Revving it out of the recession

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DILWORTH ─Trent Haston grew up in Charlotte, but On the Level bets he picked up some of his business savvy from a tried-and-true driving maneuver straight from twisting back roads of the Blue Ridges.

What you do is gear down as you approach a curve, then give it some gas while you’re turning the wheel so you can floor it as you glide into next the straightaway.

That’s how Haston not only survived the housing bust but beat it, too, growing his Charlotte-based Andrew Roby General Contractor business into the Roby Family of Companies.

It’s practically an empire now, and one that was built coming out of the country’s worst economic times since the Great Depression.

Here’s how the 35-year-old company CEO did it: When the economy stalled and a lot of Andrew Roby’s competitors dropped out of business, Haston ─ pronounced HASTE-on ─ didn’t cut back when the road got twisty.

He reinvested in his family company, and as many of his competitors slowed down or got out of the business altogether, he took over their share of the market.

Now, even though the Charlotte economy is just starting to recover, Roby’s annual revenues returned to their pre-recession 2008 level after only a one-year fall-off.

This year’s revenues are expected to be at least $32 million, or 2½-fold in three years.

These are the good old days for Haston, who with his wife, Reagan, has three daughters, 5, 3 and 2.

We found him not behind the wheel of a car but a desk in his office on the upper level of a refurbished 1935 bungalow in the Midtown end of Dilworth. An old wall map of North Carolina shows all the different soil substrates and mineral deposits in the state.

This is a really cool map. Are you into gold and gems at all, the collecting and history? North Carolina was the biggest gold state before the Civil War. They shut ’em down because of the war; they needed the labor. They didn’t reopen them after because the price of gold was so low and the cost of labor so high that it wasn’t worth it. I’m all about North Carolina and its history.

How about the history of Andrew Roby? My father, Ron Haston, is really the patriarch of the company, and he’s still with us as president, spending most of his time in the field. The company was founded in 1950 by Andrew Robicsek ─ his brother, Francis, is a famous heart surgeon around here. My grandfather, Glenn Haston, was his first employee. It was basically a one-man remodeling firm. In the early 1960s, it was pretty much said and agreed-upon that the Haston family would buy it. The legend is that my grandfather had to get a loan to get Christmas gifts one year because Roby ─ he had changed his name to Americanize it ─ had no money to pay him, so he gave my grandfather stock. I don’t know if that’s how it started or not, but in 1976, my father, who was working here full-time by then, and my grandfather purchased the business.

And the more recent history? It was really all about remodeling, high-end remodeling. People with money to spend will spend it on remodeling. They tend to be discerning, willing to pay to get exactly what they want, and we’ve always enjoyed doing it, working with people and their families in their homes. But up until the 2003, when I joined the management team, our brand had been pigeonholed a little too much into remodeling, and coming out of the recession, I saw a chance to rebrand as a custom builder, and now we have operations in Boone, the Triangle and Atlantic Beach; a commercial division; and even Roby Electric.

How much is what? It’s about 50 percent residential remodeling, 20 percent new residential construction and 30 percent commercial. We’ve been doing more new construction than ever, mostly infill, and it’s totally custom, no spec building. A lot of people ask about how many jobs we do a year, and the truth is with our Robee Handy.man division, we do more than 1,000 jobs a year of all sizes, from something tiny to multimillion-dollar remodels and new builds. You get a better idea by looking at our annual revenues, which were $22.5 million last year; this year, we’re on track to do $32 to $35 million.

Wow. This will give you some perspective on us: We did $13 million in ’08; $7.4 million in ’09; $13 million in 2010; $16.5 million in 2011; $22.5 million last year; and probably about mid-$30 million this year.

The recession was just a blip for you. We hung in there and gained market share; that’s how we survived and then grew faster than the recovery. Other people jumped out of business, and we ramped it up a little. We bumped up our branding and our community involvement ─ that’s really important in this community ─ and while they might have been smaller projects, people still remodeled, fixing up what they owned rather than buying new. Instead of the brakes, we hit the gas pedal a little bit.

Rebranding? What’s that mean? Well, like our slogans, “Priceless service for a fair price;” “Exceptional quality, craftsmanship and customer service, for life;” “If you do a great job for the parents, their kids won’t know anything else;” “We want to do your primary residence, your vacation home, your investment properties and your corporate work.”

You think those up? Yeah, I did those myself.

What’s a high-end remodeling job these days? We do an awful lot of master baths, nice master baths, and second master suites, garages with mother-in-law suites. But the kitchen remodel is still the staple.

I meant in terms of money. A kitchen remodel, you’ve got $30,000, $50,000, $100,000, depending on what you put in there, the finishes and appliances. In 2005 and ’06, a high-end kitchen remodel was $100,000. In 2008, ’09, ’10, people said a $100,000 kitchen job was a thing of the past. Now it can be $150,000, $200,000, and we’re doing more of them than ever. A lot of people even said custom remodeling and building was a thing of the past. But last week, one of our sales people said we had received 140 calls. Our best week ever was 60. We’re still on the cusp of the economy coming back, but our share of the market has just grown so much.

(A fluorescent fixture over Haston’s desk suddenly flickers on.)

Did that light just turn on or was I having a flashback? Ha. Yeah, I’m a high-end contractor and I got a light that doesn’t work and a rain spot on the ceiling.

Was it predestined that you would become El Capitan of the business? I grew up in the ditch, riding in dump trucks. And the summer before my college graduation from UNC, I started estimating jobs for the company. I majored in economics because Dad always said he couldn’t feed another Haston in the contracting business. He said I should be a doctor, a lawyer or a banker. And he said that no matter what degree I got in college, if I did get into contracting, I’d have to spend five years as a carpenter to earn respect in the business. But I never installed even a sheet of drywall, and here I am.