Lenny knew exactly where his profits were—in the dumpster!

Lenny was a stickler for punctuality. In fact, he was a stickler for everything. That’s one of the reasons we considered Lenny’s Custom Homes one of our best customers… He was a bit on the eccentric side, but boy was he predictable.

 In contrast to some regions, many builders in the Northeast came up through the ranks as carpenters. Conventional wisdom was that those so-called “blue-collar” builders were facing stiff competition from sophisticated, efficiency-minded, high-volume national builders.

I never doubted that sort of competition was coming. However, I was less sure about the efficiency angle. Guys like Lenny may not have known which end of a spreadsheet was up, but they had their own ways of measuring and minimizing waste.

Not long ago, Bob, one of our outside salespeople, and I drove out to a meeting with Lenny at one of his subdivisions. We stepped into the trailer at 8 a.m. sharp—rule #1 with Lenny was that you never showed up late—we were told he was out on the jobsite somewhere and hadn’t returned yet. We went searching for him.

Lenny’s truck was in front of a house under construction, and it was the only vehicle there. The framers were done and gone, and so were the roofers. The siding crew hadn’t arrived yet. We walked all around and through the house but couldn’t find Lenny anywhere.

Although I am not normally a worrier, it was completely out of character for him to miss an appointment, and I began to wonder if something had happened to Lenny. I was in one of the back bedrooms when I thought I heard Bob say, “Holy crap this is horrible!”

“What’s that?” I had asked.

“What’s what?” Bob replied. “I didn’t say anything.”

Then I heard a voice again. I looked out the back window but only saw a 30-yard dumpster. A few seconds later, I saw a 2×6 fly out of the dumpster and land on the ground.

As Bob and I hurried out the back door, two more pieces of lumber came flying out, followed by a sizeable piece of plywood. We climbed up to the rim of the dumpster and looked in—sure enough, there was Lenny rummaging through the trash.

I was shocked, as Lenny was one of the largest builders in our area. So, I was perplexed as to what he was doing in the dumpster, instead of one of his workers.

“Lenny, are you okay?” I asked.

 “Yes, of course I’m okay,” yelled Lenny. “I’m looking for money.”

I didn’t know how he could have lost his wallet in an 8-foot-high dumpster, but I knew what to do about it … I told Bob to get in there and help him find it. Bob looked at me like I had two heads, but he then started to climb in.

“No, no,” said Lenny, “I’m pulling out lumber and plywood that should never have been thrown away in the first place.”

Bob and I (yes, even me) climbed in to help. As we worked, Lenny grumbled about subs who didn’t bother to get the best yield from the material they used. “Waste is money,” he said. “If it were their money, you can bet they’d think twice about it.”

For the next half hour or so, we discussed inventory management methods, from handling to training to ensuring accountability. Lenny might not have had an MBA, but he had plenty of good ideas.

The best idea of all was when he suggested moving the meeting out of the dumpster so we could get a cup of coffee.

(Author’s note: This is the same customer I wrote about in “All the World’s a Stage—Lumber Cooperator July/Aug 2023)

Mike McDole has 40+ years of actual LBM experience, including being SVP of a large regional pro-dealer, and is the principal of Firing Line LBM Advisors. He’s also partners with Greg Brooks of the Executive Council on Construction Supply and his LMS. Mike can be reached at 774.372.1367 or Mike@FiringLineLBM.com.