been no advantage in her work. "Once you convince the men you can frll the order, there is no problem," Carol notes, adding however" "that some women think the men can do a better job of helpins them."

Carol learned the job on the job; "l just picked it up, asked questions, and checked with Bob or asst. mgr. Roy Gardner before any problems could develop." After she had been employed a year she attended a six weeks training course at a local Phoenix school.

The only problem now is that she finds she is alersic to sawdust!

A "rear guard action" is how Nt'l. Assn. of Home Builders rle. scribes its fight against pressures pushing up the current 7.5%, nt'I. mortgage rate orr residential housing & FHA/\iA insured mortgages . . fetls have made subsidies on some midde income housing

At presstime, what President NixonwoulcL do to uush the home building boom was unknorvn . money pressures compliccted matters as % of the Federal Reserve Banks hiked the cliscount rate to 5/o from 43/4/o, which diminishes bank lendine capacity

Homeowners Ernporium plans to open a second d-i-y center in Torrance, Calif. ; }le's plans to ope,n its Bth this fall in Riverside, (,.." rtrlatecl story, l). 8, of this issue) Fleetwood Lumber will erect an $82,000 office building in Lemon Grove, near San Diego

Fiberhoarrl C,orp., San Francisco, is proceeding in its plans to acquire Clear FirProducts Co.. a Springfield, Ore., wooden cloor mfg. Chicago Mercantile Exchange has upped the lumber futures contract to 100,000'from 90,000' as a result of the size standards; it becomes effective on h{ay, 1972, conlracts

A record gain for June savings deposits was posterl by S&l.s: thelr present high commitment level means a high lending leael during summer months Ceorsia-

Pacific has been hon,ored by The Business Committee for the Arts {or t}reir lavish use of art and artwolks in their new internaional HQ bldg. in Portland

The Distribution Number Bank Inc.,1725 K St., N.W., in Sl'ashington, D.C. 20006, is assigning individual firm and product nos. to those requesting same: D\B says it is the onl'y taar t'or the distribution system in the Ll.S. to cope with the tens of millions of items now produced Dept. of Commerce spri,ng sales figures showed lumber & h,arclware deollers' soles up I1/o over'7l .

Chicogo Mt:rcantile E.rchange has computerized for (among other things) improved accuracy '\lliecl Equities hascompleted tlu:ir acquisition ot' Siluey Producls. Phoenir, with an exchange of about ,!i2 million in stock: Bob Silvey continues as president . .

Western d ep artm en t stores are more often acceprine \laster Charge and BankAmericard in addition to their own cards; lrend is expecled t0 continue inventory shortoges in the U.S. now average an astonishing *98 million eoch. dny; it is rising about2}/o per year (how is your in-house security, by ilte way?).

$13 milLion is being inuested in a new waferboard plant in \1ich.; interior/exterior material sttid to haue aduantages of ply. rvood anrl particleboard, maker Blandin Paper claims it is strong, inerlrensive . Bayshore Lu,mber Co. has settled into 6/3 acres south of Soutlt Bay Redu,ood Co.. Orange, Calif...'.

A t'ederal grand jury has indicted four mfgrs. and two o{ their officials on charges of conspiring to fx prices on plostic pipe rtttings; involved are BorgWarner, Celanese, Plastiline Inc. and R&C Sloane N'[fg. plus their Ilarent co., Susquehanna Corp.

Housing slarls inche d up 1.2/o in June f rom Nf ay'-* level; amount lar exceeds last year's pace . . rnobile homes are nearing an an,nual rate of 500,000 Commerce Secretary Stans says the Nixon admin,istration goal of 2.6 million housing units l)c'r year "is nola clearly echieua ltl c"

Vashon Lumber, Vashon, Wash., has been sold by Louise Ogilvy to her partner Ceorge Ilndlich Bob Schuette is the nerv= mgr. of the Copeland yard in Everson, Wash. . Economy Plywood celebratecl the opening of their store in, Twenty Nine Palms, Calif., with a big sale

C onstruction expenditur es wilL gain l5/o this year to hit a record $105 billion; more than 6/a of the I5/o, tho, is due ta cost increases, according to JohnsManville, which sees 1.9 million housing starts in '7L

A decrease of 9.5/o in May lumber production from April was reg;istered, it is 0.3/a below N{ay, '70; total May shipments on a seasonally adjusted basis zaere 10% aboae the preuious Moy .. a new $100,000 supermarket will fill the site o{ Standard Lumber's old Colfax. Wash.. yard. ..

Big retail cLtains showed strong sains in June for the 4th mo. in " ro* .Vz ol t% of the nation's 100,000 home builders account for more than 207o of all new housing produced . a maioritv of homeowners who have lualuated various bldg. mtls. prefer wood in most applications, an American Wood Cuncil sur\,ey proves.