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Growing lumberyard giant Lanoga Corp. now operates in a solid swath of territory from California north to Washington and Alaska, and east across the upper Midwest. But in the opinion of president and CEO Paul Hylbert, there's a lot more geography still to cover.
"The three largest home-building markets are Florida, Texas and California, and we're not in Florida or Texas," he said. A!, "Texas is closer, so we'd like to be in 'I
Texas reasonably soon, and gradually move across the country." Growth at Lanoga is driven in part by trends in the building industry, Hylbert pointed out. As home builders have consolidated into fewer, larger companies such as Centex Corp. and Pulte Homes Inc., in turn the major building-supply companies have snapped up smaller chains as they strive to meet the needs of these ever-larger customers.
Hylbert is hoping to find acquisition opportunities that could give Lanoga national reach, enabling it to better serve some of the biggest national builders. The company, a division of Laird Norton Co., has the backing of its parent company board in funding its expansion drive.
The 148-year-old building-products retailer - which operates out of a modest office in a Redmond business park - added nearly $500 million in sales last year after making two major acquisitions and a handful of smaller ones. Lanoga ended the year just shy of $2 billion in sales.
The company has added some twodozen locations just since the beginning of 2003, most...