Over the past 65 years, Lumber King has transformed itself from a small lumber processing operation to a multi-location building center chain across five cities and two states.
Originally founded as King Lumber Company in 1960 by the Stearns Coal & Lumber Company and Ronald King in Stearns, KY, the business initially processed and sold lumber in Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana, and Ohio. Before the decade was out, the company had also formed King Building Materials, its first retail location in Oneida, TN.
In the 1970’s, Ronald’s son, Dwayne King, took over the company and merged the two businesses and soon after relocated the company’s headquarters to its current location in Whitley City, KY.
“In 1978 when Ronald passed away, Dwayne took the helm of the company. At that point, in 1980 we decided that it was time [to expand since] we’d outgrown everything in Stearns,” said Willie Boyatt, vice president of operations for Lumber King. “We really needed to open up a retail center. So we opened up this facility that we’re currently in, in 1980, and we did some reorganization of the company, and we changed the name to Lumber King.”
Since then, Lumber King—also led by President John Kayea, CEO Steve Phillips, and Vice President Bill Singleton—has added three more Kentucky locations in Somerset, Danville, and Mount Vernon and expanded its services to include cabinet design, truss design and manufacturing, estimates, special orders and more.
Employees drive success
Over the years, one constant through all that growth has been the dedicated employees who work at Lumber King’s locations, many of which have been with the company for decades, Singleton and Boyatt said.
In 2020, the company announced Lumber King had become officially 100% employee-owned following a purchase of remaining company shares. The move has had a profound effect on not only how the company operates, but also how employees view their careers with Lumber King.
“It’s always been about our people,” Singleton explains. “We have an [Employee Stock Ownership Plan], and that affects our employees in different ways, but they all have what I would call, ‘skin in the game.’ We have very, very little turnover—I think we have more people retire than we have quit. And that’s very unusual in this industry; our people are our strength. I tell my salespeople, there’s very little difference between my stick of lumber and anybody else’s, with the exception of the person that’s selling it. Our people make all the difference.”
Phillips said the ESOP program also allows employees to benefit long after they’ve left the company.
“We spent a lot of time educating our folks about the fact that they own the company, and if they stick with the company long enough, they can very well become the next millionaires locally and that’s beginning to happen,” Phillips said. “It absolutely thrills my soul to work with an employee who is a cashier, and they have $1.4 million in a retirement plan. They feel like they’re working for themselves, not for a family or person.”
In addition to longtime employees, Boyatt said the company has also found avenues to hiring younger employees.
“One of the things I think we’ve been very successful at is we try to hire either college kids or high school kids during summers to work as seasonal help. These kids may not be looking for a future in college, they might be looking for something else,” he said. “When these kids come on, a lot of these managers and sales staff take them under their wing and help guide them.”
For existing employees, Lumber King also offers continuing education opportunities, such as additional training and classes through Do it Best’s Pro School. Boyatt said the company hopes to grow those programs for wider opportunities in the future, while still keeping the
focus on each location’s existing reputation.
“We still have that community-owned type of hardware store feel. When you come in, everybody feels friendly and talks to one another. We’ve always tried to be a big presence in our communities, participating in things and helping fund things within the community. The community feels like a part of us and that’s been part of our business strategy for the last several years.”
Continued growth
One thing that has changed in recent years has been marked investments in various aspects of the business, including adding a truss shop and rental center, and additional social media marketing efforts and renovations.
Lumber King has also dramatically increased its outside sales staff to reach markets beyond its immediate store locations, which the company’s leadership team points to as a big driver of success.
“I think the biggest change is that we’ve enlarged our outside sales program, and that really drives a lot of our volume,” Singleton said. “We’ve enlarged our market area from South Lexington to the North Knoxville, and we do really well against all of the competitors in the national, regional and local inland areas.”
The company has also committed to investing in its retail operations, from remodeling its Mount Vernon location with help from Do it Best to partnering with companies like
Milwaukee to expand tool sales.
“We have branded ourselves as a destination for Milwaukee Tools at all of our locations, and we’ve grown that business over the last three years,” Boyatt said. “We really didn’t have a lot of power tools previously, so we took this and ran with it, and we’ve seen an increase of roughly about $800,000 to $900,000 in sales [company-wide].”
The company credits Do it Best for their help with managing inventory and implementing new tools like online ordering, ship-to-store shopping, and same-day and curbside pick-up.
“We’ve been very pleased with the response we’ve gotten from Do it Best. They’re very responsive to any needs that we have,” Singleton said. “They’re a crucial part of our supply chain, and they’re going to become increasingly important because of all the consolidation that’s taking place within the industry.”
The co-op has also been instrumental as the company moves forward with new location plans. In the near future, Lumber King will move its Danville store—currently on a property the company leases—to another location in the same area that the company will own, allowing the company to create a more accessible store with a larger showroom and lumberyard, Phillips and Singleton said.
Moving forward, Lumber King will continue serving not only its local communities, but the growing areas surrounding their markets. That strategy, Singleton said, will allow the company to grow beyond their footprint to serve the needs of builders and homeowners alike.
“The idea is to try to move more and more of our business into areas that were economically diverse,” he said. “I can’t move the store, but I can move our salespeople, and so we’ve been moving further and further into those diverse markets, and I hope that insulates us against any kind of downturn in the market.”
Get to know Lumber King
Founded: 1960
Ownership: Employee owned
Locations: Five locations, plus one truss plant
Employees: 75
Buying group/Co-op: Do it Best
Customer Breakdown: 70% pro / 30% retail
ERP Software: Epicor BisTrack
