much of this fighting, and that’s how a lot of business owners on both sides of the border see it, will just end up hurting people’s bottom line everywhere anyway you look at it. In our case the majority of our builds happen in Canada but all of our products are coming from the U.S.” “We started to develop relationships with a lot of the other manufacturers – and eventually started distributing their product in our stores.” Keeping his finger on the pulse of the manufacturing side of the industry isn’t merely a nostalgic exercise for Jeff – it’s good business sense. He explained how every year sees its different trends in the worlds of manufactured stone and natural stone – and brick and acrylic stucco, too. “No one knows what’s coming next better than the people whose name is on the product. Being able to let customers who want the latest and most modern products know what’s available, exactly, is key. Darker stone is one of those trends that is masterfully reinvented year after year: like when you get into the rundles and the dark grays and blacks. (It’s defi- nitely more popular in Canada than it is anywhere else.) We also have, from one of our distributers, Creative Minds, a product called ‘slip modular’ and that is a beautiful, mod- ern-looking product, too.”
we carry.” He continued. “We supply what you want and we work with your budget. We’ve found a nice balance and we’re going to leave it that way. Working with these big guys made a lot more sense. It diversified and expanded what we can offer to our distributors: we have a much wider variety of not only stone profiles and colours, but also price points.” The transition wasn’t – and still isn’t – without its moments of doubt and angst, Jeff confessed. Stepping away from production and to supply meant that the Kodiak Mountain Stone manufacturing facility in Utah was no longer needed. “That was a big deal before it had a happy ending,” he recalled. “To tell 20 guys, ‘Hey, we’re shutting down the factory and that we’re not going to be producing anymore,’ would have been heart-wrenching. As it happened one of the other manufacturers that we buy a lot of our product from – along with another business relationship in a differ- ent industry – offered to hire-on our people. So it worked out that when we told them we are shutting down we were also able to tell them whoever wants a job, here are two companies you can work for – and they’re both great com- panies. Another manufacturer that we have a good business relationship with bought a lot of the equipment from our plant when we shut down so a lot of that operation was rein- vested back into the industry, which was great. We’re really connected to this industry in a lot of ways.” But that’s not the end of cross-border stressors for Jeff and Kodiak Mountain Stone. The shadow of uncertainty that surrounds the marathon NAFTA renegotiations has Jeff thinking like many business owners across North America: “It does make me a little nervous, where it could go. Too
“The ledgestone products from Harristone have been big sellers, too,” Jeff continued. “The people at Harristone are
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SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE • OCTOBER 2018
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