Business Spotlight: Cedar Creek Wholesaling Inc.

Owners: Todd Ball, Dave Bond, Clark Wiens

Founded: 1988 in Springfield; 1977 nationally

Address: 2123 N. Golden Ave., Springfield, MO 65801

Phone: (417) 862-2555

Fax: (417) 862-2303

Web: www.cedarcreeksgf.com

E-mail: tball@cedarcreek.com

Products: Wholesale lumber specializing in cedar and pine beams, timbers and siding, premade trusses and log cabin components

Employees: 43 in Springfield; 500 nationally

Revenues: Would not disclose in Springfield; $600 million nationally

Cedar Creek Wholesaling Inc. celebrates its 20th anniversary in Springfield this month after achieving steady growth through the years.

In two decades, the company has expanded from four employees to 43, one truck to 16, two forklifts to 20 and 4.5 acres to 45 at the same 2123 N. Golden Ave. location.

Company officials say that growth demonstrates the Tulsa-based wholesale lumber company’s commitment to southwest Missouri.

Local owner Todd Ball has two equal partners, Clark Wiens and Dave Bonds, both located in the Cedar Creek corporate headquarters in Tulsa. Wiens started the business in 1977, and now Cedar Creek boasts nearly $600 million in revenues, 500 employees and 11 branches, with coverage from San Antonio to Oklahoma City to St. Louis to Milan, Tenn.

Springfield was Cedar Creek’s third location, and Wiens says the Springfield branch functions autonomously.

“If you’ve got bright people in bright locations, we expect that they’re smart enough to make their decisions on their own basis,” he says.

The supply chain

Cedar Creek specializes in cedar and pine beams, timbers and siding as well as premade trusses, prefinished products, shingles, paneling and log cabin components.

Customers include retailers such as Meek’s, Herrman Lumber Co., The Home Depot, Lowe’s, Dyke Lumber & Millwork, Springfield Mill & Lumber and various independent lumberyards. Suppliers send products directly to Springfield from both coasts and as far away as Chile, Indonesia and China.

Ron Enyeart, president of Enyeart Cedar Products in Portland, Ore., supplies cedar products to Cedar Creek in Springfield and expects Cedar Creek’s purchases to reach $2 million this year. Cedar Creek is among Enyeart’s five largest accounts with a full semitrailer headed to Springfield most weeks.

“One reason that Cedar Creek will be successful – particularly in tougher economic times – is they’re not relying on a commodity that is produced in great supply to be their source of sales and/or income,” Enyeart says.

Cedar Creek is among the lumber suppliers enduring a slowdown in residential construction. In Springfield, permits for new, single-family homes dropped by nearly 50 percent in 2007 (see Fast Facts: Building Springfield on page 4). On a national level, CNNMoney reported this month that the Dow Jones U.S. Building Materials index fell 18 percent in 2007, and in January, the index fell below 300 for the first time since mid-2006.

Ball says the local impact thus far is simply a hiring freeze at Cedar Creek.

Showstopping showroom

With a commitment to think beyond traditional lumber wholesaling, Ball spent $250,000 to build a 5,000-square-foot showroom that opened in July. The showroom, geared to the retail customers of Cedar Creek’s wholesale clients, has 15 sections, each one with a room in a different style, such as Victorian, Euro-country or loft apartment.

“The showroom is a good place to send customers,” says Doug Herrold, branch manager of Dyke Lumber & Millwork. “With larger homes, customers like to use a lot of timbers and wood products, and the showroom gives them a chance to go and see what the products actually look like installed. It makes it a little easier to have them walk through and point and say, ‘That’s what I want.’”

Since opening the showroom, Ball says 1,000 people have visited from 15 states. Ball says people spend 20 minutes to two hours browsing its features, including a sauna, fireplace, a large conference room with pine timbers and walls, and a conference table constructed from pine logs split in half.

After seeing the products, customers return to their retailer to place orders; Cedar Creek does not sell direct.

“The showroom is an investment in our business, too,” says Danny Burke, general manager of Herrman Lumber Co. “Customers think they know what they want, but they change their minds when they see something else at the showroom.”

In April, Ball intends to add a sample log cabin to the property where Cedar Creek also has 4,000 square feet of office space and 40,000 square feet of covered storage. In the spring, he plans to double the storage capacity.