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Ryan Ringer
President | Gold Beach Lumber Yard
“I haven’t done it by myself. Getting the right people in the right seat has been fun, and it’s been exciting to watch them grow; I’m very proud of my team. This award is a tribute to all of them.”
With three generations behind him, Gold Beach Lumber Yard president Ryan Ringer had some large shoes to fill stepping into leadership at the company. Ringer started his journey in the family business at an early age, sweeping floors after getting off the school bus. After college, he explored other career opportunities for a few years but ultimately decided that Gold Beach was where he wanted to be.
“My father had experienced a high percentage of growth and was at a point where he needed to take on another expansion at our single store operation,” Ringer says. “We made an agreement that I would come back to Gold Beach and work on the operation side and he would work on the facility projects to help grow the business.”
The partnership has proved successful, with Gold Beach Lumber Yard now operating stores in nine locations in Western Oregon. Founded in 1959 by Ringer’s great-grandparents Clarence and Pearl Ringer, the company has grown through four generations, growing to new locations and expanding services.
The first major changes Ringer, alongside his father, made to Gold Beach Lumber Yard resulted in sales increases of 186% over four years. After he orchestrated the opening of a second location in 2008, a major recession hit the area. Instead of pulling back, Gold Beach Lumber Yard invested in a new advertising campaign and expansion into other product categories and business rebounded. In 2014, he opened a third location in Port Orford, Oregon, with six more locations opening in the last decade. In 2015, Ringer was named an
NHPA Young Retailer of the Year.
Through all the growth, Ringer says the company has committed to retain a small business culture and welcoming environment.
“When you walk in our doors, we want the place to be alive, whether that’s music playing or people laughing,” Ringer says. “We try to create an environment that someone wants to enjoy.”
Even though he’s in a leadership role, Ringer admits he doesn’t always feel like a leader.
“I don’t wake up in the morning and say, ‘How am I going to lead better?’ but everything I’ve done as a leader has been taking advantage of the opportunities in front of me,” Ringer says.
Ringer says he and his team have worked on finding and putting the right people in the right positions, and they have added several key experienced team members in the last three years. Instead of being reactionary to growth, Ringer says his team recently has been seeking out growth opportunities.
“You show up, you work hard, you try to make all good decisions, but when you have an idea or project that is struggling to get going, you need to be quick to pivot,” Ringer says. “I think that is the luxury of being a small business, you can make choices quickly.”
Once they get the right people in the right roles, the Gold Beach Lumber Yard company culture and core values permeate everything the team does. Ringer says they focus on helping customers solve their problems and treating others like they would want to be treated.
“Everyone who walks through our doors has a problem. We don’t know what their problem is, but we are going to do our best to make sure that when they leave, they have a solution,” Ringer says. “The solution m
ight not be us. It might be a competitor, it might be something online, it might be something in another town. But our job is to try and solve their problem because if we went to someone with a problem, we would want that solved.”
Building future leaders who embody the company’s culture and core values starts with empowering the regional and store managers, Ringer says. Managers are given the freedom to make decisions in their stores that they feel will be most beneficial to the operation.
“We have a conversation with each store manager and that we trust them with our family’s assets, but we’ve put them in that position because we believe in them and their decision-making capabilities,” Ringer says. “We are not going to put someone in that position if they don’t have the values of the organization at heart.”
Following Strong Leaders
There have been a number of people who have influenced Ringer in the independent home improvement channel. One of those early leaders was Art Freedman, a Margin Master software expert. Ringer says Freedman has been influential in his thought process about retail pricing strategy and attributes the company’s growth to the two days he spent with Freedman early in his career. Freedman’s teachings helped shape Ringer’s approach to the company’s profitability.
“Freedman had a saying, ‘Making money is not illegal,’ and we have taken that to heart and gone to market with good products and excellent service at a fair price,” Ringer says. “With that strategy and executing on the products and service pieces, we’ve been able to see margin enhancement, which has helped us grow at a fast but responsible pace.”
Other leaders Ringer looks up to include fellow retailers he’s met through a NHPA roundtable he participates in. Made up of independent home improvement retailers from every co-op and of all sizes, the roundtable grouphas allowed Ringer to share ideas, opportunities and challenges with like-minded colleagues.
“These are very high performing people with extensive industry experience and successful companies,” Ringer says. “I’ve been able to borrow ideas from them, which is invaluable. Every time we get together, we’re having masters’ level business classes and we’re able to get real information in a very timely manner to pivot our company left or right or enhance our company.”
As a Top Guns honoree, Ringer diverts the attention away from himself and onto his team he’s worked with for over 20 years. Ringer says he’s grateful to come in every day to work and meet with great people to collaborate and make decisions.
“I haven’t done it by myself. Getting the right people in the right seat has been fun, and it’s been exciting to watch them grow; I’m very proud of my team,” Ringer says. “This award is a tribute to all of them.”
Ringer also appreciates all his parents have poured into him to help him succeed in this career.
“They passed the torch to me, and the opportunity I’ve had to grow the company comes from the excellent foundation they built,” Ringer says. “When they drafted the sale of the business to me, the payment terms they gave me were geared towards allowing me to continually grow. I was not financially strapped down until I could pay them off. So this award also goes to my parents.”
