Boyd Hill Keeps Hammering Away

His construction materials company is losing money, but he won't give up without a hard fight.

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Along a well-worn path between the warehouses, the sales counter, and his office, Boyd Hill has lost large chunks of his business.

He stands in the stockyard blinking in the bright Idaho sunshine and pointing into the cool, cavernous silence of four aging warehouses. Huge, yardwide, redwood rafters are tucked up tight against the ceilings in yawning undernourishment. Two men are prowling between dwindling mounds of construction supplies. "There used to be nine men working in there," Hill says. He goes inside the main office building and pauses at the sales counter. The room is empty. Two carpenters pull up in a light-green pickup. They've been here before, but it's been a while. Times are tough, and they need only six pieces of sheetrock. The room is empty again. "There used to be two men behind this counter, morning to night," Hill says, "and it was all they could do to keep up with the business."

His own office is paneled in dark wood, but it's small and practical, an executive-style cubbyhole halfway between the sales counter and the back storeroom. The top of his desk is covered with letters, trade magazines, and catalogs, but a space has been carefully cleared around the telephone. A long list of names lies by the phone. "I used to come in here and think about expanding," Hill says. He grabs the long list and glares at it. "Now I spend my time asking these people for the money they owe me."

A lot of things used to be different for Boyd Hill -- and not long ago. But now a man who once thought only about winning success has to think about fighting failure. And it's a battle, he finds, fought with a double-edged sword, where the cure is easily as painful as the cause.

Only three years ago, Hill's company, the Western Wholesale and Supply Corp of Boise, Idaho, sold $2.5 million worth of sheetrock, nails, roofing shingles, and other supplies to the Idaho building and construction trade and turned a respectable net profit of $142,000. Then interest rates across the country started to climb, and they climbed some more. Hill's customers were dropping like flies. His own business stalled, then sputtered, then nosed over into a steep decline. When his fiscal year ended April 30, Hill's sales were $2.1 million, with a net loss charged directly to retained earnings of roughly $40,000.

"My company is disappearing right before my eyes," he says. "At my current rate of sales, I can't even afford to replace what I sell. I guess that makes me an interesting businessman. I mean, i'm actually liquidating myself out of business and paying for the privilege with retained earnings."

He's still got a smile as wide as the Boise Valley, a handshake that could crack stone, and the appearance of solid self-assurance. But at times his bluff, big-hearted optimism dissolves into a silent, thoughtful stare that says he's been sorely tried watching his company waste away.

Only a year and a half ago, the company boasted a robust staff of 22 employees. But as business worsened, the ranks were thinned through attrition and layoffs, first to 11 and finally to 8. Even those 8 -- including Hill -- had to take a cut in pay. Only a year and a half ago, Hill had two $80,000 tractor-trailers each hauling freight between Boise and Los Angeles six times a month. Now one is parked permanently in his stockyard and the other makes the run once a week. A delivery van shared a similar fate, as did another flatbed truck. Hill's got the flatbed parked in a field behind his house. He uses it occasionally to haul hay to the seven cows and calves he's taken to raising so he doesn't have to spend money on meat.

Hill tries to console himself by remembering that the largest part of his predicament was caused by factors far beyond his control, such as the rocket rise of the prime lending rate. But it doesn't help much when he recalls that his company was sapped of its strength right in the prime of its life. "After 10 years in business," he says, "just when I thought I could relax, I'm back out on the road, back to 14-hour days. The only real difference between now and when I started is that I'm older."

In 1971, Hill was hired by the founders of Western Wholesale to manage the business. Hill had spent six years as a salesman for the now defunct Fibreboard Corp., a West Coast manufacturer of building supplies. He had a reputation for hard work and effective salesmanship, and he obviously knew the technical side of the business.

But Hill knew much more than what product was used where. He knew the one thing that would enable Western Wholesale to compete with larger suppliers, and that was the importance of service. Service, personalized and fast, soon launched the company on a steep curve of rapid growth. "Contractors can get all the technical information they need from a Boise Cascade," Hill says, "but they can't get the immediate personal attention I have to offer. Whenever there was a problem on the job, I'd go right out and settle it on the site. Other than that, I simply worked my tail off and brought in the business."

In 1971, gross sales were $530,000. Four years later, they had passed $1 million and net profits after tax had grown nearly six times. Hill was ecstatic. Then the owners told him that they intended to start paying themselves some decent dividends. Hill was glum. "Oh, I really couldn't blame them," Hill says. "They wanted a return on their money. But I knew the company had built up a good list of customers and a good reputation. I knew it was ready to take off, and I just couldn't stand the idea of taking money out of a business at a time like that."

In a fit of pique, Hill told the owners that they'd have to get a new manager. As an afterthought, he added almost jokingly that they could also let him buy the company for $190,000. He knew the idea was preposterous because that was only the company's net book value. But to his amazement, they agreed to sell. "To this day I don't know what got into them," Hill says. "It's one of the greatest examples I know of the tail wagging the dog." Hill got a Small Business Administration loan from the Bank of Idaho for $175,000, took out $25,000 for working capital, and gave the owners $150,000 in cash plus a personal note for $40,000 at 10 1/4% interest payable in full in 1983.

Once he was sole owner of the business, Hill worked even harder. Where it had taken him the past four years to double sales, Hill nearly tripled them in the next three. When fiscal 1978 closed, Hill had good reason to feel proud. "There I was sitting with the best year in the company's history," he says," "and thinking about breaking through $3 million in the next year. Little did I know." Little, indeed. Hill had seen the boom -- the bust was on its way.

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