The year was 1993.
Two men, John and Matt Housworth, father and son, were exploring a run-down, abandoned pallet manufacturing plant in Eatonton, Georgia.
Despite looking like a “war zone,” the men saw past the debris to a fully operational portable storage building manufacturing plant.
This year, Southeastern Buildings celebrated its 30th anniversary. Three decades of struggles, successes, moves, lasting relationships, and thousands of portable structures.
Shed Builder Magazine had the chance to ask Matt, who is now co-owner and president of the company, about Southeastern’s history and future, with his brother Keith, co-owner and vice president, at his side.
What inspired you to start the shed business 30 years ago?
We were in the retail shed business that our father and mother started in Loganville, Georgia—Town and Country Buildings. Our father was very particular about the sheds we sold and decided we should build our own sheds that he believed better represented ourselves as a family and the expectations of our market.
With that, the idea of Southeastern Buildings was conceived.
One rainy day in 1993, my dad and I drove to Eatonton, Georgia, to look at an old pallet manufacturing plant. Dad told me that he wanted the family to start manufacturing our own portable storage buildings to supply our current retail locations around Atlanta and he thought this old, run-down manufacturing plant would be the perfect place.
Even though the abandoned facility looked like something out of a war zone, I agreed with him. The only thing we disagreed on that day was that Dad thought the old pallet plant was too big and I thought it wouldn’t be big enough. That’s how it all started.
In the early days of Southeastern, there was just our family, my dad, mother (Marlene), myself, and my brother.
We built our first building in our new facility in November 1993, a 10 by 12. I loosely say a facility … it was just a large, empty 23,000-square-foot expanse of concrete with this small 10 by 12 sitting in the middle of it.
Now, we have two production lines and not an inch of wasted space. And since starting in 1993, that old pallet plant proved to be too small, we have had to expand and build separate production and storage facilities many times.
But isn’t that the nature of what drives sales in our industry? Nobody ever seems to have enough space, not even storage shed manufacturers.
By the late 2000s, my brother and I were getting to the point where we saw a different direction for the company and approached our parents for a buyout of the company and all assets.
It took years of back and forth, mostly for our parents to become okay with actually retiring, and in January 2010, a deal was struck for the purchase of the company.
It was a little surreal at first but after about six months we started initiating our plans for change. Not all things changed, but eventually, much did.
Share the challenges, successes, and growth you’ve experienced over the past three decades.
Challenges … they are everywhere at every turn in this business. Challenges are definitely opportunities to grow. Even with the tough ones, knowledge is gained that later can be expanded upon.
The toughest challenges have always proved to be those that are out of your control. We have run production, sales, trucking, delivery, on sites, office, etc., with as many as 60-plus employees and as few as 20. I’ve seen orders stack up in the hundreds and no orders for weeks.
The challenge of being in this business for the long run is demanding. Expanding and retracting the company with the economy and remaining profitable is a must. We feel positive growth investments at the proper time and good people are key to that.
Success can be measured in many ways. I would say the greatest success for Keith and I was having our parents come to us specifically to express how proud they are for what we did with the company years after the purchase.
I know it was hard for them to watch the changes and new directions. We made some hard changes, we hired some good people, we took chances, made mistakes, but got some things right, also.
Dad always said it’s about getting more right than you get wrong. I guess that would be a good definition of success. Being able to work side by side with my brother for over 30 years would be my best personal success.
Do you have many longtime employees? Describe the relationships between the family and the employees.
We do have many long-term employees. The employee who has been with us the longest is our CFO and she has been with us for over 25 years.
We have several who are 20 years and eight who are 10 years plus. We have had quite a few who retired from their employment with us after 14 to 20 years with our company.
Thirty years is a long time. I’ve seen employees marry and have children, and those children grow up and have children of their own.
In thirty years, I have witnessed the entire life cycle with our employees and admittedly it’s sometimes tough to deal with. When you work on the production floor, the office, and in the field side by side for decades with people, you can’t help but develop a relationship with some that becomes as close as family.
At times we celebrate births, graduations, and marriages, and in the next moment, we are grieving for the passing of an employee or their loved ones. It’s a never-ending cycle of life that takes such a careful personal hand to manage and still meet the challenges of production and sales.
We try to do our best.
How have you maintained relationships with family, employees, suppliers, and vendors as you’ve grown to the number of dealerships you have today?
Originally when Southeastern was started, the plan was to only build sheds for our own retail locations. One day a gentleman stopped by and convinced our parents to sell to him wholesale.
Twenty-seven years later, we still service that dealership. It also is under second-generation family ownership!
How we maintain those relationships with the dealerships that represent our sheds is by dedicating that responsibility to one person. After Keith and I purchased the company, this was something we wanted to do and that was to have dedicated dealer service.
Initially, I took that responsibility upon myself to get to know and assist our accounts on a closer level. Three years later, we hired a person for that position, and, yes, we still have that hire in our employ, and after 13 years, he is still taking care of and expanding accounts.
Suppliers are maintained by our purchasing agent. Again, we have a dedicated person for that position. Our purchasing agent is responsible for maintaining supplier relationships, shopping materials, forecasting the supply chain/pricing, and maintaining an extensive inventory of supplies for manufacturing.
This requires a lot of time on the computer and phone but equally as important is performing minimum twice a week on the floor inspections and counts of materials. They are also charged with inspecting and receiving all deliveries from our suppliers.
What’s your operation like today?
Southeastern Buildings offers portable sheds to our accounts and on-site builds for our retail division only. Our retail division is under Town and Country Outdoor Products and through that we offer storage sheds, carports, on-site builds, barns, pavilions, pasture shelters, cargo trailers, and equipment trailers.
Our production operation today consists of two identical 200-foot-long production lines. We build and sell 2,200 plus portable sheds each year except for the year of COVID when we exceeded 3,000.
Generally, we employ 38 to 42 people, sometimes more depending on demand. We use a lot of equipment, including component saws, a Holtec, forklifts, a roll former, brakes, shears, panel saws, presses, etc.
We have four road tractors with 53-foot trailers and three residential delivery trucks and trailers backed up with shed Mules.
And every tool and every piece of equipment has a backup. Nothing in our operation relies on only one thing.
Except electricity. Today the storm took our power out and shut us down for four hours. We don’t have a backup for that.
Our buildings are wood framed. We use steel roofing and steel and wood siding.
Buildings are produced in truckloads and run down the rolling production lines as such. The production lines have dedicated floor/wall/siding/roofing/and final finish sections. They are then moved by forklift to the wholesale yard on our property where they are arranged and stored as truckloads awaiting shipment. We try to have a truckload hit the yard two days before the scheduled shipment to dealerships.
We have a cut shop that houses two component saws and our truss pressing operation. Studs, plates, trusses, etc., are cut here and then stocked in the manufacturing plant per demand.
Materials are not stored in our plant. They are stored in outside buildings and shelters. Plant floor space is dedicated to building and material feeding access only.
How long does it take for you to build a shed?
I get asked that a lot. We build eight to 12 a day, depending on the size and depending on the options.
How long does it take from first contact to delivery of a shed? That depends, if it’s on the sales lot and there’s an opening in the schedule, it could be the same day. If we must build it and it requires something special, it could take three weeks to acquire materials, get it in production with other orders ahead of it, schedule a date, and deliver.
We try to not do too much customization to our production line sheds. You can choose from many models and place the doors and windows where you want them, raise walls, choose colors, etc. With our on-site builds, we offer a lot of customizing.
Most popular feature? Big, 6-foot-wide double doors.
What success really stands out to you?
What shed-building success really stands out to me? For the production line, it was fulfilling an order to a flea market venture.
They were all 10 by 12s with aluminum siding, aluminum roofing, one door, one window, all the same color, and built exactly alike. We built them in three days with 27 hours of labor. About every 30 minutes a building came off the line, sometimes sooner.
This was around 20 years ago, and at that time, we only had one production line. It was really exciting to watch and manage that. We had the guys pumped up, the materials prepped, and they rolled.
For our small production line at that time, it was a great run.
What does the future look like for your business?
The future looks good for our business. Our market seems to be strong on the outskirts of the city suburbs and more rural areas, and with the suburbs in the south pushing out trying to escape congestion and people following that growth, again I think the future looks good.
The great thing about the shed industry is this: Almost every person is a customer. Most people never have enough storage. If you don’t live in an apartment or townhome, you are potentially a customer.
When people come to your sales lots for a retail sale, most do not stop by because they want to spend thousands of dollars to install a great-looking shed to dress up their property. No, they need a shed. They have a need for storage.
With that said, you do not have to convince them that they need your product. That most important decision has already been made! You just need to assist them in making other decisions, answering their questions, and following through with a production, delivery, and set-up experience that pleases and meets the expectations of your customer.
