Taking over on a dare

ffow cAN You coNvtNCE your first-born to take over the Ilfamily lumberyard? Try some psychology. Just tell him not to. Quickest way to motivate a kid.

Mark Gatlin's grandfather, of Spokane, Wa., built a little lumberyard from scratch in 1943. As Mark recalls, "He'd get up at dawn, work until dark. He worked there until the week he died, at 88. He was... awesomel" Mark marvels, still in awe. "And my father was the same way, you betl Up at sunrise. I remember him working all the time."

Not a lifestyle you'd want to wish on your kids, nor one anyone born in the slacker generation would aspire to. "I grew up in the yard-sweeping, loading customers, cleaning up: grunt work. It took forever just to get [myself workingl inside. To tell the truth, seemed like they were trying to push me away. I had to kind of fight to get in here. And then, my dad was happy that I did." Well, duh' Mark. Straight out of the textbook.

But the yard Mark stepped up to was, basically, "a dusty, dirty little place with no carpet or linoleum on the floor, boxes of nails sitting around-like those little momand-pop groceries that aren't around anymore, because they couldn't compete.

"When I stepped in, 10 or 12 years ago, I knew we had to transition ourselves." So, first thing he did was... to resist buying Discount Lumber its first-ever computer. ("I didn't want 'em here. The people at the counter could take care of everything. 'They're my computers,' I'd say.") But by February 2009, Discount had bitten the bullet-er, the software-and was fully up to electronic speed.

The next big thrust, however, was fully Mark's pet project. "I knew that the only way a lumberyard could continue to grow was to add things to it," he explains.

Scouting for a niche, he uncovered one as big as a crater. "So, seven years ago, I started a truss plant: totally engineered trusses. The basic idea was, nobody was doing this on the whole north side of Spokane. Well, there was one guy, a quarter mile away, but he was doing a no-good job. So I thought, 'You know what? Add a product line that's a manufactured service.' Made sense to me, so I bought the machinery and hired a crew."

"Sure, there was a learning curve," he has to admit, "but we were busy from the get-go. We did $2 million in trusses the first year-trusses for housing, commercial buildings' farm buildings-and all by word of mouth."

As you may have gathered, Mark is not one to put his feet up and rest on those wooden laurels. To serve his broad mix of customers-retail off the street, remodelers, small contractors, and farmers ("I'm not gonna hang my hat on any one niche," he asserts as a stupid/risky option, take your pick)-and to earn the chance to thumb his nose at a notorious company in town, who was two-stepping metal as a retailer, Mark decided to launch another division of Discount. This venture would produce metal panels for roofing, siding, post-frames, and pole buildings. "It's unusual that a lumberyard gets into this type of work," he's quick to agree, and starts to trace the path: "Good story!" he promises. army of boxes, smaller chains, and other independent yards. "Customers here have so many choices, so I tell them, 'Just give us the last look.' We show them we can offer the best of everything-product, price and service. I'll do whatever it takes to give them the best deal possible. And," he adds, "it isn't that hard. The boxes kind of defeat themselves with their lack of expert service. Here, most of our 27 employees have been around forever. We're doing fine."

"We supplied lumber to this one-and-only company in town that produced metal. Then they took the metal and the lumber and the trusses to the jobsites. They'd dump the wood, leave it uncovered, pieces missing, broken, orders incorrect. So, one thing led to another. I finally had a conversation with the owner, which left a bad taste in my mouth. He basically gave me the double-dog dare: 'You couldn't do it; you don't have the money," blah, blah, blah. So Mark, of course, came back with, "You're on!"

He took on "a company that liked to think it was God in the metal industry-that nobody could do what they do."

Even in this slack economy. Housing packages are down-true-but, says Mark, "there's a lot of remodeling, ag buildings, post frames for shops and garages."

And when good times roll around again, Mark's (surprise!) got yet another plan in place. "Down the road, I want to open a complete, full-service door and millwork shop, the final piece of the puzzle. I jumped right in with the trusses and the metal, but this time. I'm doing more research, to make the risht move.

"You know what? Nobody can get ahead without trying, and in this economy, you've got to pull up your pants and get after it. Ifyoujust do what you've been doing for the last l5 years, you're not going to make it. And," he adds, "I'm not going to let my srandfather down."

Carla Waldemar cwaldemar@comcast.net

But he soon did. He located an outfit to make him a metalrolling machine for a $1.5 million outlay, then-oh, yeah-told his dad, "I'm tired of them making all rhe money while breaking our stuff."

Dad recoiled, "Not right now!" in 2009, in the depths of a recession. But Mark returned the volley: "Look," he explained, "I found a guy whose company gave us customer service second to none. He explained to me the method; he made it happen. So I bought the raw material, ordered the machine, and basically crossed my fingers. I set up the operation in part of a huge warehouse we owned-added insulation, gas and heat and hired three people-and before we even opened the doors, we'd presold $100,000 of metal, just by word of mouth. People were tired of the other guy and were ready to try the new guy," he presumes.

Much of the metal soon found its way into ag buildings. "The western states ag-building market is huge, absolutely huge," he notes. "We've got four semis with forklifts, two smaller trucks with forklifts- l2 trucks altogether, and we deliver to Washington, Montana, Idaho and Oregon. Now, our customers buy lumber, trusses, hardware, metal roofing, and the screens and clear panels that go with it. I believe we're the only one-stop-shop around. The others are two-stepping. And we're doing fine. When that fella dared me, making it sound too tough, I just tried all the harder."

Still, Discount Lumber is virtually hemmed in by an

By fames Olsen