Live from Studio 3B: A Baird Brothers Fine Hardwoods Overview with AHA Host Steve Stack
Steve Stack:
Brought to you direct from Studio 3B at Baird Brothers Fine Hardwoods, American Hardwood Advisor is your source for trends, tips, and insights into how the building industry has evolved.
Join me, Steve Stack, along with guest builders and industry leaders, as we talk shop and go in-depth on what it takes to be the best of the best.
Dive into topics like architecture, industry trends, project plans, historical tools, tricks of the trade, and life lessons from more than six decades of experience in the hardwood lumber business.
Who Are We, Where Are We, and What Are We Doing Here?
McKenzie Cross:
All right, so in today’s episode of American Hardware Advisor, we are flipping the mic around on you, our host Steve Stack, to learn a little bit more about Studio 3B. We’re going to answer questions like, “What the heck is a hardwood manufacturer doing with a content studio?” We are going to answer, “What is a content studio and why is it important?” So, I’m McKenzie Cross, I’m from iSynergy, the marketing agency that Baird has been working with for the past several years. And I have known you for, whatt, going on three, four years now, Steve?
Steve Stack:
Yep. Yep. Headed that direction.
McKenzie Cross:
Yep. And I’ve been lucky enough to see the studio from start to finish and I’m excited to be here today, so thank you for having me.
Steve Stack:
We’re excited to have you, I’m excited to be here today. By your intro, it sounds like you’re going to ask me the same questions I’m asking myself every day.
McKenzie Cross:
Probably, probably. So, where are we?
Steve Stack:
We are at Studio 3B, at our facility, Baird Brothers Fine Hardwoods, Canfield, Ohio. This little building that we had an idea about has turned out to be a little godsend. It’s been fun. We’re not quite at the end yet.
McKenzie Cross:
We’re so close.
Steve Stack:
But we’re in the studio corner, producing, and we’re having fun. We’re doing it for the right reasons, and we look forward to breaking out all the stuff that we’re going to do here. It’s going to be informational, it’s going to be educational. We’re going to launch new products from here, to introduce to the general public and our customer base regionally and across the United States. We’re going to invite some friends in and have conversation with friends, contractors, vendors. We want to produce a lot of good information – usable information – that our viewers will be able to take something away from. With the help of iSynergy, we’ve got some great releases coming up. We’ve captured a gazillion photos and videos through the process and we’ve already hosted a couple people, we’ll be sharing them soon. We did our great little potting bench project back here already, and that was fun. We’ve got some really cool stuff coming up.
McKenzie Cross:
And this is this second podcast episode, so our first one was with Hatch.
Steve Stack:
Yes, I had a great conversation with Paul, Paul Baird, one of the original founders. He was enlightening. It’s good to hear Paul share the stories from 61 plus years of a family business at the same location. Paul and his two brothers, of course, founded the company, and here we are. We went through the second generation, them onboarding, and now we’re onboarding the third generation. And you could see the pride in Paul.
McKenzie Cross:
Oh, definitely. It was oozing out of him. It was awesome to watch.
Steve Stack:
He, his brothers, their mentality, and their work ethic is why they’re 61 plus years strong. So, our little venture here, and not to minimize it, I think it’s a big deal, you think it’s a big deal, but it’s another one of those ventures that, “Okay, let’s jump into this realm.” The third generation is strongly behind this because they know the importance of communicating, socialization, the Instagram, the Twitter and the Facebook.
Engineering Custom Wood for Your Home Improvements
McKenzie Cross:
That’s part of what Hatch touched on, is just the evolution of the business and how you have to be willing to change with the landscape of the environment today, what you’re dealing with. It’s a different beast than it was just 20 years ago.
Steve Stack:
Very, very much so. Having witnessed it personally over the last how many years, the consumer, end user homeowner consumer, or the contractor, they use all the tools. They use all the tools to research, to compare product to product, to see what’s available. We want to be right up front there. We want to tout our products, expose everyone to our product lines, availability, so forth. Keeping in mind the quality that, from day one, is still a priority 61 years later. Regionally, our service aspect, with delivery vehicles, with professional sales guys that can come out and guide you through your new home project, from the selection process, to our great engineering department. You have an idea, you have a particular molding that you want to sketch on a piece of paper or a napkin, give it to the sales guy, scan it, send it into info@bairdbrothers.com and our engineering will bring it to life, bring it to scale, and we’ll make it for you.
McKenzie Cross:
Well, see, I think that’s one of the interesting things is that, if you just stumble across Baird Brothers, you see all these fine hardwood products, but you don’t realize that there are people behind the scenes that can really help you make sure that the project is going to be what you envisioned it to be.
Steve Stack:
Well, that’s the beauty of the depth of the company. We were lumber people before we were molding people, and we made that transition. Then we went from mouldings and we started manufacturing beautiful, architectural grade, hardwood style and rail doors, and stair components from wood balusters, and newel posts, and handrails. Now, today, we have a couple great sources for the iron baluster products. The ability to have somebody come in and say, “Man, I really like this for an interior door, but what can we do to put a couple more lines on it?” We kick it around the office, we go to engineering and, bam.
Company with Youngstown Roots on a National Stage
Steve Stack:
We’ve had the fortune of producing a couple hybrid-style doors for our friend that we’ve met through This Old House, Jeff Sweenor (Sweenor Builders) up in New England. We’ll talk about it and we’ll say, “Okay,” Jeff will tell myself or tell one of our point sales guys on the project, “I really like this, but I need it to be just a little bit different to fit this house.” We just finished the Seaside Victorian over in Narragansett. They worked on a mid-1800’s home. They added onto it and they completely mimicked the original architectural detail on the exterior of the home, the fret work, the applied moldings, the sunburst in the shingles.
Then, they took that same level of craftsmanship and went to the inside of the house. That’s when they came to us and said, “Okay, we need this, this and this.” It was no big deal, we could do it. We have that capability. Those projects are fun, because it’s not the every day (and I say “everyday”) product that we produce. Every day, we produce a high-end quality hardwood product, whether it be a two and a quarter casing or a three and a half inch door and window casing, the same attention goes into each piece. But, it’s fun to have the staff and the resources behind you to be able to do that.
McKenzie Cross:
Well, I think it’s fun on multiple levels though, too. Because, not only is it fun to create those unique things for these projects, you also see these projects come to life on a national stage. It’s a national TV release, it’s in a magazine, it’s online, it’s everywhere. It’s pretty incredible.
Steve Stack:
It is. It’s been fun. We’re three and a half years into a relationship that we never would have dreamt that we’d be experiencing. Three and a half years, I think nine projects into it, anywhere from the Midwest to the Atlantic coast, up and down the Atlantic coast, and it’s been fun. Everybody that we have been introduced to that is affiliated with This Old House or their contractors, architects, interior designers, they all have the same goal in mind. And it’s easy to fall in rank with them because everybody’s working towards the same goal.
McKenzie Cross:
Yeah.
Steve Stack:
So, that’s been very interesting. And yes, that took us to a national stage, but the roots of the business, and the philosophy of having custom moldings, custom flooring available, that still comes from the roots of the Mahoning Valley. We’re right here in Canfield, Ohio, and the people of the Valley have helped develop this company into what it is.
Whether it’s a This Old House project or Idea House, Narragansett, Rhode Island; New Canaan, Connecticut; Afton, Minnesota; out on Jamestown, Rhode Island, and up on the Cape on Cape Horn, overlooking the Long Island Sound. I mean, those are all neat projects, but you know what? There’s a guy over in Iowa that needs 200 feet of a three and a half inch casing in quarter sawn white oak, or in poplar, that the house was from the early 1900s, and he’s remodeling, putting a room addition on. We can still cater to that individual, whether he be in Iowa, whether he be over in Poland, Ohio, or whether they be up in New England. It’s the same philosophy and the same ability of fulfillment that we can accomplish here.
McKenzie Cross:
Yeah. I think that partnership opportunity that Baird Brothers has had with This Old House is kind of what led us into the building that we’re in today, right?
Steve Stack:
It was a huge influence. It’s been about two years, we had a project in Manchester by the Sea. We had the opportunity to meet one morning with some of the people from This Old House and they said, “Hey, while you guys are up here, let’s take a ride around the corner, and take a look at our offices.” We had been to their corporate offices in Stanford, Connecticut, but we had never been out to Concord, Massachusetts.
So, a couple of their people said, “Follow us,” and we went for a little ride, and what a great surprise. We had a nice brief meeting and they said, “Come on, we have something else to show you.” They took us upstairs and the same studio that a lot of the folks out there might see on TV, where they do some of their explanations of product introduction, or how to put new washers on a spigot, or whatever the case may be. All of a sudden we walked into this studio, and it was like, bam, a light went off and said, “We need one of these.”
McKenzie Cross:
It’s like a kid in the candy shop, huh?
Steve Stack:
Yeah. We had a conversation on the flight home, a coworker of mine and myself. We brought it back to the family and we introduced it to the family. In all honesty, with the help of the second generation, and with the third generation especially with their younger, more technical ideas and forward thinking, and you folks over at iSynergy, we got the green light on it. Thanks to the team over at iSynergy, you’ve been beside us. You’ve given us guidance, anything from our little studio corner size, to what should be in it, and the lighting, and the audio, and just conversation that has brought us to this point. Now, we’re able to take advantage, capitalize on it, and I think it’s going to live a long life as an asset to our customer base. Whether they be homeowner, contractor, maker, woodworker, all of our avenues of consumers are going to benefit from this.
How Baird Brothers Sawmill Led to Studio 3B
McKenzie Cross:
Yeah. Now, getting back to the reason why Paul was the first interview, the name of this studio, Studio 3B, back here, has meaning behind it. Let’s talk about that.
Steve Stack:
Yeah, we can put a couple different spins on it and it all comes back to the same nucleus. 3B – three Bairds or three brothers. In our segment with Paul, those brothers went through a lot. I think this is a big deal, this Studio 3B, I really do. It’s going to be very valuable. But in doing it, we had to keep it rooted to the company.
McKenzie Cross:
And on what’s built the business, yeah.
Steve Stack:
And the business. And the three brothers were, and still live today, in this business. So, it’s almost like a tribute to those guys saying, “Here you go, fellas. We’re going to talk about your product even today and beyond.” So, that’s cool. Having Paul tell some of his stories in his own words. I had heard some of them a couple times, and I heard a couple in that segment that I hadn’t heard before.
McKenzie Cross:
Some newbies, huh?
Steve Stack:
Yeah. I say it’s fun, but just like that segment, and other segments that we’re producing, we’re going to keep them fun and a little bit lighthearted, but we’re not turning our heads to the actual subject matter or the seriousness of our products, the quality of our products. How we appreciate the customers, whether it be any of those customer groups that I mentioned earlier, contractor base, homeowner base, they all play a very important role in Baird Brothers’s past and in our future.
McKenzie Cross:
Yeah. Because, I mean, we’re talking 61 years of history behind the company. This started off with no buildings, right? Maybe one.
Steve Stack:
When the boys moved up from the farm, just down the road at the adjacent property, there were two buildings on the property.
McKenzie Cross:
But not for manufacturing.
Steve Stack:
No, no. One was being used by one of the other Baird brothers, and his shop, weld shop. Then the boys, the three brothers, Richard, Howard and Hatch, rather than move the old sawmill, they put a new enterprise sawmill in that one existing building. Then it was, we always say, “If we’re making sawdust, we’re having a good day.” And they didn’t miss a day of making sawdust.
McKenzie Cross:
Yeah. They started young too, it was…
Steve Stack:
They were out of high school, into the service, out of the service. As Paul mentions, one would go away to the service, he’d come home, the other went to the service. So, they worked with the two brothers, and then sis’ chipped in a little bit. Before they knew it, their business was starting to evolve, just from cutting blocking material for the steel mills and for the pallet industry, and etcetera and so forth. Now, okay, well let’s look at drying some lumber, some grade lumber, and this and that. Then, we’re making moldings, and then we’re making interior doors. It’s been every year, growing the business, the product line. And here we are 61 years later and we’re still doing things that 40, 45 years ago, was really the big growth of the company, as far as hardwood interior products. That is still the core, the heartbeat of this business. We just tweak it a little bit, add new products, but the quality has to stay there.
McKenzie Cross:
Yeah. How many buildings are on the campus now?
Steve Stack:
That’s not a fair question. I think they add one every year, year and a half, two years.
McKenzie Cross:
For something to do, we’re going to add a building.
Steve Stack:
It’s quite the complex. And you’ve had the opportunity to walk around it.
McKenzie Cross:
Oh, yeah.
Steve Stack:
There’s a lot of buildings, there’s a lot of buildings. There’s a lot of great employees here.
McKenzie Cross:
A lot of equipment, a lot of stacked product everywhere.
Steve Stack:
Yes. We have equipment in the mill shop that I don’t even want to misspeak and say how far it dates back.
McKenzie Cross:
It’s not new, is what you’re saying.
Steve Stack:
It’s not new. And it’s been here a long, long time. It still does the job, the operation it was designed to do 50 years ago, 60 years ago. But, we also have some of the most cutting edge, technologically advanced equipment on this property, that allows us to be more efficient, to increase production. That said, all of them, the old equipment, the new equipment, still is overseen by the same thing: human eyes and human hands. So, it’s interesting. I’ve witnessed a lot. We have equipment that I don’t pretend to understand. I don’t need to. I see the board go in, I see the board come out. What that machine does in between both ends of the boards, is amazing, it’s amazing. There’s things taken from the steel industry equipment, there’s things taken from the medical industry.
McKenzie Cross:
I think that’s the coolest thing. One of the show stoppers for me, among many of the things that you have here on site, is the wood MRI machine. It’s unbelievable to me that that technology exists.
Steve Stack:
Yeah, the big blue donut. It’s part of our rough rip optimizing line. It measures in a couple different ways, but the long and short of it, it’s an MRI for wood. It measures density, voids, things along that, it identifies it, it communicates to a saw down the line. When that board gets down there, it’s been identified, it’s been indexed, located, and that saw down the line will cut the defect out and continue on through the “optimizing” process.
McKenzie Cross:
Yeah, incredible.
Steve Stack:
It really is. Then, our CNC router capabilities, that’s opened up a whole different approach to manufacturing some of our door components. Whether it be the style and rail assemblies, or whether it be some of the more cathedral top or French provincial top panels and so forth. Years ago, that was all done on an open head shaper, and now it’s done on this CNC router. Production goes up, safety goes up, it’s a win-win.
McKenzie Cross:
Yeah. Just evolves, everything evolves. Sort of like this building has evolved, what was this building before it was a studio?
Steve Stack:
This was… it was a storage shed.
McKenzie Cross:
It was a storage shed.
Steve Stack:
For a lot of years it was used by Richard Baird, “Dick.” Richard was an entrepreneur first and foremost, but his hobbies included gardening, growing the giant pumpkins and squash, and a beekeeper.
McKenzie Cross:
A beekeeper? What?
Steve Stack:
A beekeeper, yeah. He went the whole way, from utilizing the bees for their purpose with his gardens, but then producing honey. So then, some of that stuff was stored, and then when that kind of subsided, it was overrun by raccoons and it quickly became known as the “coon shed”. It was just a catch-all building. When we started this and went to the family and said, “Well, yeah, if I’m going to concrete it,I’ll concrete it all” — it had a slide floor in it. So, we concreted it all and said, “Well, how much are we getting?” And, “Well, you can have half of it.” So here we are, in our corner of half of the building. And it’s starting to come together.
McKenzie Cross:
It’s starting to come together? I would say it’s a big transformation! I think when this is revealed, it hasn’t officially been revealed yet, but it’s pretty incredible back here.
Steve Stack:
I hope people like it, in the sense of it’s a very comfortable little studio, set kind of thing. But more importantly, I hope they like it because of the content that we’re going to present to them. It gives us a nice environment to present product, ideas, and information. We’re going to introduce you to a lot of people and have some great conversations.
McKenzie Cross:
Yeah. Not mentioning age or anything, but you’ve been here a while, so you remember the coon shed, and probably some different buildings on the property getting built. How long have you been here, now?
Steve Stack:
I like how you phrased it, a while.
McKenzie Cross:
A while, you’ve been here a while. A few decades, maybe.
Steve Stack:
Okay. Now you’re starting to hone in a little too close.
McKenzie Cross:
Now, your dad worked here too though, right?
Steve Stack:
Dad worked here, I had uncles that worked here, and our family wasn’t exclusive to that. We have, oh, I’m thinking about the Cronins, they had multi-family members here. The Lantermans had multi-family members here, and there’s more, and I’m overlooking them. But no, it was… How do I want to say it? It’s easy to come to work when you don’t mind your work.
McKenzie Cross:
Yeah.
Steve Stack:
I’ve had the opportunity to be outside, I’ve worked the sales counter, I’ve worked outside sales for almost 25 years in northeast Ohio. Now, I spend a lot of time with our This Old House relationship, and some woodworking, travel shows. And now, through the course of the pandemic, and that’s what you got to love about this company, nobody laid down, nobody quit working.
When we introduced the studio idea, it got pushed to the back burner the first time. Then, when all the craziness started, Paul said, “Hey Hood, go ahead and get that project started back there.” They don’t sit still. When I said earlier, and I’m not joking, every couple years there’s a new building going up. Every year there is capital investment back into the company, in the form of equipment, technology, everything, across the board. That is why they’ve survived 61 plus years.
So that makes it interesting, but this little studio workshop project, we said going in, you and I had a conversation, “it’s going to be fun. We are going to present it to our guests, to our projects and those people, we’re going to keep it real, we’re going to keep it fun.” And we like to think we’re doing it for the right reason.
McKenzie Cross:
Yeah, definitely.
Trusted Building Material Retailer from Experienced Contractor to New DIY-er
Steve Stack:
We’ve already completed and released our little potting bench build, that was fun. It wasn’t made for television, it was myself and our friend Christy from Oak Hill Millworks, showing folks, “Hey, this is a nice weekend project. And the beauty of it, you use it.” We’ve got some other projects coming up, you and I have discussed upcoming projects, like lockers for inside your hallway entrance to your home, from the garage to the house, or a side entryway.
McKenzie Cross:
Tutorials of how to install some of the product.
Steve Stack:
Yes, and we’ve captured and documented. And a lot of it isn’t just to the homeowner DIY, we’re going to throw some hints and clues out that maybe some of the builders don’t use. We’re going to do a piece on our hardwood flooring, and we have photography to support it. But we’re going to do stuff where, checking it with a moisture meter, and making sure the conditions are right, and the underlayment paper that was used, and the installation technique, and the nailing pattern and things like that. Or something as simple as, we use a lot of Franklin adhesive products, and more recognizable to the consumer, Titebond Glue. They have a whole family of adhesives, and like our potting bench project, we used a Franklin exterior waterproof glue product.
Steve Stack:
And so, we’re going to be giving folks that information, and we’re going to include some of the products that we use in our shop and that we sell in our retail store like the Craig family of woodworking tools, from their joinery products to their workbench stands, and everything and anything that Craig offers. So, it’s going to be informational, it’s going to be educational. There’s going to be folks saying, “Oh, I didn’t know they made that kind of stuff for that purpose.” So like I say, we’re going to have fun.
McKenzie Cross:
Did you ever think that you would see this happen here? When you started out and 10 years in, you saw how the company was evolving, did you ever think that you’d be sitting in a studio?
Steve Stack:
Let me do the math. 10 years in, I would have been… Okay. No, the only thing I thought about 10 years in was ski trips and what I was doing the next night.
McKenzie Cross:
True, very true.
Steve Stack:
But in all seriousness, I’ve witnessed that growth and reinvestment my entire time here. To answer your question, up until two and a half years ago, no. No. It was a trip to Concord, Massachusetts and being able to come back and have a conversation to open ears and with the help of the third generation saying, “This might not be a bad idea.” And then we start talking to you folks over at iSynergy, and you say, “Oh, Stack, we got to do that,” and here we are.
McKenzie Cross:
Yeah. I mean, it’s incredible to see, it really is, the transformation itself. And it happened quickly too, it’s not like this has been in the works for the last three years, this is something that’s really transpired over the past, maybe eight months?
Steve Stack:
Yeah, actually-
McKenzie Cross:
From the time you took out the gravel flooring and added concrete?
Steve Stack:
I was looking back earlier today, as we we’re sharing photos back and forth, and I went all the way back to some of the first photos I had taken. It was mid-November when we got the green light and started putting this together and bouncing ideas off of each other and the electrical stages, and then, “Oh, hey, while you guys are doing wiring, you might want to think about this. If you want to put some lighting over in this corner, and have it independent from the regular daylight lighting. And oh, then let’s talk about HVAC, and let’s talk about dehumidification.”
McKenzie Cross:
Otherwise we’d be sweating profusely back here in the 90 degree temps.
Steve Stack:
Yeah. That and the sound, the extra steps we went through for insulation. And after all, we’re in a tin pole barn that’s 150 years old – just kidding. But it took everybody’s input. I had conversations with Paul, “Do we want to do this? Don’t we want to do this?” And he gave his input, and then we talked to our general, our contractor on it, Jonny Ulicney, Ulicney Builders. And Jon brought his ideas to us, and then you guys and the team up in Canfield, iSynergy there. “Hey, it would be cool if we could do this,” and through the design stage, and bouncing ideas off everybody, and building mockups, and holding them up on the ceiling or on the wall, and-
McKenzie Cross:
Literally drawing ceiling treatments on them.
Steve Stack:
Yeah. I mean, that’s-
McKenzie Cross:
You and your sketches.
Stair Parts and Mantels and Railings, Oh My!
Steve Stack:
That’s, myself included, and homeowners over the years, we’ve been able to do that. It’s three stages. It’s a verbal explanation, it is not even a line drawing, a primitive sketch drawing, and that helps bring it to life, and then if you can show a physical mockup of the actual moldings, now it’s real. Now it has depth, size perspective, and so, this little room that we’ve created, it’s going to be a great sales tool for our onsite sales people. Also, through videos, some we’ve captured, some we’re going to make, a coffered beam ceiling. They can be very complex, or they can be somewhat simplistic and still carry a lot of bang. And so, this area is going to allow us to share that information..
McKenzie Cross:
And you guys have a lot of stuff in your showroom for people to walk in and see, but this is kind of next level. This is putting it into a space that could resemble your family room, right here in the corner. It’s comfortable, it’s-
Steve Stack:
Okay, I was going to use another word besides comfortable, but it’s got that “at home, cozy” feel to it.
McKenzie Cross:
Yes. Yes, definitely.
Steve Stack:
You can walk in and, what do we have? Six different ceiling, five or six different ceiling, I don’t even remember, but ceiling treatments. You can walk in and you can envision that in your den, your study, your library, your dining room, formal dining room. We featured some shiplap ceilings, and so we’ve mixed paint, we’ve mixed natural stain. We have red oak, we have cherry, we have maple. Our wall covering live sawn white oak, nickel gap siding. We went with an antique style floor, showing the saw curves and the natural colorations of the floor. And we went to the old standby, the red oak cabinetry. We did introduce a killer character grade hickory top there.
McKenzie Cross:
Mm-hmm, the walnut top.
Steve Stack:
Oh yeah, and our little side buffet, flanker cabinet unit, that beautiful black walnut top. And so, there’s a lot of information here.
McKenzie Cross:
Yeah. Intentional information too, I think that’s-
Steve Stack:
Very much so, very much so. We’re going to show you some old school ideas, how to install a countertop. We’re going to show you, bring in your measurements of your kitchen cupboards. We’ll make you new doors. You may have to refinish the faces, or they might be in good shape and you just want to update doors. We’ll show you, we’ll walk you through that process. And then we’ll show you how with the new European style hinge, the doors come prepped, and put them right on your openings. Right down to some little trade secret tips. How to make a little jig fixture, to locate your door hardware so they’re consistent and uniform throughout your kitchen. Just little stuff like that, that we’re going to share.
McKenzie Cross:
Yeah. Because it doesn’t have to be scary. You don’t have to be a contractor with 40 years of experience to use the products. That’s one of the great things, you guys have such a big audience. It’s homeowners, it’s young kids getting into the business, it’s someone that wants to update an area of their home and cover up a painted wall with some shiplap.
Steve Stack:
And it’s important to note that through new construction throughout the decades, it’s a roller coaster. It’s ups and downs, it’s ups and downs. We love our contractor base, we also love our homeowner base. Because when new construction’s down, remodeling picks up. And a lot of those remodelers are DIYers, Joe and Sally Smith, homeowners, “We’re going to put hardwood flooring in our dining room. We’re going to do chair rail and wainscotting in our dining room. We’re going to finish the basement.”
High-Quality Information for High-Quality Projects
Steve Stack:
So, to your statement, we have a mix, we have a fantastic blend of customer base. And it takes all of them, it takes all of them to allow us to do what we do. And so, every segment of our consumer population is very, very important. And so, there’s going to be a lot of information coming out of here that everybody’s going to find valuable. And we’ve got some really interesting stuff coming up, just like our desk. There’s a cool story behind it, it is a late 1800s woodworker’s workbench. Comes out of Grand Rapids, Michigan, a company up in Grand Rapids that manufactured them back in the day. And that has introduced us to a lot of really interesting people.
McKenzie Cross:
Hopefully that we’ll have on here, right?
Steve Stack:
I’m hoping, we have a new friend from the Kent, Ohio area that we’ve had conversations with. We’re going to keep some of this stuff in the bag. You’re going to have to stay tuned, and follow us, and pay attention to our podcasts and our social releases. We’re going to introduce equipment that the last few generations know nothing about, and there are still woodworkers that use them every day. And that, I look forward to that. You’ve had the privilege of meeting this gentleman, and he kept us in awe for over two and a half hours. And he’s going to take us on a real neat journey.
McKenzie Cross:
Yeah, he’s like a walking history book. It’s incredible, he’s incredible.
Steve Stack:
So, like I say, there’s going to be a lot of good, fun stuff coming out of this little building.
McKenzie Cross:
So, you’ve had a lot of great experiences in your tenure here at Baird Brothers. Do you consider this studio to be one of your biggest accomplishments with the company? Or, what do you see as your biggest accomplishment, I guess is a better question?
Steve Stack:
That’s a tough question, because I’ve had a lot of great experiences. I would have to say, and I don’t know if you view it as an accomplishment, but I have met hundreds to thousands of people. How do I say, how do you replace that? But as far as saying, “okay, we’ve developed regional sales areas, we’ve had sales growth.” But, three years ago when we had the production crew and Kevin O’Connor from This Old House out here, I would have never dreamt…
McKenzie Cross:
Yeah, that was a great day.
Steve Stack:
That was fun, and it continues to be fun. But this little gem tucked away back here in the corner of the property, seeing the opportunity. And I don’t want to say it in a selfish way, seeing the opportunity for Baird Brothers Fine Hardwoods and the second and third generation, but seeing the opportunity that we have to show usable, good information to our customers, whenever you can serve your customer better and front load educate, that’s a plus. That’s getting a relationship off to the best foot you possibly can. That’s what this little room is going to allow us to do, and so this is going to be both regional and national, This Old House, regional somewhat, national more so, they’re probably right here. And I don’t know if there’s anything that could tip the scale one way or the other. They’ve both been a fantastic experience. I don’t look at it as an accomplishment, because it’s been enjoyable.
McKenzie Cross:
It is an accomplishment, though. It’s a pretty cool thing for a fine hardwood manufacturer to have a content studio on site.
Steve Stack:
Well, and that’s what I’m finding out. In talking to people and they’re saying, “You’re doing what? Nobody does that in the lumber business… No.” Well, we are. But I’d like to think it’s done with purpose.
McKenzie Cross:
It is, yes.
Steve Stack:
We set out on this, thanks to your team, McKenz’, up the hill in Canfield there. I think we have a great opportunity to serve our viewers, our customers, in a very positive way.
McKenzie Cross:
Yeah. I think one of my favorite things about you is that you’re always looking toward the future and trying to plan what’s around the corner. I think maybe that’s a good part of the multi-generational business of Baird, and you’ve touched on it a little bit – how the second generation kind of pushed the envelope with the first generation. Now you have the third generation coming on, and they’re the ones that really have the handle on the digital side of things and how the landscape changes. How do you see the new generations pushing the business forward, without losing focus on what built it?
Steve Stack:
Exactly. I was going to say that, prior to seeing them, how they’re going to take it. I’m witnessing it now. I’m pretty much witnessing my second change of the guard. And in this third generation, I see work ethic in them. I see great ideas in them, but they are so far more technologically advanced. Being able to use our computers in the middle of redesigning a website, and an e-commerce side, that’s probably going to be their strong suit. But with the IT background in a company our size, we have rough lumber, we have what we call our rip barn, our optimizing line, we have production in our mill shop, we have production in our door shop. They have the capabilities to network all those together.
So, it improves communication. When we improve communication, we improve customer service, and we can set honest target dates. We can fulfill manufacturing in those target dates, so they’re real dates. You know, the old adage around here, “Well, yeah, we’ll have it in about two weeks.” Customers demand tighter answers, and I see them pulling those reins in, and tying sales to manufacturing, and the lines of communication and reporting. If I can go up to my desk and I can pull up an order number, and it’ll tell me exactly where in the shop it’s at, and the pieces for the doors are here, and the lumber’s ripped and waiting to go on this molder, and et cetera, et cetera, and tie pre-finishing into it. It’s going to be added value for our customer.
McKenzie Cross:
Yeah, definitely. Well, I think that kind of wraps us up here. I appreciate you allowing me to turn the table on you and interview you for a second here, because you’re going to be the voice that everybody’s going to get used to, in most cases I think, on this podcast.
Steve Stack:
This was relaxing, I like this side of the mic.
McKenzie Cross:
Oh, do you? Well, don’t get used to it, but I appreciate it. Studio 3B’s awesome, I think it’s going to deliver some really great content. I think people are going to be pleasantly surprised with what they see come out of here, not just product.
Steve Stack:
I hope so, I hope so. We have a pretty good template to work towards, and our friends over at TOH, they’ve set the bar. We’re still the small little lumber yard in Canfield, Ohio, but we’ve got big aspirations. Thank you for being here today.
McKenzie Cross:
All right, thank you. I’ll talk to you later.
Steve Stack:
All right, take care.
McKenzie Cross:
Yep.
Steve Stack:
For all you folks listening, thanks for talking shop with Baird Brothers Fine Hardwoods. If you enjoyed this episode and want to stay up-to-date with our American Hardwood Advisor series, give us a like and subscribe. For more tips, projects and inspiration, check us out on Facebook, Instagram or at https://www.bairdbrothers.com. Until next time!
