From Healthcare to Hardware: Meet Top Guns Honoree Hervey Wright

Hervey Wright

President | Home Lumber and Supply Co.

“It’s a great honor to be recognized for how far we’ve come along. It’s been a trial by fi re, but everybody’s risen to the challenge. This award is an acknowledgment of all of our hard work trying to keep growing and being successful as a company.”

Taking an unusual path into the independent channel, Hervey Wright was working for a cardiology clinic as a healthcare administrator before joining the hardware industry. He was interviewing at a few rural Kansas hospitals, including a hospital in Ashland, Kansas. That interview process included visits to local businesses, and Home Lumber and Supply Co. was one of those stops. There he met John Humphreys.

When Wright didn’t receive the position at the hospital he was in town interviewing for, Humphreys—who was impressed with Wright from that one visit—reached out offering him a job in hardware and lumber.

“My wife and I really liked the town of Ashland, and I have always enjoyed the industry even though I was never really directly involved in it,” Wright says. “When this opportunity came, I jumped on it and have not looked back. In a twist of irony, my wife now heads that hospital and does a better job than I probably would have.”

Going from health care to hardware might seem like a stretch, but Wright says it was the welcoming atmosphere and closeness of the staff he witnessed during that store visit that convinced him.

“The manager meetings felt more like a family reunion. It felt like people really cared and wanted to be there for the long haul,” Wright says. “That’s what really drew me in; that’s something you don’t see in organizations as often anymore.”

Wright joined Home Lumber and Supply Co. as a sales manager and after a year, he became a general manager. He still holds the title of general manager and oversees the day-to-day operations of the company, but also serves as president of the board.

“I was glad I didn’t just jump right in as president because it gave me the opportunity to really get to know the company better and get to know all the managers and the people in the stores better,” Wright says. “It was a good transition period for me.”

Leading With Trust

As a leader, Wright focuses on two main areas: trust and candor.

“You have to be able to trust your people are going to do what they’re supposed to do and have the best interests of the company at heart,” Wright says. “You’ve hired them, so you know they have the ability to do it; don’t micromanage them.”

The candor piece ties into the trust piece, Wright says. He shares the company’s profit and loss statements with all employees because he wants them to know where the company’s heading. He says he continually considers whether a decision will hinder the trust he’s built and if it’s the right decision for the whole.

As Wright is making decisions as a leader, he’s also including the company’s core values—integrity, innovation, communication and a winning team mindset—to do whatever it takes to be successful.

“At the end of the day, I want to make sure that I’m looking out for everybody’s best interests when I make these decisions and building that trust,” Wright says. “I may have the title of president, but that’s one role of the many that make our company successful, and we all work together. It’s a pretty simple playbook—we trust our people to do the right thing and then we try to make the best decisions that help everybody.”

That trust Wright has in his employees shows up in the ways he empowers them to be leaders. He is grateful to have people trust him at a younger age to take on leadership roles and tries to do the same for those around him by identifying those individuals who have a passion for leadership and then mentoring them and giving them the training to be successful.

One of the stores recently suffered damage from a fire. Without being prompted or asked, a manager from a nearby store drafted a proposal for a plan to get that store operational.

“There are a lot of really capable people out there, you just have to trust them and give them an opportunity to prove themselves and rise to the occasion,” Wright says. “Empowering our people in this way has also been helpful for recruitment as they can see the success others have had.”

Wright also encourages innovation throughout the company. The company has been around since 1905, but Wright says he doesn’t want to become complacent and fall into the habit of doing things a certain way just because that’s how they’ve always been done. He wants innovation to drive efficiencies that benefit the employees and the operation.

“We’re really trying to embrace technology as it becomes available to our industry so we can create better ways for employees to work, so they don’t have to work so hard,” Wright says. “I want to figure out a way to be more efficient so that we can give them more time to be with their families or do what they want to do besides just be at our stores or lumberyards.”

Finding Inspiration

Wright says he is grateful for so many in this industry who have inspired him as a leader.

“From the leaders I have had the fortune to hear speak at the Independent Hardware Conference to the speakers I heard going through the NHPA Retail Management Certification Program, they have all changed how I lead in my organization,” Wright says. “One of the neat aspects of this industry is obviously we’re competing in different areas, but we’re also a collective group of independents who are willing to share how things are done and learn from each other.”

Wright also looks up to historical figures like Dwight D. Eisenhower and Abraham Lincoln, along with his father, who was in leadership at a college, and mother, who both have been big supporters. He also appreciates the encouragement and day-to-day support he has received over the years from his team, especially as a younger and inexperienced employee.

When it comes to being named a Top Guns honoree, looking at previous honorees, including his predecessor Humphreys who was a Top Guns honoree in 2009, Wright says he doesn’t quite feel deserving of it yet.

“I’d look at it more as a team win and loop it back to my whole team. Everybody else in this company makes me look good, so I am accepting on behalf of our whole company,” Wright says. “It’s a great honor to be recognized for how far we’ve come along. It’s been a trial by fire, but everybody’s risen to the challenge. This award is an acknowledgment of all of our hard work trying to keep growing and being successful as a company.”