Van Buren Company Lumbers to Success

Before April 21, 1996, Steve Gann, Dennis Joyce and Bill Dodson were already talking about starting up their own lumber yard. An F3 tornado that killed two people on that date and did millions of dollars in damage destroyed Fort Smith Lumber, the last locally owned lumber yard in the city, leaving more than just broken boards in its wake.

In 2002, the trio started Lumber One in Van Buren, filling the void for a locally owned, full-service contract lumber yard. It remains the only one of its kind in the Arkansas River Valley.

Success has followed. So much so that the June issue of Entrepreneur magazine ranked Lumber One No. 26 among its “Hot 100” fastest-growing startup businesses in America. That list included only companies in operation for less than two years.

The company’s first six months were the last six of 2002, and during that time it earned $3 million in revenue. That number climbed to $7 million for all of 2003. Gann, the firm’s president and operations manager, projected revenue to reach $9 million by this year’s end.

“We’ve been running businesses for others collectively for the last 15 years,” Gann said. “We thought there was an opportunity to take care of customers in a way this market hasn’t seen in a long time.”

The idea for Lumber One was born a decade ago when Gann, sales manager Dennis Joyce and Dodson, Lumber One’s vice president, worked together at Fort Smith’s now-defunct Payless Cashways Inc., another lumber business.

When Payless Cashways closed in 1994, Dodson went to work for a wholesaling company out of Tulsa. Joyce and Gann went to work across town at a new Sutherlands store, part of the Kansas City, Mo., lumber chain.

Both Joyce and Dodson credit Gann for getting a plan down on paper. Gann said that finding venture capitalist Charles Palmer really got the business off the ground.

“We were tossed out of every bank in town,” Gann said.

Palmer arranged the financing and built Lumber One a facility, which the company leases back from him. On June 29, the firm was also able to buy Palmer’s equity stake of the business back.

Lumber One, which employs 23 people, has a 75-mile reach that takes in customers from Springdale to Mena, Clarksville to Muskogee, Okla, Dodson said. About 90 percent of the firm’s clientele are residential home builders.

Although Lumber One has only been open two years, Dodson said, the owners are on the fourth year of their business plan.

“Each of us has our own strength,” Dodson said. “Steve is really great in the management area, I’ve got the relationships with vendors, and Dennis, who was in outside sales with Sutherlands, brought a tremendous customer base with him.”

Rocky Walker, owner of Walker Construction Company Inc. of Fort Smith, said he has shopped service and price, and Lumber One is completely builder-oriented.

“They are ready to ship to builders,” Walker said. “I want it when I need it and they take care of me that way. That is their main strength over the competition.”

Lumber One is working to expand its installed-sales segment, Gann said. In May 2003, the firm began making interior and exterior doors on-site, so that if there is a problem with the size, it can be fixed at the shop, rather than having to wait to reorder the item from the manufacturer. It is also a dealer for Johns Manville insulation and has a crew and insulation blowing machine ready to go to building sites.

Dodson said the company might eventually consider roofing installation.

“It’s hard for us,” Joyce said. “We don’t want to cross the line where we take business from our customers.”