As father hands a firm down to son, Brian Moore Log Homes pledges to continue a tradition of building excellence
By Martin Slofstra & Produced by Sabah Choudhry
Since 1979, Brian Moore Log Homes has been building handcrafted log homes, post and beam log homes, timber frame homes and dovetail log homes using large diam¬eter hand-peeled cedar and Douglas fir logs from the forests of British Columbia. Its portfolio ranges from retreat homes to commercial build¬ings as large as 11,000 square feet.
As can be imagined, building a log home is not the simplest of processes, nor can a customer’s requirements ever be taken for granted.
Says son and business school graduate, Aaron, 32, who in Sept. 2006 joined the company founded and owned by his father, Brian, 58, and now in the middle of what he calls a generational transition: “It’s all about service.”
“It’s not uncommon to work with clients between one and two years, it’s a long process with a lot of handholding,” he says. “It’s a real honour working for our clients. They are people who are building their dream home, and have been thinking about it for some time-up to 10 years. They are putting a lot of their retirement savings into the house, and we don’t take it lightly what they are trying to achieve.”
According to Moore, the number one thing the builder does is to “go to great lengths to pro¬vide personalized service,” adding quality to a high degree of detail and architectural planning. “Just because you have a great set of plans, it does not mean it is going to be built well. People will come to us with hand-drawn drawings or photographs, we take it from there,” he says.
Aesthetically pleasing
There are differing levels of quality in the industry and some people, finds Moore, are just putting wood together. “In the process, we also try to make it aesthetically pleasing, it’s in the joining we do, there are so many different ways to join wood together. You can really turn it into art so it looks great,” he says.
Brian Moore Log Homes is now posi¬tioning itself for the next economic cycle, expanding into new regions and adding new environmentally friendly features.
• First, the company is pursuing diversification. It added five new representatives in 2008 to sell its products, especially in Europe, and is seeking to add more as it moves into US and Asia;
• Second, it has invested a great deal into software, such as AutoCAD, allowing it to design and build more complex projects.
• Third, it is testing new wood preservatives. “For some reason, in Europe they like their exterior wood to age, while we want to preserve every¬thing. We are working on ways to protect your wood while letting it age naturally,” he says.
• Fourth, investing in new environmentally friendly methods, for example, working with Jeremiah Johnson Log Homes in Dumont, Colo. to build LEED-certified log home, “Energy performance is the future of our industry,” he believes.
Brian Moore Log Homes is always working to improve its processes. When the company starts a project, it assigns a Project Lead who is responsible, along with a general contrac¬tor, to help finish a dream home.
People with passion
The passion of the people is evidence by Brian Moore’s employee Hideto Kaneko, who approaches his craft with a mixture of skill and enthusiasm, whether it’s a complicated post and beam or timber frame project involving complex math calculations, or using AutoCAD drafting soft¬ware to augment the basic drawings. Kaneko has done work in Whistler, BC, Greece and Japan, using an ever increasing complexity of designs to suit local tastes. That, in a nutshell, is the future of the business, says Moore.
“I firmly believe that to be successful with our clients we need to have a local builder in the area. And so, we rely on our representatives with established reputations. Having good business partners is the first thing.”
Brian Moore Log Homes is now represented in eight different countries, “and we are in front of them every single year to undertake joint mar¬keting programs. We will do open houses, good relationships with architects and clients, and build references,” he says.
Succession is a huge issue. ”We hired a consultant to value the company and to develop a plan. The trick for us is to have the right bal¬ance between my father Brian, and passing on his responsibility for project management to the project leads, who deal with clients to make sure they get what they agreed to.”
It makes absolute sense to take a long-term view of the business. “A log-and-timber home will last a long time, about 100 years,” he says. The company, now in its 30th year of business is in it for the long-term, “And I am going to be there working with clients, managing the business and keeping it as lean as possible.”
View Digital Corporate Profile of BrianMoore in Construction Digital June 2009