“There were times I thought my brain would explode,” said Sharri Fuller, reflecting on 40 years of business as owner of the Toronto Lumber Company.
“When anybody looks back at their life … it’s probably a whirlwind.”
The journey began in 1980, when Fuller and her first husband Tom Hoag bought the Toronto lumber yard from Andy and Mary Jirgens.
“I always give credit to Tom,” she said. “I for sure wouldn’t have been in the lumber business if not for him.”
Amazingly, they purchased the facility at 19% interest, so as Fuller put it, “it wasn’t the best time to go into business.”
“Things were a lot simpler then,” she remarked. “Lumber was bought [only] 10 sheets at a time, … delivered three times a week.”
“We hardly had any power tools on the shelves,” she recalled. And they sold nails, whereas in contrast to today “nails are a thing of the past.”
They also loaded lumber by hand.
Fuller recalled staying late every night to compile purchase tickets as well, though thankfully, given her previous experience, the lumber yard integrated computers into their business earlier than most.
INDEED, computers, not lumber, were Fuller’s first professional interest.
“I planned on becoming a programmer,” she explained. “I was a geek on one of those big mainframe computers.”
Not long after, though, mainframes gave way to house frames, and “we slowly started building up our inventory.”
Of course, the going wasn’t always easy, and the changes and challenges have been “tremendous,” especially during “middle years” characterized by “struggles and personal changes.”
For instance, “We didn’t have a bathroom at first,” Fuller said. “I had to go across the street to the feed store.”
She likewise had to face the challenge of becoming a mother, first to her son Seth in 1983, then her son Drew in 1987.
Today, Drew Hoag manages the lumber yard along with his wife (and accountant), Jessie, as Seth continues the family’s efforts in cattle ranching.
Instead of managing a $40,000 business like their parents, however, today the lumber yard’s total inventory is closer to $140,000.
