For component manufacturers, maintaining a competitive edge requires a delicate balance between engineering excellence and savvy capital deployment. High-precision machinery and automated lines are the lifeblood of our shops, but acquiring them demands significant capital. That’s why...

Not every company can say they’ve been providing quality building products to their market for nearly 50 years, but The Building Center, Inc. can! We were founded in the Charlotte metro market in 1977, and since then, we’ve grown into one of the largest privately owned lumber and...

Each year, the 2026 Construction Supply 150, powered by Webb Analytics, reveals and analyzes the size and scope of America’s key lumber and building material dealers. It tells what they did in the previous year, updates their activities in current year, and uses past trends to forecast...

We began the second quarter of the year with a sense of growing tension and uncertainty over the impact of war with Iran. The de facto shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz — through which 20% of the global oil supply is shipped — continued to send oil prices soaring with inflationary...

Will trusses will be part of new American homes in the future? That question has been the reason I keep a close eye on the home built for NAHB’s International Builders Show. Since 1984, this off-site exhibit, “The New American Home” (TNAH), has presented the latest innovations...

In an industry defined by efficiency, you aren’t just selling a piece of iron; you are providing a self-funding production tool. If a new linear saw reduces waste and labor costs by $15,000 a month and the finance/lease payment is only $4,000, the sale is no longer an expense —...

Candidates and employers keep asking me the same question — what am I seeing in hiring trends for 2026? The honest answer is “it’s complicated.” The more honest answer is that I don’t think the market has made up its mind yet. It’s April and, under normal...

The MSR Workshop has a solid reputation for providing practical, real world learning, and this spring’s program in Orange Beach, Alabama is shaping up to be one of the strongest yet. The 2026 agenda features two concentrated blocks of educational sessions — Thursday morning (8 am to...

Like many stories, this one started with a rumor: Builders FirstSource was closing two stores in Iowa, a dealer told me. Digging into that story revealed a much bigger tale involving how actively America’s biggest full-service lumberyard has been shedding some underperforming locations...

Wood was not held in high regard in the truss drafting department where I began working. Our fabricator customers often wanted their trusses designed with “old lumber,” meaning the obsolete size of 1-5/8” x 3-5/8”, even though the 1.5” x 3.5” size had been in...