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Don’t Forget! You Saw it in the
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July 2020 #12252 Page #104
Lumber Joe By Joe Campagna Chief Operating Officer
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fter 40 years in project management and product ownership for the financial service industry, dealing with everything from futures to equities to basis trading, I thought my brain couldn’t possibly manage another acronym. But, in a world that constantly changes, I too had to evolve further. Looking back at my career, lumber never crossed my path. When starting MaterialsXchange (MX), a digital marketplace for buying and selling raw materials, my partners and I needed to choose one commodity with which to begin listing. We had to start somewhere, and since Mike Wisnefski (CEO) and Ashley Boeckholt (CRO) had been buying and selling lumber for years, lumber seemed the logical inaugural commodity. Currently, we are listing wood products, like OSB and SPF, but I had to learn what that all meant. Innovation is a function of ingenuity; MX is innovating the lumber industry, so I had to be ingenious. As an entrepreneur, connecting past experiences helps generate new things. I had been accustomed to “SPY” meaning the Standard & Poor’s exchange traded fund, and now I know that “SYP” means Southern Yellow Pine. The longest acronym I had known was “TEFRA” (Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act), but that has now been surpassed by “NLBMDA” (National Lumber and Building Material Dealers Association). A small fraction in trading is a “Teenie” (one-sixteenth of one basis point) which doesn’t seem so small in fin tech. Yet frankly, I now struggle with the concept of 96” (stud length) being different from 8’ (lumber length), but I’m learning! I am committed to looking at my own knowledge schemes to help us grow. The reason some entrepreneurs succeed is that they identify a better way to create and deliver value to customers based on their previous dealings. My past put me in a position to mentor my co-founders on “trading-like” applications and adapting financial services technologies to fit the LBM (yea, another acronym). Mike and Ash’s past helped them teach me about wood categories, grades, types, regional growing patterns, and requirements. And after studying the differences between trucking and rail as it pertains to lumber buyers and sellers, I’m cataloging it all in my brain. Once the lumber and freight information was in check for me, I taught my team the tech side of things. Since MX is a means of doing away with paper and pencil contracts, having EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) allows us to electronically communicate information via files. Our CRM (Customer Relationship Management) manages interactions of current and potential customers with real-time and historical data analysis, improving business relationships and, ultimately, driving sales growth. PHONE: 800-289-5627
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