COMPETITIVE Intelligence By Carla Waldemar
Cape of good fortune aptain Oscar Nickerson, it seems, had had enough of sailing the Atlantic. In 1895, he traded in his oceangoing schooner and bought a lumberyard in Chatham, Ma., re-christening it with his family name.
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The outfit stayed in the Nickerson tribe for well over one hundred years, until, in 2012, local businessman Jeff Plank became the first non-Nickerson to helm the operation since its inception 117 years earlier. But he was
TO HONOR Mid-Cape’s 125th anniversary, late last year Jack Stevenson and Jeff Plank were presented an engraved sawblade by vendor SBC Cedar.
COMMUNITY EVENT: Mid-Cape’s 2nd annual First Responder Appreciation Day.
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The Merchant Magazine n
September 2021
not your nose-to-the grindstone, 24/7 hands-on man. His focus was more on the financials than on planks. And on the chance to grow the operation. Meanwhile, Jack Stevenson, living in Atlanta and manning a framing operation, had grown up with peoplepleasing in his DNA. As a kid, he’d worked in his dad’s lumberyard back in the northerly stretches of Wisconsin, which convinced young Jack that he was no fan of frostbite. But what about Massachusetts? Jack made sure that the cape, where Mid-Cape (now its name) was located, didn’t qualify as Arctic after a friend of his scored an interview for the yard’s newly-vacant top position. Jack decided, “If he doesn’t take the job, I will!” And he did. In 2014 he assumed the role of Mid-Cape’s president, declaring that he felt at home with the “good, strong nucleus of people working there. They invigorate the company,” he noted, following a time when speaking up was not always the norm. A staff of over 250 employees now populates Mid-Cape’s five shipping locations, scattered along the shoreline of Cape Cod Bay, and the Kitchen & Window showroom on Martha’s Vineyard. Launched seven years ago. “They’ve become empowered, especially with the addition of a few more key people of more aggressive style,” who embody Jack’s vision of “building the company where it counts—like, concentrating on selling framing packages, not just screen repair.” In hiring, Jack values experience— of course—but even more important, he feels, “is, putting people first: how they treat folks. Not ‘Me, me, me!’ That,” he emphasizes, “is not the key to success.” A smile is nice, but it had better be backed with expertise. Rather than Building-Products.com
