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May 6, 2013

The Rhode Island Builders Association and Builders Helping Heroes in partnership with Homes for Our Troops are planning a May 18 groundbreaking for the home of an injured veteran.

The specially adapted-home project for Corporal Kevin Dubois will break ground in Burrillville, R.I.

The event is requesting community support for volunteers, tents, tables, chairs, podium and sound system, according to Doreen Lewis, community outreach coordinator. She can be reached at dlewis@homesforourtroops.org.

March 15, 2013

When Hurricane Sandy slammed into the northeastern part of the United States, the level of damage was clearly devastating. It was the start of a tremendously difficult time for many residents of this highly populous region. When bad things happen, a silver lining often emerges. In this case, that is a positive impact on the home improvement industry.

December 13, 2012

When I picked up my local newspaper the other day, a headline read “Collierville’s McGinnis Hardware to close its doors after 146 years.” Clearly this isn’t the first independent store to go out of business, but it brought on feelings of nostalgia. Started in 1866 and in the same location on the picturesque Town Square since 1879, McGinnis Hardware was a fixture in the community. It stood through the Spanish-American War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, Desert Storm and the Iraq War.

November 2, 2012

On Jan. 13, 1975, National Home Center News published its very first issue, which was described on the masthead as “A newspaper for retailers serving homeowners and contractors.”

Competing for attention on page one were a handful of stories of varying degrees of historical value — from the activities of 84 Lumber’s most recent corporate Christmas party (logrolling, tobacco spitting) to a profile of Dart Home Center’s help-yourself warehouse approach in Charlottesville, Va.

August 1, 2012

Remember that scene from “The Longest Yard” when Burt Reynolds’ incarcerated character snaps his fingers, and boxes of sparkling new football uniforms are delivered to his rag-tag team of inmates just in time for their big showdown with the guards?

That was a great moment for prison procurement. One feels inspired by it.

One gets a very different feeling from the procurement policy of the real-life Eastern Correctional Institution in Westover, Md.

January 6, 2012

There is an old curse: “May you live in interesting times.” Unfortunately for the economy, the last several years have been “interesting times.” Home improvement has weathered this storm better than some areas (notably new-home construction), but the industry has clearly been impacted. Twice a year the Home Improvement Research Institute (HIRI) publishes a detailed size-of-market forecast for home improvement product sales.

January 6, 2012

When Newt Gingrich was first mentioned as a long shot to be considered as a presidential candidate, I had the following conversation with a salesman.

“Remember when Newt was our keynote speaker back in 2008? What if he makes a strong run for the Oval Office?”

“Well, then,” said the salesman. “You’d have a column for the magazine.”

Here is that column.

January 6, 2012

This summer, my dad, he one of the “Greatest Generation,” passed away after a full life. He died in the home he built with his own hands for our family in 1958: a three-bedroom cape on the south shore of Long Island, about 3 miles north (as the seagull flies) of the Great South Bay.

December 2, 2011

How do you wrap up 2011? Here’s how: Take all the most popular stories — as measured by page views at homechannelnews.com — from each of the past 11 months and combine them in one, cream-of-the-crop editorial.

It’s an automatic, can’t-miss column, and it goes like this:

December 2, 2011

As a former store owner, avid consumer and general retail junkie, I really get excited when I walk through a store and find myself thinking “WOW! Look at THIS.” More than once, when really excited, the “Wow!” in my head has extended to my mouth, occasionally to my embarrassment, but more often to either agreement from my fellow shoppers or the appreciation from nearby employees.

September 28, 2011

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, during a hearing held earlier this year, told Congress: “We’re not Sherwin-Williams paint. We don’t cover the earth equally.”


The exchange confirmed HCN’s position that slogans matter — a case we made in this space back in 2009. Among the notable slogans highlighted here were those of Sherwin-Williams (Cover the Earth), McCoy’s Building Supply (Go Build Something) and Lowe’s (Let’s Build Something Together).


August 31, 2011

In a little less than two months, Gaithersburg, Md.-based TW Perry CEO Michael Cassidy will be called to a podium at the Grand Hyatt in San Antonio, Texas, during the 2011 ProDealer Industry Summit, an event hosted jointly by the National Lumber & Building Material Dealers Association (NLBMDA) and Home Channel News.


August 31, 2011

I’ve been in the home improvement industry for 25 years, and I cannot remember a time with so much divergent information on where we stand and where we are heading. 


August 2, 2011

While attending a meeting with the Home Improvement Research Institute, a Home Channel News editor made a side trip to another important South Florida institution that could help us all better understand our industry.


This institution is called The Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg. (Note to accounting: The $10 admission ticket and $3 parking are now officially “business related.”) And it does so by preparing us for the surreal in our world.


June 30, 2011

The 2011 Home Channel News Top 200 Pro Dealer Scoreboard has been published — the full list will be available on homechannelnews.com.


The Top 200 lumberyard companies in the nation, ranked by sales, together showed a 1.38% increase in 2010, compared with 2009. That’s the first year-over-year growth spurt for the HCN Pro Dealer Scoreboard since the 2007 list of Top 350 pro dealers was published. 


Growth is good. 


But how did it happen? How do companies grow when all around them their markets are stalled or declining? 


June 7, 2011

Not to pick on Fortune Magazine — after all, I want to be a billionaire someday, too — but who couldn’t come up with a list of 500 publicly traded companies? Not to disparage our competitor’s fine work, but their Fortune 500 issue almost writes itself. All they really need is Google and a spreadsheet.


May 2, 2011

Back in August 2006, this “From the Editor” page was dedicated in part to an examination of Star and Bullock Hardware, the fictitious, gold-rush era building supply store from the HBO Series “Deadwood.” 


At the time, some suggested that I was watching too much television.


But now look at page 30 of this magazine. There’s an actual, real-life Deadwood, S.D., hardware store on our Fifty Hardware All Stars list: Twin City Hardware.


March 31, 2011

Lowe’s chairman emeritus Robert Strickland was inducted into the Home Channel Hall of Fame four years ago. As he approached the podium, he seemed as relaxed as you or I might be approaching the office microwave at lunchtime.


“I would like tonight to talk about A, B, C,” he began. And with those three first initials, he launched into a discourse that summed up the lessons learned from a career of successful retailing — or as close a summation as three words can get to a 41-year career.


March 7, 2011

“There are no sissies left in this business.”


That’s the official Home Channel News quote of the month, from Rick Frost, the CEO of Nashville, Tenn.-based Louisiana-Pacific.


February 1, 2011

As a result of too much good material and not enough space, here is a collection of semi-random notes from the International Builders’ Show in Orlando, Fla.  


• Question: Does anybody really pay $99 a day for Internet connection — the asking price at the convention center? 


• I told my cab driver what I was doing in Orlando. 


“That’s funny,” he said. 


“Why?”


February 1, 2011

Having worked heavily with marketing research for more than 30 years, I know just how useful it can be to make better business decisions, but like all tools there are limitations. One very important issue with marketing research is that we often measure peoples’ attitudes, but what we really care about is their behavior. In some cases, there is a very close link between the two and sometime not so much. Let’s consider two examples.


January 10, 2011

If your company’s overarching online strategy sounds like this: “Integrate real-time platforms,” then your company is in trouble for two reasons. 1) The three words above were generated randomly by the Dack.com Web Economy Bulls--t Generator; and 2) Few people know what any of those words mean individually, let alone in conjunction with one another.


You gotta have a plan, in English. 


December 1, 2010

Tom Barfell, director of international sales and category development for Do it Best Corp., will be the featured speaker at the Worldwide DIY Council Global Conference, May 9, 2011.

The annual Council meeting and conference will be held at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.

November 23, 2010

Tom Barfell, director of international sales and category development for Do it Best Corp., will...

October 3, 2010

Retailing can become a focus on price very easily. I remember attending a conference years...