Wayne Withers
NorCal Lumber
Marysville, Calif.
PS100 Rank: 94
After 25 years as president of Golden State Lumber and another nine as vice president for national accounts with BMC, Wayne Withers was more than ready for his second act.
When opening his own company, he decided to focus on multifamily large-scale framing—an expertise he honed over his time at BMC, where he had opened a multifamily framing division with the company.
“When I left, they allowed me to take that division with me, so I sold my BMC stock options to a shareholder and invested in West Coast Framing,” Withers says. The Milpitas, Calif., company is a framing contractor specializing in large-scale, multifamily projects. “Within seven months, I recovered my investment and invested in NorCal.”
West Coast, of which Withers is CEO, is the installed piece of NorCal, he explains, a formerly mothballed LBM operation that specializes in structural framing materials. The company’s then-owner had every intention of getting back in the market, but the economy didn’t cooperate, Withers says. The owner’s loss was Withers’ opportunity.
With NorCal, Withers is targeting a very specific slice of the framing market. “We only frame multifamily projects of four stories and up. We aren’t being our customers’ competitors, something I learned very accurately in the BMC model,” Withers says. Withers maintains 100% equity in NorCal. Now he’s looking to expand. “The question is, do I expand now and take advantage of the market? If I do, then I’ll have to lose some of my equity. Or do I grow at an organic pace [and keep 100% equity]? I’m mulling it over.”
Withers isn’t remaining idle as he weighs his options. He’s currently considering two possible acquisitions in northern California. Luckily, he still has his technology company, iN4 Solutions, in San Jose, and says, “It’s growing like a rocket, and it’s a sexier business for [attracting] the millennial cohort.” iN4 offers software and machinery built for pros in the building materials industry.
Withers’ goal in 2017 was to make the ProSales 100 list. By more than doubling NorCal’s gross sales in 2016 over the previous year—from $18 million to $42 million—he did just that. And next year? “I want to make dealer of the year with my own company.”
