# McKinnon Lumber Co. > https://rundoo.ai/clients/mckinnon-lumber-co/ Lumber # McKinnon Lumber Co. A Hollister lumber yard founded in 1869 trades hand-written tags for Rundoo, and its contractors start quoting jobs at 10:30 at night Location Hollister, California Previous POS None Suppliers [Orgill](/partners/orgill/index.md) ![McKinnon Lumber Co.](https://pub-5247264bd04e4ebeaecbbedb3bebb9f8.r2.dev/static/images/clients/mckinnon-lumber-co-golive.jpeg) McKinnon Lumber has been selling wood in Hollister, California since 1869, and for most of that history the yard kept track of what went out the gate with manual tags. No scanners, no screens, no software, only tags and the people who knew how to read them. It is the kind of setup that outside consultants love to describe as a problem and that the crew running it would describe, accurately, as a system that worked quite well. ## Too weak to work here Logan Kowalk turned up while he was still in high school, though the yard had already been in his life for a while by then. He was doing handyman projects around town for neighbors who happened to be McKinnon customers, and when he was ready for his first official job, a classmate who happened to be the granddaughter of John, the owner, told him to go apply. John met the application with the warmest possible welcome. > "Why do you want to work here? You're too weak to work here!" John had a great sense of humor, was one of the kindest men Logan has ever met, and was more than happy to hand him the job. Logan went off to San Jose State, came back with a degree in mechanical engineering, and started full-time at the yard. ## A job that resists a title His role is difficult to define and has no formal title attached to it, which in a family lumber yard is less a gap in the org chart than a description of the work. From 6:15 in the morning until 5:15 in the evening, every day, he handles vendor relationships, yard activity, deliveries, accounting, day-to-day sales, and, most recently, the changeover of the point of sale itself. That last one arrived out of necessity rather than ambition, because the setup McKinnon had been running was headed for the end of its support, and a system nobody stands behind is a system on a countdown. ## The neighbors talk The first Logan heard of Rundoo was in a conversation with the yard's neighbors at [Hollister Paint](/clients/hollister-paint/index.md), who had been running on it, spoke highly of the modern technology, and told McKinnon to take a look. Rundoo co-founder Nick Hershey drove down to the yard to demonstrate the system in the place where it would have to work, walking Logan through how it ran. The team got McKinnon up and running when the yard needed to be up and running, and carried the whole crew through the transition rather than handing over a login and wishing them luck. ## Quoting a job at 10:30 at night A month or so in, two things stood out above the rest. The first was inventory tracking and management, which is the unglamorous heart of running a lumber yard and the thing hand-written tags will never do at scale. The second was the Customer app, which the contractors took to immediately. > "We've received a lot of positive feedback, particularly from contractors who can quote jobs at 10:30 p.m. and check prices in real-time from their phones." Contractors do not price out a job during banker's hours. They price it out at the end of a long day, on a phone, sitting somewhere that is not the lumber yard, and until now that meant waiting for morning and a phone call. As far as Logan knows, no other yard around has an app like it, which has made it a pleasure to watch the effect it has had on McKinnon's customers. ## A lumber yard in a paint-heavy crowd Logan is aware that McKinnon has had a distinctive experience, since a lumber yard asks different questions than a paint store does, and answering those questions took hands-on support and a real dedication to what the yard needed. > "I'm eager to see how we can continue to grow together and make each other successful." A business that opened its doors in 1869 has survived every technology anyone has ever tried to sell it, which is worth remembering before assuming the next one will stick. The tags worked. What replaced them had to work better, and it had to do it without slowing down a yard that opens at 6:15 in the morning whether or not the software is ready. ![Logan Kowalk](https://pub-5247264bd04e4ebeaecbbedb3bebb9f8.r2.dev/static/images/clients/mckinnon-lumber-co-owner.png) Logan Kowalk General Manager, Hollister, California Share this story [← All client stories](/clients/index.md) Suppliers & partners [Orgill](/partners/orgill/index.md) ## Recommended reading [![Ordering from Bradley Caldwell, PACOA, and your farm-and-home distributors](https://pub-5247264bd04e4ebeaecbbedb3bebb9f8.r2.dev/static/images/articles/pos-for-bradley-caldwell-pacoa-dealers-thumb.png) ### Ordering from Bradley Caldwell, PACOA, and your farm-and-home distributors How farm, feed, and pet-supply stores that buy from Bradley Caldwell, PACOA, Wallace, and Orgill turn distributor ordering into a search and a scan instead of a portal and a clipboard.](/insights/pos-for-bradley-caldwell-pacoa-dealers/index.md) [![Net-30 without the headache: contractor charge accounts for paint stores](https://pub-5247264bd04e4ebeaecbbedb3bebb9f8.r2.dev/static/images/articles/contractor-charge-accounts-paint-stores-thumb.png) ### Net-30 without the headache: contractor charge accounts for paint stores Contractor charge accounts are the financial backbone of a paint store, and doing them right means house accounts, per-customer pricing, clean statements, real aging, and a way for painters to pay from their phone instead of the shoebox-and-spreadsheet workaround a general POS forces on you.](/insights/contractor-charge-accounts-paint-stores/index.md) [![Farm accounts, seasonal terms, and getting paid at harvest](https://pub-5247264bd04e4ebeaecbbedb3bebb9f8.r2.dev/static/images/articles/farm-charge-accounts-and-seasonal-terms-thumb.png) ### Farm accounts, seasonal terms, and getting paid at harvest How farm and feed stores run charge accounts on the growing calendar, from house accounts and per-customer pricing to statements, aging, and seasonal terms that let producers pay after harvest.](/insights/farm-charge-accounts-and-seasonal-terms/index.md) ## More lumber stores on Rundoo [### Missouri River Lumber Fort Benton, Montana](/clients/missouri-river-lumber/index.md) [### Vetter Lumber Bluffton, Ohio](/clients/vetter-lumber/index.md) ## Keep exploring Rundoo [### Rundoo for lumber stores See how the platform is built for a store like this one.](/industries/lumber/index.md) [### Tour the product POS, inventory, payments, and AI in one system. See what runs the counter.](/product/index.md) ## See Rundoo run a store like yours Book a demo and we will walk you through how Rundoo works for a store like yours, at your pace and on the questions that matter to you. [Book a demo](/signup/index.md) [(312) 319-1142](tel:3123191142)