Raising the Bar

The Importance of Communication, Connections, and Professionalism

By Christopher Tatge

In April of 2024, I attended the Montreal Wood Convention for the second year in a row. It’s a great conference with a lot of opportunities to meet industry players and understand a supply chain that is shaped by buying and selling commodities. When you’re in that game, differentiators are hard to come by. Price is king and the guy holding lumber and materials purchased at the lowest cost should win. Any framer who has ever sold a 2x4 probably already knows that.

But it wasn’t always this way…Years back, the Montreal Wood Convention was much different. Unlike the recent shows I have attended with the focus on speakers, vendor booths, economic forecasts, and everything you would expect at a conference, it had much less formal beginnings. In the past, lumber traders and lumber mills would show up in Montreal, the lumber mills would rent space and invite their customers to come and talk about doing more business together. Their ultimate differentiator was the relationship. Today, the existence and importance of relationships still rings true, and you hear lumber guys talking about it all the time. Any one of them can recall the 30-year history of where one of their colleagues has worked over the course of their career. 

It was striking how well-connected the attendees were. And while a lot of these lumber traders are competing every day, they still have a willingness to learn from each other. I left Montreal and the conference thinking about my own experiences with the National Framers Council, the network I had built over decades, and how much stronger as an industry we could be just through talking more, investing in relationships, and sharing best practices. 

By continuing to build strong relationships and fostering a spirit of collaboration, we can ensure a resilient and innovative future for the framing industry, and construction as a whole.

In fact, I wouldn’t be here without leaders and mentors like Kenny Shifflett and Bruce Jones, who transitioned from carpenters to businessmen, and in turn inspired me to think bigger and aim higher. Conversations with industry veterans, like George Hull and Scott Stevens, revealed opportunities in lumber procurement that I hadn’t considered. I’ll never forget the time I was riding with George to lunch; he was having a conversation with his business partner about the timing for buying out the lumber on a project. He turned to me and said “Chris, I might make $30,000, I might lose $30,000, but I’m holding those dice and we’ll see when I let ‘em go.” This moment helped lead to a powerful transformation in my business and an ongoing mission with the NFC.

When the National Framers Council was founded, the vision was to bring more professionalism to the framing industry while helping framers grow. It’s no secret that when I was a framing labor contractor, it was tough to get a seat at the design table. It wasn’t typical in my region for the framer to be involved in the design process, and so I needed a solution. That’s when I began to supply the materials. If I was the guy writing the check for the 2x4, it was a lot easier to influence design. 

It was a lightning bolt moment of sorts, but there’s another very important element to all of this, something that I’ve had to learn and teach myself over the years. Naturally, like many of you, I was great at swinging a hammer, building walls, and leading a crew. However, I wasn’t great at communicating with design professionals on their level. I had to learn things, like an email with a well-marked up PDF (rather than a phone call on the fly) was a much more effective way to get things done. At the end of the day, it was a major change in perspective.

I think as framers, we inherently look at projects differently and we understand constructability better than the architect, engineer, and general contractor. Of course, all those roles are needed to get a project built. 

The thing that’s been lacking has been our early influence in the whole build process. 

Raising the bar on professionalism with my companies, DC Materials LLC and Dynamic Construction, has gotten me invited to countless early design meetings. I’ve collaborated with architects in my market to create better details they use in all their jobs. It has helped me win work and add consistency to the projects I build, in turn making my labor more efficient. All of it combined has made a positive impact and helps set us apart from the rest.

How do we get there as an industry? Spending time talking with colleagues and finding mentors. Hosting and attending conventions, conferences, workshops, and sharing more information about best practices. Embracing change and new approaches by moving away from the “we’ve always done it that way” mindset and being open to new ideas and technology. Networking and collaboration are not just buzzwords, they are the lifeblood of success in any business. My journey highlights how these elements can transform a business and drive progress. By continuing to build strong relationships and fostering a spirit of collaboration, we can ensure a resilient and innovative future for the framing industry, and construction as a whole.