During the challenging 1980s, gutsy cousins Larry Rogers and Dickie Vail tackled truss plant ownership. Larry put his savings on the line in 1981 and with an SBA loan began Rogers Manufacturing Co. (RMC), not far from where he had worked in northeast Louisiana. Dickie relied mostly on backing from his partner, John Coker, and with financing from a Savings and Loan (S&L) began Coker-Vail Components (CVC) in 1984, not far from the oil fields of south Louisiana.
CVC initially thrived on the apartment work that sprang from skyrocketing oil prices and was later supercharged by lenient S&L lending practices. Even though oil prices had begun drifting downward in 1981, they remained stubbornly high. Then, with little warning in early 1986, Saudi Arabia drastically increased their oil shipments, tanking prices and disrupting oil-related construction activity, including much of CVC’s business.
While the oil shock subsided somewhat in the late 1980s, an even greater shock rocked the entire construction industry, and devastated CVC’s apartment customers. The speculative lending that financed the massive over-building of houses and apartments had turned into the financial collapse of the S&L crisis. With thousands of completed units standing empty, and thousands more in the pipeline, new residential construction and even some work in process was halted. After Dickie had expended multiple 100-hour work weeks trying to sustain his business, he finally realized what none of us in the oil belt wanted to realize, that few if any housing units would be needed for the next several years. But, when CVC’s customers began sending them blueprints for out-of-state projects, Dickie saw that deliverance could be at hand in the bountiful markets around Washington, D.C. So, that was where CVC and many of us decided to go to find work.
After enduring the excruciating pain of losing all their Hammond, LA property to bankruptcy, Dickie and John Coker moved 1000 miles east to Virginia to start anew. They selected a location where costs were reasonable and that was close to multiple pending apartment projects like Hammond had been. They scraped together enough funds to secure a lease on an 8500 sq. ft. building in a rural suburb of Richmond, VA and bought only a minimal amount of equipment. Since they couldn’t afford equipment to build roof trusses, they resorted to handmade wood tables, which would considerably increase labor effort and burden them with large outlays for nails. However, Dickie was able to quickly fill the plant with orders from former customers who had emigrated from Louisiana. I became a regular floor truss customer of Dickie’s in 1989 before I purchased a floor machine for my plant which was an hour away, and I witnessed a beehive of activity.
Larry Rogers also felt the impact of the sharp decline in housing starts during the 1980s but, as he recalled recently, he had survived this period by constantly diversifying his business. That included reaching further geographically to supply government-subsidized single family housing, commercial projects, some agricultural work, and out-of-state apartments. Fortunately, he was able to recruit Glenn Edwards, a sales pro with 15 years of industry experience, to spearhead this effort. Glenn was able to secure multifamily work as far away as Nashville and Indianapolis, enabling Larry to double the size of his facility.
These intrepid truss plant owners from rural Bastrop, LA faced much improved economic conditions as they began the 1990s. However, there was trouble in the East. The apartment developers from Texas, like the ubiquitous Trammel-Crowe, who had been loyal to Dickie, were barraged with bids from major apartment-oriented truss companies. Trussway in Fredericksburg, VA, for example, was a well-oiled, Dick Rotto-driven machine only an hour from CVC. Just as close was the highly competitive Truswood plant owned by Richard Watts. Dickie had little chance of success when his crews were shooting nails into topside plates to hold trusses together, manually flipping them, nailing bottom side plates, and hand feeding them through finish rollers. Not only was this a laborious process, but the cost of nails grew to be thousands of dollars per month. To keep up with the dizzying pace set by builders was nearly impossible. And payments from CVC’s customers were often held back, when funds were needed to pay workers and suppliers. Finally, in the fall of 1990, a totally exhausted Dickie ran out of cash, driving him into his second bankruptcy and near despondency. In retrospect, however, Dickie realized his failures had been a Godsend. In his mad dash to survive, he had strayed from his Faith, and he believed God had humbled him. So, he proceeded to dissolve Coker-Vail Components, and instead turned back to his family and prayed for his deliverance.
Fortunately, Dickie didn’t have to wait long for his redemption. While trying to sell some of his equipment, Dickie inadvertently met Carroll Shoffner, a surprisingly unassuming man. Shoffner owned more than a dozen truss plants, and normally wouldn’t have talked with Dickie, but was looking to expand into Dickie’s former market area. Impressed with Dickie’s determination in the face of adversity, Shoffner hired him as a salesman, restarting his career in a capacity for which he was well prepared.
Meanwhile, Larry Rogers had managed to significantly diversify his sales, enabling him to double the size of his facility by 1992. Then, in 1994, Derek Moody, a mechanical engineering graduate, just happened to drive by RMC while in the process of moving back to his hometown of Monroe, LA. Fortuitously, Derek had just completed a two-year stint in Alpine’s Florida engineering office and was open for opportunities with a hometown truss plant. When Derek approached him, Larry asked him why he wasn’t already working at RMC and hired him immediately. Having a good staff and having had good success with out-of-state work, Larry decided he needed to have a plant closer to the source of that work.
To Be Continued…
See also