Kodiak Building Partners has acquired Ricci Lumber of Portsmouth, New Hampshire effective July 1.
Ricci Lumber was founded in 1957 in Portsmouth, and serves the lumber and hardware needs of local builders and Seacoast institutions in New Hampshire, Maine, and Massachusetts.
Eddie Hayes, president of Ricci Lumber, will retain his position at the company. He and his wife, Jeanne, have chosen to join the ownership group at Kodiak Building Partners. Ricci Lumber will join the Building Materials Group of Kodiak and will report to Pat Flood, executive vice president of this Kodiak segment.
Since the age of 13, Hayes spent summers working in the lumberyard that his grandparents founded. After law school and his service in the U.S. Army, Hayes joined his parents at Ricci full time. He slowly began to buy out his parents and became president in 1999, when his father, Don, prepared to retire.
Hayes introduced new technologies and helped to quadruple the company’s sales volume, Kodiak said in a press release announcing the acquisition. Additionally, Hayes and his wife built a state-of-the-art design center and expanded the entire operation with greater kitchen, flooring, and millwork options.
“Kodiak’s family- like philosophy mirrors our own, and they became the obvious choice among several suitors,” said Hayes. During the due diligence phase of the acquisition, Hayes said he was continually impressed by the Kodiak’s corporate office folks and was delighted to find everyone happy, pleasant, sharp, and hardworking.
“Eddie and his team will find that all of our companies share his perspective and align with that very culture. We work hard and have high standards for how we operate, but we also play hard and have a great time together as like-minded partners and as an extended family,” said Steve Swinney, president and CEO of Kodiak.
