Anyone in the LBM trade knows it’s all about keeping the customer happy, whether he be a remodeler with a pick-up full of plywood sheets or a purchasing agent with a spreadsheet. A customer will let you know he’s happy by bringing back more business or making a referral. Sometimes, he will even tell you. All you have to do is ask.

Scranton, Pa.-based AZEK Building Products signed a distribution deal with OrePac Building Products, a building materials wholesaler serving the West and Pacific Northwest.   

Under the agreement, OrePac’s Denver, Colo., and Salt Lake City, Utah, branches will offer the full line of premium, exterior AZEK products.  OrePac’s Denver branch covers Colorado, Eastern Wyoming, Northern New Mexico and the Scottsbluff area of Nebraska, while the Salt Lake City branch covers Utah, Southwestern Wyoming, Eastern Nevada and Southeastern Idaho.

E-Verify has found a champion in presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who would make the federal electronic employee verification system mandatory nationwide so that U.S. employment would become less of a magnet for illegal immigration.

But while E-Verify has become less error-ridden and more popular among employers than it used to be, it remains easy to fool, costly and widely ignored in states where it is required, according to a Sept. 25, 2012, report.

Hodgepodge of state laws

A study conducted by national research firm Civic Economics indicates that independent retailers return 52% of their revenue to the local economy, compared with 14% by national chains. The conclusions were based on data collected in 2011 in Salt Lake Valley, Utah, where 15 retailers and seven restaurants, all independent and locally owned, participated in the survey.

The Logan, Utah, institution was founded before Utah received statehood. Today, Bennett Paint & Glass is run by the fourth and fifth generation of Jenkins family business.

Is that a small village near the banks of the Provo River? Actually, it's the HGTV Dream Home 2012.

The latest in the series of HGTV Dream Homes is in Park City, Utah, near the Provo River.

Lumber Liquidators and Sherwin-Williams are among the sponsors of the HGTV Dream Home 2012. Bissell vacuums and Delta Faucet Co. are also co-sponsors of the Dream Home, which serves as the grand prize in an HGTV promotional sweepstakes.

Baird Capital Partners, the U.S.-based buyout fund of Baird Private Equity, has announced the acquisition of Harris Research Inc. (HRI) from Home Depot. 

Based in Logan, Utah, HRI is a leading franchisor of in-home consumer services in the United States and internationally. The company’s Chem-Dry brand is a provider of carpet and upholstery cleaning services with approximately 4,000 franchises worldwide. Chem-Dry will continue its lead generation program with Home Depot, according to the announcement.

For Wheelwright Lumber Co. president Paul Wheelwright, the key to his store’s success for 121 years has been doing a few things really well and sticking to some core principles.


The first-of-its-kind Home Channel News list of 50 hardware store all-stars appeared in the May issue of Home Channel News and recognized a diverse group of high-performance retailers -- large, small, urban and rural. Below, the state-by-state guide winds through Tennessee, Texas and Utah.

Ace Hardware storeowners across four Rocky Mountain states unveiled an interactive new website, myhelpfulace.com.

The new site features several ways for consumers to more easily interact with their local Ace Hardware store in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico.

Stock Building Supply has confirmed its plans, outlined in an April 1 memo to employees, to reorganize the company into four divisions and eliminate two top executive positions. 

The Raleigh, N.C., pro dealer will no longer have a chief operating officer or VP national sales. Instead, Stock will rely on four regional presidents/general managers, to oversee the No. 4 player in the LBM industry, according to the Home Channel News Top 350 rankings. 

The new divisions and presidents are as follows: 

With the Kitchen and Bath Industry Show only weeks away — it runs from April 26 to 28 in Las Vegas — the National Kitchen and Bath Association (NKBA) just released the results of its annual members’ poll about upcoming design trends. The Hackettstown, N.J.-based trade group asked 100 of its designers what they’ve been installing in their clients’ kitchens and bathrooms, and then distilled the results into 11 trends.