& Millwork Feature || Century Club
Trenton | Employees: 160 | Revenue: $90M
n 1900, as natural gas and steam began to flow through a network of pipes to heat city buildings, German immigrant Nicholas August Mans sold and delivered coal and peat out of the downriver community of Trenton. “He was a very shrewd businessman, and frugal,” says great-grandson Doug Mans. “He would collect the ashes from the coal he had sold and make soap out of the pot ash.” That business acumen and frugality continues today at Mans Lumber & Millwork, the current iteration of the company Nicholas established at the start of the last century. “Part of the reason we’ve survived both the Great Depression and the great housing recession (during the latter half of the 2000s) is due to the philosophy of making smart growth decisions, leaving money in the business for a rainy day, and always leaving something better than you found it,” says Mans, president of Mans Lumber & Millwork. “I believe each generation has taken this to heart and tried to leave the company better for the next generation.” Currently, Mans has locations in Ann Arbor, Birmingham, and Canton Township, in addition to its Trenton headquarters. Besides lumber and custom millwork, the business offers kitchen and bath design and remodeling through two showrooms; decking, windows, doors, and flooring; an installed products division; equipment rental; and financing in partnership with a lender. In addition to Doug, family members in the TOOL WORKS business include Chris, Jim, and Pete Mans, as Nicholas August Mans took his well as Anna Mans Motschall — the first woman initial trade of selling coal and in the family to join the company. peat throughout the region and set the foundation for Some of Doug Mans’ “smart growth deciMans Lumber & Millwork, a sions” include the acquisition of Ypsilanti-based multifaceted remodeling and Washtenaw Door & Trim in 2018, an expansion construction enterprise in into Ann Arbor in 2019, and the acquisition of Trenton that serves metro Detroit and Ann Arbor. Legendary Millwork of Troy last year.
In 2010, Mans brought National Lumber, formerly of Warren, into the fold. “National Lumber was more of a strategic partnership,” Doug says. “During the housing depression of 2005-2010, all lumberyards were struggling to find revenue. Jim Rosenthal (president of IMG Management Group and now managing partner of Mans) and I started discussing ways of helping each other and decided working together was the best recipe for success. Jim and his partner, Alan Strickstein, joined our executive team, and in 2021 (they’ll) be starting their 12th year (here). “We’ve always wanted smart growth, and (we) never chased expansion just for more sales. It had to be a good fit for our vision and allow us to move into either markets or product offerings we weren’t currently in.” Doug took the lead in the family concern when his dad, Nick Mans, and Mike Mans, his uncle, retired in 2004. “In title I’m president, but all owners have equal voices,” he says. As happens in many family businesses, Doug joined the company while in high school, although his earliest memory of the enterprise may have been when the Trenton location burned in the 1970s and his mom drove the family to the blaze to watch the local fire departments fight it. During his teen years, Doug swept sheds and stacked lumber. He spent summers making deliveries and waiting on customers. “It was important to learn the business from the ground up and learn as many of the positions as possible within the organization,” he says. Each family member has the option of joining the company, but the cutoff age for signing up is 25 years old. “It’s about sweat equity,” Doug explains. “When you’re 21 and 22, and working hard and building the company, it wouldn’t be right if someone was 32 and decided to join when others have been working hard all those years.”
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