The awning business is incredible. It offers enough challenges to keep you growing, consistency you can plan around, and is rewarding enough to keep you fulfilled. It’s also not building rockets, so being a genius isn’t a prerequisite.
These are a few reasons why Scott Neville, Welhener – H.B. Wall Awning, and Travis Jenkins, Charlotte Tent and Awning, both decided to buy into the industry. The difference is where they started their journey to ownership—Scott as an outside buyer and Travis as a long-term employee that bought the company where he worked. Here are their stories and how both methods are great for purchase of an awning company.
Travis Jenkins, owner of Charlotte Tent and Awning Co., started out as a very green, rookie installer without any construction experience outside of working with his dad around the house.
“I started working in the awning industry out of high school with a plan to work through college and dive into the world of technology. Little did I know, almost 20 years later, I would own that same company and find it to be one of the best decisions I’ve ever made,” Jenkins says. “I quickly learned installation is the backbone of any awning company, and that’s why I feel it’s the most rewarding position an awning company offers.”
Awnings are a shade product at their core, and in order to provide shade, they have to be securely mounted above windows, entrances, over walkways, etc. to provide the needed protection. This is where installation comes in, and as an installer, he learned the difference in fabrics, difference in frame styles, differences in wall conditions, hardware, equipment, lifting, tools and many other valuable skills. Most importantly, he got to participate in the completion of every project.
Jenkins was promoted and brought into the office after a few years in the field and began to learn the ins and outs of everything that happened inside the building. This included sales, bookkeeping, production, estimating, fabrication, business development and project management, and ultimately ended in general management.
“I used these years to learn each aspect of the business in great detail, and now, I find those years critical to how I make operational decisions today,” he says. “It’s invaluable when helping troubleshoot a difficult build, a complex scenario in the field, employee training and even employee turnover.”
Neville, is the owner of the Welhener – H.B. Wall Awning company and Kansas City Tent & Awning company. His company manufactures, installs, and services awnings, canopies, patio covers and shade structures in the Midwest from two facilities in Missouri. Neville’s path to ownership started simply enough, and how many other folks buy businesses, via acquisition.
“I am extremely happy my path resulted in a profound interest in the awning, fabric, and textile industry,” he says.
Following college graduation, Neville held a number of jobs in the construction and real estate industry, from labor to lending to sale, to commercial property ownership and management. On the heels of a vibrant economy, he began searching for a homegrown business to invest in. Neville’s criteria were simple.
“I wanted something in a niche construction or real estate industry, a local market to service, local production capabilities, and to be insulated from online or foreign competition,” he says. In other words, an industry or business he could get personally involved in every aspect of, and one that he could find all the needed resources for, locally.
That it happened to be a local awning company is just how the chips fell, and Neville could not be happier. He has a love for building, engineering and problem solving.
“That I get to really complement architecture and promote the outdoors is icing on the cake,” he says. “Fabric structures allow me to do all that and more.”
Over the course of 17 years, he acquired competing companies and also purchased operations in new markets. He consolidated and condensed those into an operation that now that allows the team to service large and small markets throughout the Midwest.
Neville has met many other awning company owners during his time in the fabric industry, some have purchased operations like his, others had some degree of involvement that led to ownership, and some just started from nothing. He has great respect for all of them.
“Owning a business can be very rewarding, but it is also hard work!” he says. “You have production, staffing, marketing, and customer service to worry about. Surround yourself with smart and loyal people.”
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