Business View Magazine | Volume 8, Issue 6

92 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 8, ISSUE 6 January.” This isn’t the first period of economic uncertainty Sears Trostel Lumber & Millwork has endured. For nearly a century, the business has continued to adapt and grow to meet the needs of customers across Colorado and Wyoming. Roots of the business can be traced back to 1929, when Carl Trostel started a lumber company in Fort Collins’ original business district. Trostel ran the business for nearly two decades until his son- in-law Bob Sears took over management and operations in 1948. The next major leadership change came in 1981 when two employees, Curt Viehmeyer and Steve Schwartz, purchased Sears Trostel Lumber. “It was a small, mom and pop lumber yard struggling in a market that was changing,” Viehmeyer explains, “and the younger generation of the Trostel family was not interested in working the business. They were considering closing the business altogether, so we decided to purchase it from them. Originally, we did exactly what they were doing and it didn’t take too long to say, ‘wait, this isn’t going to work.’” In the early 1980s, Sears Trostel sold building materials, such as drywall, paint, concrete, and framing lumber. But the business was one of the smaller players in that market. Viehmeyer and Schwartz quickly realized that their business model needed to change. Their first big move was to invest in hardwood lumber, making them the only local supplier for those products in Northern Colorado. The business expanded south into the Denver market, and soon there was a new challenge. “In the late ‘80s there was increased competition in hardwood lumber, and new players in the market were more aggressive than in the past,” Viehmeyer reports. “The margins were coming down, too, so we decided to expand our product line through the manufacturing of wood products. At that time, we bought our first Weinig