In June, LBM Journal introduced its 40 Under 40 awards. Now we’d like to introduce you to the members of the class. Our interviews spotlight the 40 Under 40 members’ LBM experience, thoughts on attracting young people to the industry, and visions for the future.
Lance Latkiewicz, Director of Operations, Mans Lumber
I was involved in part distribution and logistics as a plant manager with one of the Big 3 automotive OEMs. I was recruited, pitched, and ultimately sold by the Mans family to join their growing organization.
To me, building material supply has a long way to go to become industry leading with other service industries. So, the ability to lead older business models into new solutions and models for their customer experience is a daily push you have to get the entire organization in sync with.
I’d say the best thing you can do is sell autonomy. Sell young, talented folks that they can come in and leave a mark where their decisions will be implemented. You can avoid being just a number at these lumber yards and building material supply companies. It’s an interesting industry attempting to scale up and sophisticate itself.
