For many family businesses, next-generation leaders play a major role in longevity, bringing fresh perspectives and insights to their operations. Here, Nate Jones, a Sales and Procurement representative at Ron Jones Hardwood Sales Inc. in Union City and Franklin, Pennsylvania, shares his experience of working in the third-generation family hardwood lumber business and his advice to other next-generation leaders.
Please share a little about Ron Jones Hardwood Sales and how the company got started.
As the name implies, my grandfather, Ron Jones, started it in 1983. At the time, he was a small owner of American Lumber, which was also headquartered in Union City back in the day. He decided to venture out on his own and start his own business. At that time, it was just a brokerage — buying lumber, selling lumber, and not physically doing any of the manufacturing. Then, as time went on, he decided to also do some manufacturing, which is the facility in Franklin. It’s just grown a lot from there to where we’re a lot more manufacturing heavy and just do a little bit of brokerage now, but manufacturing is the main focus.
What did the business look like when you were growing up, and how has it evolved over the years now into a third-generation family owned business?
I grew up in Union City, Pennsylvania, so I always just knew it (the Union City head-quarters) as the train station. My dad (Steve) and grandfather worked there along with my Uncle Milo. They were on the phone a lot, and my dad traveled a lot, but I didn’t really understand the manufacturing end of it because it was an hour south in Franklin. Steve took my brother and I down there when we were young and got to take a look at the operation. That was kind of an eye-opening experience for me because I just never really thought about that aspect.
You grew up around the company — do you remember when you first started taking it seriously as a possible career path?
When I was 18, Steve took me over to China for two weeks during my last semester of high school. China was kind of like the Wild West for lumber. It was a really busy market and that was cool to see my dad just selling a lot of lumber and being well received over there. A lot of our customers were excited to meet me as well because they knew that it was a family company and then having his son being introduced into it.
Share a little bit about your education and how it prepared you for working in the hardwood industry.
I graduated from Penn State Behrend with an international business degree and a marketing degree, and I did a semester abroad in Shanghai. We do a lot of exporting, and our biggest export area is China, so I got to go study in China and learn Mandarin. That was a huge help for me to be able to connect more with some of our Chinese customers, and it really helped me out this last business trip that we just went on a few weeks ago. We were in Guangzhou, Shanghai and Qingdao and had a lot of customers be really impressed with the very little Chinese that I had remembered since I studied there eight years ago. I did that when I was 20, but my education was good enough to where I still knew some lingo and was able to speak in Chinese.
How did you transition from school into working full-time in the family business?
I graduated from Penn State Behrend in 2020, and as you can imagine, that wasn’t necessarily the best time to have an international business degree during the (COVID) lockdown. I was just holed up in my parents’ basement, and I decided to go to lumber grading school. Lumber grading is a niche trade in the lumber industry where you determine the worth of the board based on the amount of cutting units that there are to get clear lumber.
I was in Memphis for about seven weeks and learned the trade of lumber grading. I was able to take that and go start grading lumber out of college, and I started applying that knowledge to manufacturing. Then, after doing that for about six months, the lumber industry really started picking up. I moved into sales, and I haven’t looked back.
For other next-generation leaders, especially those coming out of school, what advice would you give as they step into a family business?
To add value. I know when my brother came on, he had us use Proofpoint for our Excel worksheet that we would all update and share. It was a really simple, quick fix, but just something that no one has thought of before because no one used it. I think just any small way you can add value, do that. It’s the easiest way and the best advice I can give.
Looking ahead, what are you most excited about when it comes to the future of the company?
I guess I’m excited because we just keep innovating on what we do and we keep getting more lean, better, more efficient, and every single year, we just keep adding one additional thing.
To put it into perspective, the hardwood lumber industry has decreased production by half its production just in the past five years. So, it’s really awesome that we’re able to stay at capacity and keep doing what we do best and staying within our niche.
For more information, visit ronjoneshardwood.com.
