Business Spotlight: Construction Conversion

Raymond LaRue takes the Show-Me State’s motto seriously in his business. For him, it’s all about showing the function of insulated concrete forms.

“We are not builders; we are suppliers and educators. This is the Show-Me State, and that’s what we do with ICF,” says LaRue, owner of Nixa-based Alandsons Supply Co. Inc.

LaRue’s mission to educate covers builders, homeowners, architects, engineers, inspectors, insurance companies and others interested in the insulated concrete forms Alandsons distributes.

ICF isn’t what Alandsons built its business on, though. It starts with LaRue’s father, Alfred, a Texas native who founded the company in June 1987.

After a few mason friends relocated to the Springfield area from Texas, they called Alfred LaRue with a business proposition in hopes of enticing him to move and open a masonry supply company for their projects.

“We were ready for a change from Texas,” says Sharron LaRue, Alfred’s wife and the company bookkeeper.

Alfred LaRue sold his municipal supply company in Texas, packed up his family and moved to Republic in February 1987.

The masonry distributor opened months later with “just a dually truck and a cell phone,” Sharron LaRue recalls.

“We’ve been in the ‘you call, we haul’ kind of business for a while now,” she says.

Son Raymond LaRue expanded Alandsons’ building materials expertise before taking ownership of the family business in 2008.

The emphasis is on ICF materials to supply a construction method different than traditional framing with lumber and nails. In ICF construction, foam blocks are stacked to form walls and filled with poured concrete and reinforced rebar.

Stick-building mentality
Now, Alandsons is the area’s sole distributor of ICF manufactured by Nudura Corp. – a company LaRue chose nearly 10 years ago after years of research. By selling Nudura products north of the Interstate 70 corridor between Kansas City and St. Louis, down south to Harrison, Ark., and west to Oklahoma and Kansas, ICF is the fastest-growing division at Alandsons.

Sales used to be split nearly 50-50 between masonry and Nudura supplies, though he says recently the numbers have shifted to about 60-40 in favor of ICF. Last year, Alandsons recorded $1 million in revenues.

Though ICF is “real new – introduced in the 1940s,” LaRue chuckles, he says it’s been used in Missouri only in the last 20 years.

“It’s the not-broke, don’t-fix-it mentality of the Show-Me State,” he says of what’s hindered ICF’s takeoff in Missouri.

Alan Daffron, owner of DIA Construction LLC in West Plains, agrees. “It’s hard to change someone from stick building,” he says.

Specializing in remodels and new construction with ICF, DIA Construction has teamed up with Alandsons on 25 projects and currently have three homes under construction, one each in Strafford, Pomona and West Plains. The residential projects are usually $500,000 and up, Daffron says.

Daffron, who’s been working with Alandsons for nearly a decade, has ordered roughly $750,000 of Nudura product in that time. He appreciates Alandsons’ customer service, even though he’s 100 miles southeast of Springfield.

“Me being in West Plains, if I need something, (LaRue) makes an effort to drive down and get it to me,” Daffron says. “If I have a problem, he takes care of it.”

Strong prospects
In an effort to expand sales in new-home construction, LaRue recently became a real estate agent with Galena-based Souvenir Realty Inc., a firm he’s worked with the last 10 years for ICF supplies.

LaRue says he got his realty license so he could connect customers wanting to build with ICF on vacant lots, and he chose existing clients Dennis and Sue Vannier’s realty office.

“I figured, ‘You made me some business, so I’ll make you some business,’” LaRue says of Souvenir Realty.

Though 85 percent of Alandsons’ business comes from new residential construction, he says ICF’s energy efficiency makes it more broadly applicable. “Everyone needs an energy efficient home or business,” he says.

With ICF designed to withstand an EF4 tornado – as well as having higher heat-resistant properties – LaRue also says it’s suitable for new construction in tornado alley.

“Unfortunately, every time Joplin happens, or Moore, Okla., happens, people start to take notice,” he says. “It sucks people don’t notice before all the senseless loss of lives.”

That’s why Alandsons focuses not only on distribution but also on education. Though the commercial market in southwest Missouri isn’t demanding ICF materials just yet, “We can handle schools and bigger businesses now,” LaRue says, pointing to potential with schools and the government sector.

“It’ll happen eventually,” he says of commercial applications.

This is, after all, the Show-Me State.