Proud to be an
SDRA
Member
Jason, Carole and Vern Witt
Burke Building Center
Burke
Tell me about your business –
how did you get started here?
Vern: I was born and raised here and left for the military. I met
Carole in Nebraska. We decided to come back here in 1972, and
we farmed, ranched and milked cows for twenty years. Dave
Meyerink from Corsica had bought the yard and was in his
second year, but didn’t have management that was working
out. We were still dairying when the Development Corporation
approached me and asked me if I’d try managing it for a year
or so.
Carole: He’d worked construction in the Omaha area, so he
had the background. But he was still milking. He would go milk
the cows, then he would come in to work. He either had his pliers or his utility knife in his pocket. Whichever was on the chest
of drawers, then I knew where he was. We did that for awhile.
Vern: Then Dave said he was going to sell it, and we bought it
in 1994. And we continued to farm along with it for awhile.
Carole: It was a hard decision to make. We were in our forties,
and it was a tough decision to make.
Vern: But anyhow, we made it go. Then in Gregory, the Stephen family, Gene and Dick were retiring, so we bought that
yard and our son Bryan is managing it. Our younger son Jason
works in the yard here in Burke.
What all do you do here?
Vern: We design. Our son Jason does designing on the CAD
(computer-aided design) program. We do light commercial
general contracting. We do some installed sales. We try not
to compete with the contractors. But if it’s a matter of we’re
going to lose the sale if we don’t do it, we’ll go install a couple
windows or storm doors that they basically don’t want to mess
around with anyhow.
Carole: We do some general contracting.
Vern: We have retail hardware and lumber and fencing. We
have a full rental program, primarily in Gregory.
Carole: We have about anything you could need to rent.
Vern: Skidsteer, dump trailers, cement mixers, pull behind
sprayer.
Bryan Witt
Gregory Building Center
Gregory
Carole: Carpet installation, concrete work, lawn and garden.
That’s been really busy this summer.
How many employees do you have?
Carole: There’s three of us and a part-time person in Burke.
And then we have four employees in Gregory, and a parttime kid this summer too.
What do you have for competiton?
Vern: Gregory County I think has about five thousand people
in the whole county. And we have four lumberyards in the
county.
Carole: There’s two in Gregory, one in Fairfax, and us. Plus
two in Winner, which is only forty miles.
That sounds like a lot of lumberyards.
Vern: (laughing) I don’t know WHAT those other people are
thinking!
And then you have the big box stores to
compete with.
Vern: It’s a “while you’re there” situation. If you go over for
a basketball game in Mitchell, “Well, while we’re here we
just as well stop and get some groceries or run to Menard’s
or we’ll go to Walmart.” So when they come home, they
have everything. Then they drive over our streets and say,
“Gees, we’ve got some terrible streets in Burke.” Right.
In Mitchell they’ve got some really nice ones, because you
just left all your street improvement money in Mitchell! But
WITT, continued on next page
Retail Prophet | October 2013
13
WITT, continued from page 17
outside stuff. I enjoy it, I feel like I’m
kind of using my degree in construction. Working in a lumber yard is not
what I thought I’d be doing. But as
far as our family business goes, it’s
definitely a good one.
that’s business. You expect that and I
can handle the competition. You just
have to sell what you have.
Carole: And when they compare prices,
we’re not necessarily higher. Sometimes we’re less.
How do you keep your
customers coming back?
Vern: Service. It’s all you can do. For
instance, we’ll go out and measure
windows. We find people come here
when they want to replace windows
and ask us to measure them, then they
hire the contractor. We’re like, “Well,
really your contractor should measure
them because he’s the person who has
to put them in.” But the customers
say, “Well, why don’t you come and
measure them.” So we do. And then
we have a lot of older folks that need
things and they can’t do them themselves, so we do a lot of those small
things for people.
Carole: We’re just willing to help them.
We try to go above and beyond.
What do you like about
being a member of the
Retailers Association?
Vern: When we first joined, it was
for the credit card program. We still
use that service.
Carole: For our health insurance, we
have the Retailers Wellmark plan.
And I like the Retail Prophet. I do
enjoy that magazine. It’s very informative. When it comes, I look at it
before I pass it on. There’s always
some little hints in there.
Vern: And we appreciate the Retailers work that they do to protect us.
That’s your job and you’re doing it.
We don’t have the time to follow
those things. It’s good that there’s
someone there that does that and
Gregory Building Center
has the power that Retailers has to
get the legislation and be the watchdogs over those kinds of things. That’s as big as anything. n
Burke Building Center
You must know your customers really well.
Vern: Oh yeah. If someone comes through the door and we
don’t know them, that’s highly unusual.
What is the best part about being
in business?
Vern: I’d like to say the freedom, but that’s probably the one
thing we don’t have! (laughs). But we make our own decisions,
and we can decide what we should buy and not buy. I guess just
the gratification of…
Carole: Doing the job well.
So what makes you feel good at the end of
the day or the end of the week?
Carole: When somebody is really happy about something. You
see somebody on the street and they tell you. Or somebody
tells me, “Jason helped me today and he sure is a nice young
man.” You know, that really makes me feel good.
(Jason came in from working outside)
From your perspective, what is it that you
enjoy about the business?
Jason: Working with people is great, working with the customers who come through. As far as my part of this, I do a lot of
14
Retail Prophet | October 2013
Get your message
out to retailers and
policy makers
When South Dakota’s Legislative Session
gets underway Tuesday, January 14,
hundreds of people at the Capitol will be
carrying around SDRA’s newest Legislative
Lineup.
You still have an opportunity to place an
ad in the booklet.
Legislators, state officials, lobbyists, and
visitors who come to the Capitol to watch the legislative process
rely on the Lineup for information about individual legislators, committee
assignments, meetings, and more.
Reserve your ad space today
for as little as $165.
For details, visit www.sdra.org (click on INFORMATION, then on
“Advertising in SDRA Publications”) or email [email protected] or call
800.658.5545 and ask for Donna.