Former owners of Chesapeake firm come to rescue

CHESAPEAKE

Who says the little guys can't win in the end?

Kempsville Building Materials Inc., a homegrown company more than a half-century old, was sold to corporate giant Stock Building Supply three years ago.

Officials at Stock assured Kempsville's owners that business would continue as usual.

It didn't work out that way.

Last fall, as the economy plunged, Stock announced it would close dozens of warehouses. When it decided in May to shut what had been Kempsville's largest outlet, in Chesapeake, two former owners sprang to the rescue.

On Friday night, they completed a transaction with Stock, giving the pair half-ownership of the Chesapeake outlet and the other half to Carter Lumber Co. of Kent, Ohio.

So, on Monday morning, the Chesapeake location will reopen - under a Kempsville Building Materials banner once more.

"We feel we have some unfinished business here," Brenda Onley, 56, who will regain her title as Kempsville vice president, said Saturday. "We want to make it right again."

Her partner, Scott Gandy, who began working at Kempsville Building Materials in 1973 as a teen sweeping floors, will become president, the title he held before the sale to Stock.

"We absolutely wanted to do this," said Gandy, 54. "We had good people still here that we want to try to keep together. Without them, we would not have been the company we were."

Gandy declined to identify the purchase price.

The sale also includes a Stock Building Supply warehouse in Newport News that was not Kempsville's originally.

"We wanted to keep that open to give us complete service of Tidewater," Gandy said.

Together, the stores have 92 workers, whose jobs will be saved. "A lot of them have 20-plus years of service with us," Gandy said.

Kempsville Building Materials began in 1955 on Witchduck Road in Virginia Beach. Both as Kempsville and Stock, it has sold a range of supplies including doors, trusses, lumber, drywall, roofing and insulation.

In 1989, the original owner, Sterling Montgomery, sold it to Gandy, Onley and Bobby Johnson, who later retired.

The next year, Kempsville, seeking more room, added a location in Cavalier Industrial Park in Chesapeake. That has grown to 275,000 square feet in eight buildings over 44 acres, Gandy said. It opened an Exmore warehouse in 2001.

So why did they sell it to Stock Building Supply in 2006?

Kempsville operated under an employee stock ownership plan, and the owners "were looking for what was best for the employees," Gandy said. "Stock Building Supply got back to us with an extremely attractive value. We felt that was the highest level we would see for a while."

Stock's executives, Gandy said, "basically assured us there would be no change. We would be allowed to continue our business the way we wanted to run it."

Gandy remained with Stock as area sales manager, Onley as administrative manager. She retired last year.

Stock closed the Virginia Beach and Exmore sites in November. When Stock officials told Gandy in May that they planned to shut the Chesapeake site, "I said, 'Is there an opportunity for the company to be bought back?' They said, 'Absolutely. Make us an offer.' "

He got back in touch with Onley. She was willing to end her retirement. To provide more capital and ensure a smooth transition, they partnered with Carter Lumber, Gandy said.

Stock had planned to close the Chesapeake site in early July, Gandy said, but allowed it to remain open through Friday to complete the transaction.

At 6:30 Friday evening, he said, the deal was sealed.

Gandy knows it's a rough time to restart a business.

"We expect not to make money today, but the goal is to break even until the economy improves," he said.

Nor he is concerned that reintroducing the Kempsville name in Chesapeake will cause confusion.

"We're taking the name that was in the market for 52 years," he said. "We feel we had a very solid reputation with it."

After the economy rebounds, he said, the company might seek to add a location in its native

Virginia Beach.

They sold the company to Stock "with the hope that we would finish our careers with them," Gandy said. "It didn't work out that way. So we're getting back together to finish our days with the family we built."

Philip Walzer, (757) 222-3864, phil.walzer@pilotonline.com