'Passing of an Era'

The July retirement of Lois Parson from Meek’s Lumber Co. after 61 years as a personal assistant to two generations of company leadership brings with it the end of the post.

“Twenty years ago you would find a lot of personal assistants, but it’s truly the passing of an era,” said Terry Meek, the company’s chairman of Missouri operations, who was a young lad when Parson was hired.

Parson’s everyday tasks of taking phone calls, stenography and formal communications by handwritten letter have been replaced by email and voicemail.

After six decades, multiple departments now handle accounting, which Parson, now 84, performed for the lumber company’s various entities when she joined in 1954.

“It’s totally foreign today to executives, but 80 percent of business, if it wasn’t by phone it was by letter,” Meek said, adding he remembers three dictionaries within Parson’s reach at her desk.

In today’s business world, written letters are left for special occasions.

“I think she was the last person I know who could take shorthand,” added General Manager Charlie Meek, son of Terry, who worked with Parson at Meek’s corporate office, 1131 E. Woodhurst Drive. “You miss that a little bit in business communications sometimes.”

Job duties aside, Parson’s six-decade tenure is statistically off the charts. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average time spent with one employer in 2014 was 4.6 years, and the average person holds 11.7 jobs in a lifetime.

Parson worked two jobs in her career. She attended Draughn’s Business College and worked at the Marx Clothing Co. on St. Louis Street for a short time prior to joining Meek’s as a personal assistant to Terry’s father, Charles C. Meek. As Charles Meek worked to grow the business in California and his sons, and later grandsons, were at college, Terry Meek said Parson became a point of contact between the family members. He considered her as a second mother. To this day, she’s a fixture at the family’s Christmas dinner.

For Parson, handling personal and company business was part of the job. She said although it’s fair to say she was closer to the company’s dealings than most employees, it’s to be expected of her position.

“I think that’s true in any company,” Parson said. “If you’re working for the owner or president, then you do things the way they want it done.”

Changing times
When Parson came to work for Meek’s in the mid-1950s, Charlie Meek said the lumber business already weathered significant changes. As the company began expansion on the West Coast, lumber mills, formerly part of every lumberyard, became stand-alone businesses. Lumberyards moved toward retail sales, offered more products, and in the process became a hybrid between lumberyards, hardware stores and building supply companies.

“This isn’t a high-tech business, so there hasn’t been a revolution,” Terry Meek said, noting houses are still built in wood-frame construction and the lumberyard side of the business is much as it was in 1954.

The most dramatic change to the company’s landscape, he said, came in the past 15 years in the form of competition from big-box retailers, such as Lowe’s and The Home Depot.

“We used to be 60 percent retail and 40 percent contractor; now we’re probably 70 percent contractor and 30 percent retail,” Meek said of sales. “Even though housing starts are still 50 percent of what they were prior to 2008, we’ve survived and I would say we’ve flourished.”

According to ProSales Magazine, owned by Washington D.C.-based design and construction media firm Hanley Wood, Meek’s ranked No. 23 nationally on the 2015 list of largest professional dealers, with 2014 sales pegged at $268 million. About 80 percent of sales were to professional builders.

The company’s Midwestern division represented some $180 million in sales last year across 34 stores in Missouri and Arkansas, according to Meek’s spokesman Eric Sachse. When Parson joined the company, comparable sales were $3 million from six stores.

“In business, you have to grow with the times and they kept up,” Parson said of the Meek family.

Company culture
As Meek’s grew, Parson witnessed changes to both corporate structure and her role within it. But as Meek’s assistant, two responsibilities never changed: to stay informed on the industry and company dealings, while also maintaining an unbroken line of communication between upper management, associates and vendors.

“When you’re in that position, you either have to know or you have to learn,” Parson said. “You have to use a certain amount of your own judgment. Take things as they come and learn your way of doing it.”

Charlie Meek said while Parson was the longest-tenured Meek’s employee – his father is a close second at 50 years – employees spending decades with the company is not uncommon. Other retirements this year include Don Collins and Rod Dickson, managers of stores in Lebanon and Doniphan, respectively, both with Meek’s for over 40 years.

“We still have a few of the greatest generation throughout and quite a few with 30-plus years of service,” Meek said. “I’ve been here 20 years, and I’m still the new kid on the block.”

In postretirement days, Terry Meek reflects on Parson’s traits as an employee: an impeccable dress code and being the first to arrive and the last to leave – sometimes amid winter weather that might prevent half the staff from even making it to work. He hopes those will remain part of the company’s culture. “She set the standard for the office for 61 years. People want to emulate her professionalism,” Meek said. “I believe the younger people, with that model, are carrying on in Lois’ tradition.”