Employees backbone of Truss success
Tri-County Truss projects $30 million in revenue for 2006

by Taylor Phifer

One of Tri-County Truss’s 11 boom trucks lunges onto the highway in Burlington on its way to a construction site in King County. In tow are huge, elongated, square-cut wood beams. From where the truck came are several warehouse-sized buildings emitting the unmistakable sounds and smells of cut wood.
Inside the facility, forklifts scurry about with more of the long boards. Workers watch over computerized power saws as they precisely cut tons of lumber into what will become the skeleton for thousands of homes and buildings across the state.
From the layman’s eye, peering through the fence, it might seem like just another wood processing operation – one of the thousands across Washington and the Northwest. But what goes on behind the scenes is what makes Tri-County Truss one of the state’s most successful and fastest growing truss manufacturers.

Serving customers on ‘Truss Time’
“This business is based on speed,” Tri-County Truss President Gary Lund said. “It’s kind of unique, what we do in this industry.”
Started in 1990, Tri-County Truss has grown from a $2.1 million business to a projected $30 million for 2006 and Lund attributes this success to his employees and the company’s unique style of customer-oriented business.
Tri-County Truss has embraced technology to assure their quick delivery of quality products.
“We have something called Truss Time,” he said. “A customer can get on the Internet and track every job, no matter what state, from design to production to shipping. If they need to change anything they can email us. It’s a big hit with the lumberyards. They might have several jobs and they can get on the ‘net and see what jobs they have with us and the status of that job.”
In addition to this, Tri-County Truss has implemented a quick quote process where sales agents can print out quotes for any size job at the job site with the customer. This process eliminates much of the redundant phone calls and emails for the customer. And they can guarantee a price.
With lumber prices in a constant state of flux, especially in the summer when the construction business is in high gear, it’s difficult for a wood product manufacturer to say the price quoted today will be the same price at the end of the project. The number on the first Tri-County Truss quote, however, will be the same as the one on the final bill.
“We can guarantee prices,” Lund said. “Say a tract builder is doing 50 to 200 houses. We can go in and lock in prices for three months, six months, up to a year and they know the prices won’t go up. Usually in the summer the lumber prices go up. We secure the lumber early so the price doesn’t change. It’s kind of unique in this industry. A price change in lumber can make a house go up in cost from $200 to $2,000.”
According to Tri-County Truss their “Heavy Timber or Glu-Lam Trusses are custom manufactured one at a time in the traditional method with bolts and steel plates or washers. Timber trusses are used to add custom details to a room or as the structural system for post-and-beam style construction.”

Taking advantage of the boom
Construction growth in the single-family housing sector has been booming in the Puget Sound area and Tri-County Truss is taking advantage of this $1.2 billion market.
On the Economic Development Association of Skagit County’s top 100 list, as well at the Northwest Business Monthly’s Private 100 list, Tri-County Truss has grown from a modest operation, with 15 employees catering to local builders, to a regional contender with more than 200 employees creating more than $25 million in revenues last year.
Low interest rates and exponential population growth have seen a huge influx of people and development to the area. And with counties like Whatcom talking about building permit limitations, the building industry and developers are filling local planning departments grasping at what might be a finite amount of permits.
This has created a development increase in the area that is based on speculation nearly as much as demand.
For a company like Tri-County, times are good.
“We basically cover the state of Washington,” Lund said. “We are going to open a facility in Longview, Washington, this year.”
One of Tri-County Truss’s biggest customers is Quadrant Homes. The largest homebuilder in Washington, Quadrant Homes had sales upward of $410 million in 2005. And a company whose goal is to build six new homes each business day is just who Tri-County Truss wants to make happy.
“We’re heading (to Longview) because our biggest customer is heading that way.” Lund said. “They’re heading that way and we are going to follow them with a new truss plant.”
Tri-County Truss does the majority of its business in the Puget Sound basin. The new plant in Longview will let Tri-County Truss surround its market.
“It makes sense to locate in Longview. That way we can come at them from both ways,” said Lund.
Tri-County Truss makes its roof and floor trusses mostly for commercial purposes but have done work ranging from 12,000 square-foot homes down to doghouses. The largest projects range around $175,000 in trusses for a 100,000 square-foot building.
Along with the planned Longview truss plant, Tri-County’s Burlington site is also expanding and Lund said they will be adding another 20 people to their home operation.
“We’re building a new office and maintenance shop this year,” Lund said. “Next year we’ll expand with different new technologies for building trusses and updating some saws. We’re always going with the times.”

Strong team at the foundation
Lund bases the success of his company on his employees. Any lesser caliber of staff would not allow the company to enjoy the success it has, he says.
“We have built a strong team within the company,” said Lund.
Together that team has helped bring Tri-County into the top spot in the industry. “We set some goals to be dominant in the market and that’s what we have done.”
Lund attributes that success in part to the company’s strong benefit package with 401k and multiple incentive programs. Pay ranges from $10 - $21 an hour.
Another benefit for employees is the company’s desire to see them succeed on a personal level. “We do a lot of leadership training. I spend a lot of time developing employees. If people want to get involved and advance in the company they can. We like to take care of people who want to move up.”
And safety is never far from the forefront. “We’re real big on training and safety. We want not only to be a great place to work but a safe place to work.”
Tri-County Truss is now on the fast track to acceptance into the Voluntary Protection Program – an exclusive national safety standard program. “We would be the first truss manufacturer in the states to have this,” Lund said.

Satisfied customer
Frontier Building Supply, a $36 million a year lumber company with five yards in Western Washington, was Tri-County’s first client and continues to use their products for projects all over the state.
“They are a very strong service base support kind of company,” Frontier Building Supply General Manager Richard Sadler said. “In our industry that is very important. They have a very good engineering group that can take a set of plans that are less than perfect and create trusses that will fulfill the needs of the customer. They have a strong field-support staff. It’s not unusual for me to meet one of them on a job site to work with the builder to fulfill their needs. We were their first customer and we do more business with them than any other company. Our lumber yards are five strong and we have grown dramatically and they have grown with us.”
Tri-County was purchased by Lyman Lumber in 2002. Though the operational aspects are left to Gary Lund and his crew the strong parent company has offered the support, letting Tri-County grow while maintaining their unprecedented quality and service.
“The owner of Lyman and our philosophies are the same,” Lund said. “Lyman is a big company. This was a great thing for us. It really helped with finances and growth. They are really a good company to work for.”
Despite advances in technology and a booming market, Lund maintains that his success rests solely on the shoulders of his employees.
“I really want to promote our employees,” he said. They’re the ones out there doing the work. The guys who should get the credit are the guys in the field.”