Local News
May 2, 2008
Lumber Company Is A Family Affair
Baltimore’s National Lumber, a fifth-generation family affair, continues to ply on.
Maayan Jaffe
Staff Reporter
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There’s a black, hand-operated adding machine atop a filing cabinet in the back office of National Lumber Co. It’s labeled “total office equipment, 1933.”
“I lugged that machine back and forth every night to my home, to price up the bills for that particular day,” recalled 90-year-old Leonard Fruman, who took over the business from his father and grandfather years ago. “Now, I look around and see all this technical stuff, all the computers. It just seems like I started in one world and finished in another.”
It’s true that the 89-year-old business, started by Russian immigrant Alexander Fruman — who carried a handsaw across the Atlantic — and son, Isadore, at Central Avenue and Gough Street in Little Italy, has changed.
It is in its third location, now in the 4900 block of Pulaski Highway. It’s in its fifth generation of owners. It no longer carries solely its original roughly 100 wood-related products, but thousands. Its new slogan is “Everything for building.”
However, as Arnold Fruman, Leonard’s son, explained, it’s not as altered as one would believe. National Lumber, he said, “combines old- fashioned personalized service with the newest high-tech products.”
While other companies fell by the wayside over the years — because they didn’t adapt to change, find a market niche or have people to take over, as Arnold Fruman put it — National Lumber has grown. There are “secrets” to the company’s success, according to the company elder.
The first is its constant willingness to expand. When a neighboring lumber yard with a specialty National Lumber didn’t offer would shut down, National Lumber would recruit its best people, purchase its best equipment and expand into another niche.
At big conglomerates, there’s a lot of turnover. Employee retention — of the company’s 30 employees, six have been there for the last decade — sets National Lumber apart, said Leonard Fruman. Arnold Fruman noted it’s because of how the company treats them.
“Treat your employees in the same fashion you would expect if your positions were reversed,” he said. “We are the owners, but we don’t sit in an office all day. We are part of the team.”
They know their products. “I’ve been here over 70 years, I don’t know how to do anything else,” Leonard Fruman quipped.
The combination of having it all and offering kindness has meant word-of-mouth driven sales. Robert Slatkin, a former paint and hardware wholesaler who used to sell to National Lumber and recently purchased replacement windows from the company for personal use, said he regularly promotes the company.
“They follow up. Whatever they promise comes true!” said Mr. Slatkin. “When I sold to them, they always paid on time, were always fair and just a pleasure to deal with. They are not a big box store like Home Depot or Lowe’s, but they have everything you need.”
The company isn’t recession-proof, Arnold Fruman admitted, but they’ve kept up because of the company’s decision to diversify.
“We’ve been fortunate because we didn’t restrict ourselves to one product line. We have gone with a lot of non-traditional lumber items to get us through this. We are very spread out with a lot of different products to appeal to a mass market,” he said.
He explained that many in the lumber business concentrate on one specific facet, only selling to people who build new homes, for example, and someone in that situation is going to feel the crunch more than a place like National Lumber, which has sundry customers to draw on.
Arnold’s sons, Kevin, 33, and Neal, 30, have been a big part of this diversification. While Arnold continues to focus on lumber and plywood, Kevin specializes in doors, windows and millwork, for example. Neal oversees the kitchen cabinet, composite decking and rails arenas.
“I realized how exciting it would be to try to work with one another and to grow the business, which we’ve really been able to do since Kevin and I came on,” Neal Fruman said.
Working as a family has also been a plus. A family business works best when all members share the same expectations and work ethic, and understand that while the time commitment could be overwhelming at points, it is also rewarding, explained Arnold Fruman.
Though not enjoying the health of past years, Leonard is still part of the company, regularly checking in and offering guidance. His memory is sharp, and he was eager to tell how National Lumber supplied the plywood to board up windows of properties struck by the 1968 riots, and how it sold the wood that Pope John Paul II walked on as he disembarked from the train during his visit to Baltimore in 1995.
He remembered making wooden crates for bootleggers more than 70 years ago. He recalled how he fashioned the mauls and wooden handles for the city vice squad to beat down the doors of illegal gambling establishments, doors that he made for the gamblers with steel plates on the inside.
“[The squad] would be using our mauls on our doors,” he said with a laugh.
However, Leonard Fruman also looks to the future. Glancing up at pictures of his two toddler great-grandchildren, he envisions National Lumber’s sixth generation.
“If they were in the business 25 years from now, that would be ideal,” Neal said, partially to his grandfather.
Leonard responded, “First, they’ve got to toilet train. After that, they go into real training — for the business.”