Like many dealers its size, Carhart Lumber Co., a 12-location, $20 million operation based in Wayne, Neb., manufactures roof trusses and offers installed sales (in its case, insulation) to its contractor customers. Read more
No Limits
Like virtually everywhere else in the country, the home building markets in Oregon and California over the past two years have been a gold mine for many dealers, and Keith Brown Building Materials, with 12 yards straddling Interstate 5 as it courses through the adjoining states, is eager to grab its share of the sales. Read more
Personal Touch
There are plenty of places around Charlottesville, Va., where Randy Rinehart can buy building materials for the four to six houses his company, Rinehart Custom Homes, constructs annually. Read more
With consolidation still on the tip of most pro dealers' tongues, PROSALES checked in with Nick Beare, managing director and head of the Building Materials and Technologies Group at investment banking and brokerage firm Stephens Inc., for the latest word on what types of companies were trading hands in the first half of this year. Read more
Trouble Up North
It may be small -- measuring about the size of a grain of rice -- but the mountain pine beetle is a huge problem in the forests of British Columbia and for that area's economic well-being. Read more
Custom Cushion
The housing bust that started in the late-1980s was particularly hard-felt at Longview, Texas-based Cassity Jones Lumber and Hardware. Simultaneous slumps in the oil and financial industries had pitched the Lone Star State into its worst recession since World War II, and with housing starts at a 35-year low, Cassity Jones was on the brink of going belly-up. Read more
Rite on Target
It has taken awhile for Boise Building Solutions' Build-Rite suite of services to clear the quarantine that causes programs viewed by pro dealers as "builder direct" to sit on the shelf and collect dust. Read more