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SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2014 Call: (803) 774-1226 | E-mail: pressrelease@theitem.com
JIM HILLEY / THE SUMTER ITEM
Mike Sawyer, Cary Coker and Kent Mims discuss the changes that have taken place in school furniture since Nu-Idea came into existence. Nu-Idea has been in business since 1921.
Nu-Idea still a family operation School supply business has weathered many changes since starting in 1921 BY JIM HILLEY jim@theitem.com Though the school furniture business is constantly changing and the faces and names have changed, Nu-Idea School Supply Co. is committed to remaining a local, family owned company, said Kent Mims, corporate vice president and stockholder. The company was started in 1921 by Roy Tucker and began manufacturing student desks and residential furniture, said company president Cary Coker, but after the Great Depression, the owners realized that by being a distributor instead of a manufacturer, the company could sell a wider product line to more costumers. “We evolved into what we are now, and that is a distributor and dealer, and that really opened the door to end users,” said vice president for sales Mike Sawyer. “Instead of getting pigeonholed into one type of student desk, it allowed us to have a lot of different product lines and to offer our customers a wider variety.” According to Coker, Robert Bells, who was married to one of Tucker’s four daughters, ran the company for about 40 years. “In the late ’80s, Bells retired, and he brought in some people, including Bill Stuckey, Ray Segars and Steve Bond,” Coker said. “They were owners of the company at that point.” “It was still in the family. It was the same family that originally started the business,” Mims said.
SHIFTING FOCUS Coker said Bond had a vision that customers needed more service, so he shifted from being only a product-oriented company to providing resources including delivery and installation. He said the company built its current facility to allow it to keep more inventory available for quick delivery.
company for many years, was diagnosed with cancer and died on Aug. 15, 2013. “He was a great friend and a mentor to all of us,” Coker said. The plans for a transition had to be accelerated.
ture of the school business. “We have 15 full time emNU-IDEA SCHOOL ployees and we added a few SUPPLIES recently,” Coker said. “During WHERE: 230 E. Liberty St., P.O. the summer, we bring in a lot Box 1248 of labor and we can get up to close to 60 folks we can emSumter, S.C. 29150 ploy during summer. Eighty PHONE: (803) 773-7389 percent of our business is in ONLINE: http://nu-idea.com INDUSTRY CHANGES the summer months when “It was always important to school lets out.” He said new school conthe previous family and to us “We have been in this build- that it wasn’t an outside group struction is completed during ing since the early 1950s,” that came in,” Coker said. “We that period in anticipation of the start of the new school Sawyer said. kept it really as a family year. Coker said through the owned business even though years the company added we have changed families so IT’S NOT JUST ABOUT DESKS space and increased storage to speak.” capacity to the point that they Later, they acquired Segars’ Coker said they do more have 60,000 square feet. portion of the ownership. than classrooms. Stuckey departed the comMeanwhile, changes in the “We did a school over in pany in 1996, Coker said, and industry and the marketplace Lexington this past year and at that point, Bond became for school furniture were acthe principal said he wanted acting president. Bond and celerating, Coker said. To help the cafeteria to look like a Segars were involved with the the company cope with the Starbucks,” Coker said. “He company until 2013. changes he turned to a familsaid he wanted the media cen“I started with the company iar face — Sawyer. ter to look like a Barnes & in 1996, shortly after graduat“I actually started here in Noble, and he wanted the ing college,” Coker said. 1984 under Nettles and then weight room to look like a “Bond hired me at the menwent and worked for a national Gold’s Gym. In the cafeterias tion of my father-in-law company,” Sawyer said. “I now they are doing food (Mims). I was unemployed and came back in last year and was courts instead of a straightlooking for a job, and the two fortunate enough to buy a little line cafeteria.” happened to talk. We employ a bit of the company. We were Sawyers said they recently lot of temporary labor during able to see some different did a project in Lancaster in the summer, and they had a things we were seeing in differ- an existing high school. need, and I had some strong ent parts of the country that “They had institutional arms and a strong back. I hadn’t hit South Carolina yet.” rows of furniture, and it started in the warehouse.” “The way they teach now, looked like a prison,” he said. Coker said he came in as an it’s more of a collaboration“We came in, we put booths, owner in 2005. type teaching versus what we we put logo tables, we did all “In 2009 or 2010, we began were used to,” he said. “Stukind of different stand-upputting together a plan for me dent furniture has probably type tables. At first some of to eventually take over and changed more in the last five the principals said ‘No, we run the company, which years than the previous 40. want kids to come in and get would also require bringing in “The furniture you see in out,’ but other people said a new investment group,” schools now as opposed to five they wanted the kids to come Coker said. years ago is all brand new. It in and socialize.” “Cary was moving up in the is not the old traditional furniHe said the new renovated company, and Bond had forture in any of the new buildcafeteria has attracted a 10 mulated a plan to transfer the ings. It is now all about collab- percent increase in student ownership of the company,” oration and group learning use. Mims said. “They brought me versus the individual units set “That means more money to in to see if I had any interest up in rows.” the school,” Sawyer said. in investing in the company. Sawyer said the company “They paid money to get the Coker and I put together a recently set up new furniture cafeteria renovated, but it is plan and made an agreement in a school in Georgia. also bringing in dollars. The with Segar and Bond, the two “I was walking through the kids want to eat there versus principal owners at the time, school later after the teachers come in, sit down and get to buy them out, and we were had got in, and there was not out.” doing that.” one classroom set up in the “A local project we did that By then, Coker was already traditional rows.” I was very excited to have a a vice president, Mims said. One thing that has not part of is Sumter High Bond, who had guided the changed is the seasonal naSchool,” Coker said. “They to-
tally renovated their cafeteria and put down new floor tile as well as the image of the Gamecock, their mascot. We had logos embossed of the Gamecocks as well as the ‘S’ for Sumter High School.”
TECHNOLOGY GUIDES CHANGES Coker said school furniture will continued to see changes. “You are going see new products in the marketplace built around technology,” he said. “We’ve already seen a lot of the shelving in libraries is going away because so much is done on iPads or Chromebooks. We have done libraries that look like a Barnes & Noble, where you have electrical power as well as data ports on the tables.” Students are even getting tech savvy in elementary school, Sawyer said. “I was at a school in Columbia and they wanted to pull out all the old wood rectangular tables and wood chairs and put in stuff they can move around and put in soft seating,” he said. “I showed them some pictures of some soft seating that has data ports you can plug in. I said, ‘You probably won’t need that so much at an elementary school,’ and they said, ‘Oh yeah, our kids will be using Chromebooks here, and they want to be able to come into the library and power up.’” “The technical aspect of what Nu-Idea does and the product lines they represent isn’t all the company is,” Mims said. “Nu-Idea started in 1921, and it was family owned, and it will continue to be family owned. When Bond and Segar decided they wanted to sell the company, they could have gone out on the market and sold it to a national group. There were offers that they turned down. Their vision of the company was to keep it a family, local business that employs local people that gives locals the opportunity to enjoy entrepreneurship and ownership.”