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Brinkman, Jordan, and Reed all came into the industry after their football careers reached an end, but for Gene Benhart, it was a return.
A backup quarterback for the Indianapolis Colts in 1990, Benhart’s father spent 35 years at Edward Hines Lumber, a Chicago-area operation now owned by US LBM. Benhart worked at the lumberyard during summers in high school and college, and earlier this year he joined Lampert Yards in St. Paul, Minn., as a major accounts sales manager.
“Football taught you how to start and finish something,” Benhart says. “Football taught you how to prepare for the big game, and that’s basically the same thing you’re doing every day, you’re always preparing for something.”
Constant prep work helps makes you ready for the busted play as well as the expected result, he notes. Benhart says it’s true for him today as well. “When a customer zigs, you have to be ready to zag with them,” he says.
As a quarterback, Benhart got plenty of experience with leadership. “There are 100 players on a team and you have to be able to relate with every single one of them,” he says. And all that time spent studying a thick playbook and watching film helped him learn to see the big picture when it comes to an LBM operation and how to run a business.
His football training has made him aware of all the little parts and pieces, too, almost as if he were calling a play at the line of scrimmage.
“Like on a football play, you have to know what the 10 other guys are doing,” he says. “That’s the same thing here. You have to know how to put a proposal together. You have to know how to purchase the material, how it’s going to be shipped, how the framer will put it together, and how to bill the customer correctly.”
Benhart says a good quarterback has to know exactly what the opposing defense is doing, which is another important quality for his work at Lamperts. He does a lot of different things at the company that require him to be organized, prepared, and ready for anything.
Not everyone can succeed in LBM, says Benhart. “It’s the same thing in football. Everyone says that they can, but it takes a special breed to be successful.”
