Business View Magazine - Nov 2023

126 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 10, ISSUE 11 Steiger says, explaining how that communal philosophy carries over to the companies that Lumber Traders associates itself with as well. The company has a number of partner companies that it works with to make its vision a reality. One important factor to its supply chain is Epicor Eagle, a software company that provides it with the digital tools it needs to generate the analytics it needs to reduce its risk of overstocking and stockouts. There is also Swinerton Construction Company, another ESOP that shares the same vision as Lumber Traders that it partnered with to recently complete a large casino remodeling project. In May 2022, the company even added a glass division called Glassworks to its services. Steiger himself played a key role in convincing the four lead installers of a company who were planning to start a separate business together to join the Lumber Traders team. Steiger’s ESOP Master Spreadsheet was actually the persuading factor that showed the installers what the Lumber Traders ESOP would look like in a decade, and, as a result, it acquired a glass division that is currently on target to contribute 20% of the company’s gross profit. That new glass division works closely with several of Lumber Traders’ key partners, Milgard Windows, Alliance Door Products and Codel Doors, who, according to Steiger, does a “ton of work” with the company. The list doesn’t end there. Other vendors like Cascade Capital, Weyerhaeuser, James Hardie Siding, Simpson Strong-Tie, Prime Source, PSS and Boise Cascade also play a vital role in providing Lumber Traders with many of the specialized lumber and building materials that really can’t be found elsewhere. Steiger speaks quite fondly of the character these vendors display when working together, saying, “They bring a lot of great products that we need… we try not to ask too much, but when we do, they always work with us, and that’s absolutely important.”