lines, rk Miles found their niche by
returning to the original formula that
made them successful in their early
years. As Joe explains, “We can’t be
all things to all people. You’ve got
to figure out what you’re going to
do and you have to do really well in
that one area. At the end of the day,
we are a building material supplier,
and our core customers are general
contractors and small contractors.
Having recognized that, we continue
to focus on lumber, building mate-
rials, and hardware that is aimed at
that customer base.”
Joe also emphasizes the importance
of community connection.
He is a native Vermonter who loved
growing up in Arlington. “I had
friends up and down the road. I
would wake up on a Saturday, roll
out of bed, and call my buddies. We’d
play touch football and kick-the-can
all day long until we heard the cow-
bell ring at seven o’clock. Then we
knew it was time to come home.”
Joe still lives in Southern Vermont.
He and his wife, Christine, raised
their children in Manchester, which
he says is “a wonderful place to raise
a family. There are great things to do:
The rink, the schools, the mountains
… all those things that kids want and
should be doing. That’s what makes it
so terrific.”
Joe’s 27-year-old son Henry is now
involved in the family business. He is
busy at work, helping with the Allen
Lumber acquisition and continuing
the tradition of family ownership and
company re-invention.
Joe became involved with the fam-
ily business in his 20s in a similar
fashion to Henry and speaks fondly
of his early years working at rk
Miles. He emphasizes the crucial role
that other employees played in the
development of his work ethic. For
example, Wayne Norris, the man-
ager who he worked under when he
first started in the late 1980s, was “a
taskmaster. He would tell me ‘Joe, I
want you here at 4:30 in the morning.
We’ve got to be on top of Stratton to
unload a truck.’ That type of work,
that physicality—I really liked that.
I learned a lot from Wayne. He was
very influential.”
Joe also credits his wife and Brenda
Beanland, rk Miles’ current chief
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