Perseverance through tough times is what earns success, as proven again by two men in our industry named Ronnie. They logged a combined eight decades serving builders, surviving two severe recessions, enjoying several good years, and also facing tough transitions when their employers were bought out. Ronnie Schwartz took a straighter but still bumpy path, while Ronnie Gipson took a more circuitous and uncertain route, yet both demonstrate what can be achieved with commitment and hard work.
Both Ronnies started as teenagers in small rural towns in the South. Schwartz got into trusses in 1984 because he happened to live next door to a generous owner, Charles Meyers. Meyers had started his plant, Hanover Fabricators, near Richmond, VA, in 1963, backed by local contractors who sensed the potential of the new truss technology. Over the next 20 years, Meyers became a major supplier along the I-95 corridor between Richmond and Washington, D.C. and needed to delegate some of his design work. He had observed his young neighbor excelling in high school drafting and contractor-related summer work, but he hesitated to hire him at graduation because he felt that Schwartz’s parents wanted him to go to college. But several months after Schwartz went to work at a Ford dealership, Meyers lured him away by offering him a $1.50 raise to $4 per hour, and Schwartz did not look back.
As was often the case in early truss startups, Meyers was a minority owner who had free reign running a business that his partners knew nothing about, and who himself had to learn all aspects of the business from scratch. From his start until near his retirement, Meyers worked atop a stack of blueprints on his desk, never straying far from the nuts and bolts of the business. Even after Ronnie Schwartz became an accomplished take-off man and truss designer, Meyers continued to check his work, and, in the process, facilitated his protégé’s rewarding career.
Gipson got into trusses when he left his job building houses in Paducah, KY, in 1982, and followed an associate to a small truss plant in Chickasha, OK. After a short stint designing trusses there, he was hired to do the same for Pfeiffer Industries in northeast Atlanta but was quickly promoted to run their turnkey framing and eventually their truss plant. In 1988, Gipson took the opportunity to become General Manager of Warner Robins Supply’s truss plant, where he earned his management stripes over a ten-year period. Finally, in 1998, Gipson returned to the Atlanta market he knew well to serve as VP of Truss Manufacturing for Williams Brothers Lumber Co., one of the largest building supply dealers in one of the fastest-growing housing markets, where Gipson was responsible for four truss plants scattered around the Atlanta metro area.
Both Ronnies were well situated for the prosperous years of the late 1990s and early 2000s, but their companies also became too valuable for their owners. In 2003, in the 13th year of the housing expansion, Charles Meyers and his partners sold Hanover Fabricators to Steve Jones, owner of an EWP and gypcrete supplier. In 2005, Williams Brothers was sold to Home Depot Supply, adversely affecting Ronnie Gipson’s eight-year tenure.
Ronnie Gipson left Williams Brothers shortly after the acquisition and instead ran Wheeler’s Lumber’s truss plant. Unfortunately, Atlanta’s housing market collapsed from 70,000 units to 30,000 units during his one-year tenure, forcing Wheeler’s into bankruptcy. With no housing recovery in sight, and no one hiring, Ronnie Gipson doubled down on his confidence in the Atlanta market. Risking nearly a half million dollars, he joined with his wife Michele and daughter Stacy, along with sales pro Brandon Dyer, to form Georgia Truss in mid-2008 along Atlanta’s growth corridor. Gipson secured a lease on a 10,500 sq. ft. building, and made highly favorable deals on the truss equipment that was glutting the market. By mid-2009, housing starts had dropped to 7,000 units, one tenth of 2004’s high, and the Gipsons struggled to avert liquidation. But, as the housing market finally hit bottom, and, due to his strong relationships, the Gipsons gained enough commercial business to begin the path to prosperity. By 2015, Atlanta was back to 30,000 starts, and Georgia Truss was working three shifts and 24 hours per day.
By the time Ronnie Schwartz’s employer, Steve Jones, had moved and reequipped his truss plant, the recession had already kicked in along the entire Richmond to D.C. corridor. Fortunately, Jones had the ability to tap into the still-resilient multi-family sector from relationships he had established with his other businesses. With his newly acquired and more automated equipment, and the design resource that Ronnie Schwartz and others he mentored provided, Jones was able to grow his sales during this downturn.
Both Ronnies were fortunate to have a full decade of growth years as the economy rebounded. Ronnie Gipson grew his business to sales of over $3 Million per month from two facilities before selling to US LBM in 2022. Ronnie Schwartz grew his abilities and engineered a countless number of successful truss jobs before retiring after 41 years, while working at the same drafting board upon which he started.
This tale of two Ronnies is a tale of two routes to an accomplished career in the truss business. Both started in engineering, but soon their paths diverged. Ronnie Schwartz took a somewhat stable path using his technical talents and gained a well-deserved retirement, while Ronnie Gipson took a much more volatile path using his entrepreneurial abilities and also set himself up for a good retirement with the family who got him there. Both also can be proud of their life’s work, building great businesses.