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Friendships and Faith: In his book Business as a Calling, Michael Novak1 lists "community-building" (along with "innovation" and "practical realism") as the virtues businesspeople bring to society.
9Wood's community-building began Sunday morning on Feb 24, 2004. The original 9Wood partners met to discuss the possibility of going into business together. At this very first meeting, it was agreed that to join together as partners we needed to know if we shared the same values. We didn't have a business, a name, or a real plan. But we knew we needed to share basic convictions. We finalized them a couple of weeks later over coffee. Like a compass, they still guide our thinking. 9Wood's core values, crafted by the original owners, are 5 interdependent essentials:
1) Character: To conduct ourselves with the integrity called forth in Biblical Eldership and applied to business (attitudes like humility, truth-seeking, pursuing honest gain).
2) Partnership Paradigm: To make consensus based decisions, with a win-win bias.
3) Servant Leadership: To live out "Leadership that serves," not "I'm the Master, you're in the dark."
4) Our Mission: To improve the economic welfare and quality of life of all stakeholders.
5) Accountability: To practice mutual submission, with a disposition toward giving responsibility and holding each other accountable.
Out of these values spring our company's approach to business; things like:
- Open Book financials so that each employee knows the real score;
- Consensus based decision making built on knowing the score;
- A profit sharing system to share when the score tells us we reached our goals;
- Win-Win employee agreements where our unique giftings can be released;
- A focus on improving our work life together (like having fun at work, opportunity, respect) along with the financial welfare of all our company's stakeholders;
- A goal to serve our customers—both inside and outside the company.
The History of 9Wood
How did this wood ceilings niche and this idealistic management team connect to form 9Wood, Inc.? Like all history, it begins before we made a single contribution to wood ceilings. Prior to this century, of course, wood ceilings have been utilized in many architectural styles. The most common were wood coffer and tongue & groove plank ceilings.
The starting point for 9Wood's antecedents, however, really begins with the installation of the first suspended wood ceiling. The operative word here is "suspended." This marks the start of attaching wood ceilings to suspended T-Bar grid for commercial application. Using T-Bar to suspend wood ceilings brought all the advantages of suspended ceilings (low cost, ease of installing mechanical, electrical, & plumbing assemblies, and accessibility).
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| "Bill, I just don't get the concept... a bench on the ceiling?" |
In the US, credit is usually given to Bill Shank. Shank, an Independent Manufacturers Rep for Division 9 specialty ceilings, was attending a trade show in the mid '60s and happened to come across a Howard Manufacturing Grille Bench. The Hemlock Grille Bench had been developed by Paul Howard to utilize the off-fall from his Hemlock ladder business located in Kent, Washington. Shank saw the product and thought, "That should be used in the ceiling!" Along with Roger Leon, of DSA New York, he developed a clip that would attach the grille bench to T-Bar-and the rest is history.
Another specialty ceiling contributor in the 1960s was Bud Blitzer of Integrated Ceilings. Coming out of the lighting business, Bud created the first concealed suspension ceiling. This breakthrough ushered in the real era of specialty ceiling manufacturing. It opened up huge design opportunities for architects.
Bud's friend Sharol Brodie, of Forms + Surfaces, a trend-setting company in the 1970s, developed a Linear Wood Plank ceiling, along with other specialty finishes.
In the 1980s other companies pioneered the suspended wood ceiling business, including Jim Thorson of Wood Tech Pacific, and Steve Anderson of ASI. A pair of brothers from Belgium, using their trade name Derako, began exporting their European-made Linear wood planks into the United States. Wayne Robinson began sales managing the Derako line, eventually getting into the fabrication business as Rulon Co.
In the early 1990s, two of the owners of 9Wood, Charley Coury (Sales and Estimating) and Dan Boustead (Engineering and Operations) began working for a company called Pacific Wood Systems, a spin-off of Wood Tech Pacific. The owner, Merle Tyler, was a creative entrepreneur and offered Charley and Dan wide latitude to help build the business on the sales side and on the engineering side. Eventually, Leo Batenhorst (Project Management) and Andy Gossard (Controller) were also added to the PWS management team (later renamed Wood Ceilings, Inc.). Working together at WCI formed the foundations and forged the friendships that helped launch 9Wood, Inc.
In the 2000s other companies began entering the wood ceilings business. Armstrong World Industries, apparently energized from its business dealings with the European manufacturer Wilhelmi, expanded its wood ceiling offerings. Other companies have come and gone over the years, but these remain the prime movers, and the main thread leading to the founding of 9Wood.
In July 2004, after experiencing some dramatic changes at WCI, 9Wood, Inc. was born. "We chose 9Wood because we felt it poetically captured the essence of our identity," Coury recalls.
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- High-Tech/High-Touch: the alpha-numeric name symbolizes a commitment to maintain the tension between an engineered, computer-assisted manufacturing company and the high-touch, responsiveness of a boutique custom fabricator.
- Inside our Industry: For those inside the industry, "9" has a special meaning. Division 9 FINISHES locates the niche where we and our customers make our livelihoods: Division 9 Reps, Drywall and Acoustic Contractors, and Acoustical Consultants. This is the division in which architects specify wood ceilings.
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