Custom Wood Products (St. Marys, Kansas)

“Can I take pictures?” I always ask before touring a manufacturing facility. To me, pictures are a representation of the industrial aesthetic that I admire and an embodiment of the creative process at work (and I mean, “creative” in the literal sense!). However, pictures may give away trade secrets to competitors – the secrets of the trade that are NOT in the air, to paraphrase Alfred Marshall. When I asked Kevin Gray, CEO of Custom Wood Products if I could take pictures during the tour of his 100,000 square foot cabinet making facility, he readily agreed. Then he paused and qualified it, “There’s some things that I would like for my competition not to see…I’ll let you know.”

At about 135 employees, Custom Wood Products is one of the largest employers in St. Marys. There are complementary businesses in the area, such as the Onyx Collection, from which Custom Wood Products sources some counter tops. But other suppliers are located in the upper Midwest, the Northwest and other parts of the country. Those firms, in turn, source wood from all over the country. The finished cabinets are delivered across the central plains, Florida, Texas, and Arizona with the possibility of expansion to the West Coast soon. The secrets learned by employees at Custom Wood Products may be in the air in St. Marys but there are not many other places that they can be put to use without going pretty far away.

I was fascinated to learn that the secrets Kevin referred to are not in the fabrication of the cabinets. The machines – industrial table saws that will not cut your hand when you run your fingers through the moving blade, enormous tools that can make tens of feet of French dovetail joints in minutes, devices that detect flaws in the wood and maximize each board for the day’s projects – are available to any cabinet maker. The secrets are in the organization of the shop floor and the process of moving projects through from unloading the lumber to loading the delivery truck. The specialized format allows the company to focus on the crafting of the product instead of moving it around the shop (because 100,000 square feet is a lot of shop to move around!). The secrets are also in the employees who still do some of the process by hand. All of the cabinets are custom. The designers’ imaginations may not have limits but the machines do. Special pieces are crafted by hand and the cabinets are finished by individuals applying a particular combination of finishes or distressing techniques to the doors for an antique, lived-in feel.

In an agglomeration economy, the trade secrets are supposedly are no longer secrets at all, but common knowledge among the skilled labor pool. Often when economic developers discuss agglomeration, they are talking about many firms in one industry NAICS code. But agglomeration, in the sense that Alfred Marshall speaks of it, is a group of complimentary firms. This is especially apparent in rural areas where the market and the labor force will not support multiple firms engaged in creating similar products. Custom Wood Products was started in 1981 by Don Lake, a local home builder. The construction industry (though it has taken a hit in recent years, consistent with the rest of the country) still employs close to 2,500 people in the Manhattan metropolitan area (St. Marys is on the edge).* In addition, there are firms like the Onyx Collection that have commercial relationships. Custom Wood Products is located in an industrial park-like area on the edge of St. Marys. The businesses there may not have formal relationships but all benefit from the public goods, such as the easy truck access, that St. Marys provides. 

In the shop, most employees are from around St. Marys but some travel for almost an hour for work every day, a commute that rivals that of many urban workers.. They come in with unfinished wood and, each doing his or her piece of the process, create kitchen cabinets, home entertainment cabinets, bathrooms, and other storage areas. They are the true creative class. They literally create.

* County Business Patterns 2010. Construction industry includes the establishments in NAICS codes 236, 237, and 238.

Make It In America Challenge

I find manufacturing of all types to be inspirational. I get a kick out of seeing things being made and witnessing the results of innovative thinking. I feel patriotic when I see the “Made in USA” slogans. That said, I am enough of an economist to understand that trade makes us stronger and to believe in comparative advantage. If China manufacturing iPhones allows people in the US to make more of other stuff, I think that is a good idea. However, if the product is not being made in the US simply because of bureaucratic obstacles or because of other entry barriers (remember, free entry and exit is a primary tenant of Adam Smith’s free market), we should remedy it.

I was excited to learn about a new grant opportunity from the Economic Development Administration. The Make It In America Challenge is an initiative that pulls together the Economic Development Administration, the National Institute of Standards and Technology Manufacturing Extension Partnership and the Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration. Through the challenge, these agencies will be awarding up to $40 million to states, local governments, and other entities to implement projects that will help companies expand jobs, train workers, upgrade business resources and develop municipal infrastructure. All things that will lower the entry cost for new firms and help existing businesses be successful in America, the beautiful.

Box Lab (Manhattan, Kansas)

The blessing (or curse) of being an academic is that whenever I am talking to a small business, business association or local government about their activities, I am always comparing their practices with economic development theory. When I went to visit Christopher Spaw at Box Lab I was contemplating Adam Smith’s pin factory and how businesses increase productivity. Smith’s basic thesis is that the more stuff a community can make per person, the more prosperous the community is and a community can accomplish this by specializing. Smith’s famous example is the pin factory where, he says, one person can make one pin a day if he is to do each of the steps himself. If 8 people work at it, each focusing on a different step in making the pin (one person stretches the wire, one person cuts the wire, another sharpens it, another adds the head, etc.) they can make 1,000 pins a day. Specialization has increased to the degree that it is not one person dedicated to stretching the wire but one company. Another company cuts the wire and another assembles the pin. Within each of those companies, people focus on even more specialized tasks.

And then I walk in to Box Lab. Box Lab is part architectural office, part contractor, part landlord, part retail shop, part building material dealer; in short, the opposite of specialization. Christopher says it evolved this way because he wanted to demonstrate possibilities. As an architect, his design aesthetic evolved in a European context. He designed summer homes for Norwegian clients, drew inspiration from European cities. But he is a K-State grad and wanted to bring innovative modern design and cutting edge materials to Kansas. And not the bustling, metropolitan Kansas City but two hours west, in little ol’ Manhattan.

Box Lab began as a specialist, a modern architectural office. Christopher designed buildings that were modern and environmentally responsible. Then the client would have to find someone to build the building and find a supplier of the innovative and technologically advanced materials such as the Quad-Lock insulated concrete forms or the Alpen windows. In the middle of Kansas, that can be difficult. But Christopher located here because he believed that Kansans should have access to the same forward thinking design that is available in Europe or big US cities. Box Lab began building the buildings themselves and became a distributor for many of the materials used in the building. Now the client can get the building they want and get it at a lower cost than if they order each component separately.

Christopher said he wanted, “in a small-scale way to showcase what can be done, what we are talking about.” He is not just talking about a modern design aesthetic. He is talking about creating buildings that are environmentally responsible, have lower utility bills, resist fire and natural disasters. People come to Box Lab for many reasons. Opening the storefront on Poyntz Avenue (the main business district in Manhattan) and expanding their product lines is another way to reach people. They may come into the store for the Luceplan light fixtures or the Vola faucets. The store captures their imagination about what is possible in their home. Sometimes it leads to a remodeling project or addition. Other times it leads to ooh-ing and ahh-ing over the jewelry by Susan Richter-O’Connell.

How does a place like Box Lab fit into the quest for higher productivity? They do not specialize in a product but they do specialize in an idea. They demonstrate that my house does not have to be a sieve for warm air. I can protect my home and family from disaster. Our house can be designed for the ebb and flow of contemporary family life. Without the vision, without the research in and access to pioneering design that Box Lab provides, I may never know what is possible. “If you can show people other options, then they say, ‘yes, I get it.’” Christopher said.

 
When my family was in town last month, we visited Box Lab because my mother-in-law wanted to get some of the Haba toys for her (almost 9!) grandchildren. My parents, in the middle of a kitchen remodel were ogling the Miele appliances. Having downsized his tool collection, my brother-in-law was captivated by the Festool line of tools, and contemplated immediately rebuilding. My daughter, though 3, wanted to hold the Iittala glassware (and I followed her around repeating, “Look with your eyes, please.”) Box Lab began as an architectural office and became a curator of modern life.

A New Beginning

When I was living in Boston and told my friends and colleagues that I was moving to Minneapolis, they stared at me like I was crazy. “Why would you ever go so far away from everything? What could possibly be in Minneapolis that would be worth moving for?” they were thinking. When I moved from Minneapolis to Champaign in Central Illinois, it was understandable. “She is moving for school. Is there any other reason to move to such a remote location?” And now I have moved to a city half the size of Champaign: Manhattan, Kansas.

In the US, 71 percent of people live in urbanized areas.* Most of them cannot conceive of why the other 29 percent do not live in cities. But that 29 percent are doing a lot of creative, forward-thinking things. Of course most of the domestic food supply is grown and harvested by them. But there are many other enterprises out here. With this blog I aim to highlight the start-ups, the small businesses, and companies that populate these less populated places.

I hope this blog will help acquaint both you and I with the reasons they located here, the issues they face, and the activity that takes place out here. As a new Kansan resident, I plan to begin with businesses in this state and gradually expand the reach of the blog. If you know of an interesting business out here on the prairie, tweet me @katenesse. I would love to hear about them.

* 2010 Census Summary File 1, table P2. An urbanized area is any incorporated city, town or village with at least 50,000 people.