THE REAL MCCOYS

Family will celebrate its 50th year in San Marcos

Texas boasts many historically significant family-run businesses, among which are oil and gas production and ranching. When it comes to San Marcos, though, the business of note is the stuff that those other industries’ dreams truly are made of: McCoy Building Supply.

While the origins of the company date to the late 1920s when Frank McCoy started a roofing company in Galveston, 2023 is the 50th anniversary year of McCoy Building Supply digging into the soil of San Marcos to establish this place as its headquarter city. The company, one of the country’s largest privately held building supply retailers, sits solidly on the shoulders of four generations of dedicated family members who epitomize the concepts of sweat equity, with a documented track record of ethical practices that embody a love for coming to work daily.

For those in the community who have shared the journey with the company, this is a family operation that listens to its employees and Hays County, as seen in its three working mantras developed across the decades. One company bylaw of sorts acknowledges, rather to the point, that its customer base is “Born to Build.” A second was born from the loss of then 28-year-old son and sibling Dennis McCoy exactly 30 years ago in a private plane crash: “Grow Self, Grow Others, Grow the Business.” Most recently, as the company expands with new leadership and a renewed vision, McCoy’s wants the world to know it is practicing “Business as UnUsual.”

Perhaps it is the basic and stalwart notion of “every day” that has contributed most to the adaptability and therefore, survivability of this multifaceted corporation, now with 85 stores located in Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma. There are approximately 3,000 employees, three distribution centers and two millwork facilities also under the umbrella of this company. Those statistics are telling, but these numbers alone do not reflect the always healthily regrouping point of view of the company with its consideration of the path ahead defining McCoy’s success. Throughout the 1990s, McCoy’s saw increased competition from what company officials call the “Big Boxes,” Lowe’s and Home Depot. Adjusting to that reality for McCoy’s meant tough years, staying true to its basics and having corporate courage enough to hold the ground long enough to re-access its niche, thus heading the company onward in a changed but ever more strategic direction. For example, at one point, there were 110 McCoy’s stores–now the store count is lower, but the company has found a solid foundation.

Sitting in the upstairs offices at the 80,000-squarefoot headquarters building located off Interstate Highway 35, one may view through the long windows a humbling vista of a still growing community– traffic on the highway is the major clue that San Marcos is no longer a small town. The view speaks to the world of differences that have taken hold in the half century since the McCoy family fittingly finished placing a roof on its original store here.

Retired CEO and current Board Chairman Brian McCoy, father of the current CEO and President Meagan McCoy Jones, sat with friend and colleague Chuck Churchwell, retired CFO and retired board member, and MJ Toops, senior marketing communications specialist, to talk for several hours and share reminiscences of the company from its early days.

In a room away from where they are seated is part of the future–a white architectural model sitting on a table that portends to be, in miniature, a new corporate retreat center envisioned for the company and San Marcos. This office presents an artistic persona of the company: horse sculptures, paintings with Western themes, reproductions of iconic Texas flags and a wallsize series of shelves lined with books. The feeling here is bright and forward thinking, yet comfortably aligned with the history that brought it into being.

“We’re trying to work hard to earn our place in the market, realizing we have very fine competitors who are doing a great job in the realm. And at the same time we’re working hard to say this is our sweet spot here,” McCoy said.

The now close to a century old company was founded when the late Frank McCoy first looked upwards, and headed from Houston to Galveston to start a contract roofing business.

Later and prior to the advent of World War II, the McCoy Roofing Company in 1941 was selling roofing supplies in a limited fashion with Emmett working hand in glove with his father. When the war came, the family left J.E. Overbeck handily in charge at home, and both Emmett and his father joined the U.S. Armed Forces. Frank, a sailor, was in the Merchant Marine and Emmett was in the U.S. Army.

When the war ended, Emmett married Miriam Swanson in Upstate New York in 1946. Two years later, he would start essentially a sister company to his father’s, calling it McCoy Supply Company from which he offered cash and carry building supplies for sale.

Frank retired in 1950 and Emmett continued to expand his new vision, officially changing the company to McCoy Building Supply in 1964.

Emmett who died in 2012 and Miriam, who is in senior care now, had four children: Brenda, the first to go to Texas Tech, Michael, Brian and Dennis. Dennis died tragically on April 30, 1985 on a business trip to see one of the family stores. His memory continues to inspire his siblings and family.

In 1972, the year Brian McCoy graduated from high school, he said, “my Dad decided he wanted to move the business from Galveston.” Dennis who had one more year of high school would finish in San Marcos.

His parents had purchased property, about 300 acres in the San Marcos area for a weekend place, a small ranch in 1962, and had developed a real fondness for the community.

“My Dad just loved it,” McCoy said, and then and there he decided that here was where he wanted to live.

Emmett, who always considered himself the second generation, of all the McCoys was the one who was best with his hands, who “could take the products on the shelves and turn them into furniture or more,” his son said.

McCoy said his parents essentially adopted San Marcos, Central Texas, and the Hill Country, adding to their legacy philanthropically through a foundation and projects at Texas State University.

For the man who learned from his father and shared that learning with his brothers and other family, Brian McCoy said what McCoy’s is today is a demanding workplace.

“Just take a typical McCoy facility. We have a sales floor up front. We have a service counter. Often we have a builder or pro contractor area to serve that customer base and then we have an outside lumberyard operation where deliveries are getting assembled and we’re also letting in customers who are picking up there. … We also have an outside sales team serving the customer. And we also have our manufacturing with our door plant in New Braunfels and also in the Rio Grande Valley. We’re making product that we never really did before. “ For him especially, it has been an “amazing transition over time,” as the company continues to aim at serving its target customers in the best ways possible.

At a time when company’s such as Bed, Bath and Beyond are shuttering, the ideal of reopening, repurposing and reconfiguration signal a healthy bottom line and corporate sense of self for McCoy’s.

“We’re not too far away from our 100th anniversary. … We know we are defying some pretty major odds,” McCoy said. “We’ve enjoyed a good measure of success, but we know what it feels like to fail, too.”

He said that even in a highly competitive environment, knowing one belongs in the marketplace matters.

“We get a chance to earn our place in the market. And I really love that about the business,” he said.

McCoy said that since he was 15 years old, he has called Churchwell his friend and colleague.

Churchwell said, “We all feel like family here,” adding that trust is key in a smaller organization such as McCoy’s was in those early days.

Churchwell said he considered his time spent with McCoy’s as time spent with family. He was in Galveston when the office moved to San Marcos in 1972.

“This is the only job I had out of college. We had five locations at the time,” Churchwell said. I was very pleased to get hired on as that first major trainee. … What a blessing for me.”

Older brother Michael “Mike” was also an integral part of company management until his retirement in 2001. It had been upon the retirement of their father, Emmett, that both Mike and Brian formed an executive team to take the company forward.

COVID-19 brought its fair share of problems to the company in the last few years as the desire of those now at home to build increased relative to the cost of lumber, McCoy said.

Churchwell, with nearly 60 years with the company, and McCoy echoed each other in describing McCoy’s response to the pandemic where actions were balanced on McCoy's ability to be declared one of the businesses the government considered a necessity to stay open during that time.

“I remember assembling a team and saying, ‘Ok, this is great, we’ve got all this walk-in business,” McCoy said, noting that he was wrong in his initial assessment of what this might mean. Business was booming but there were staff considerations and other issues such as online purchasing capability to be addressed.

Here is where Meagan McCoy Jones was able to display the leadership skills most profoundly that propelled her into her new position as president and CEO, her father said.

McCoy Jones took hold of the reins for the company at a time when much of the world was holding its breath fighting the pandemic.

Hands on even before her teenage years, McCoy Jones is the one who must now best assimilate the original vision of the family with a modern sense of purpose for sustained business growth–what her father termed the trajectory of the family.

Today, both Churchwell and McCoy agreed that the company is working hardest to make sure that everyone, including women, feel comfortable working for and shopping at McCoy’s.

With his daughter at the helm, that emphasis is more striking than at any time in the company’s history.

In 2018, McCoy Jones was promoted to president and COO. Last year, she was named to her position as president and CEO.

“For 50 years McCoy’s has called San Marcos home. When my grandparents chose San Marcos for our headquarters, they knew the central location would be important for our company’s growth, and it has been critical. This is a special milestone, and we celebrate it as we continue to grow our business and invest in our community,” McCoy Jones said.

Her task is to build strongly on providing the best environments for employees whether at the top or with associates on the floor of the stores owned and operated by the company. That support comes from her father, especially, who in describing his daughter, and her brother, Reid, also keenly involved with the company, could not hide his pride and admiration for what his children have accomplished so far.

Frank’s vision so long ago would set in place the energy that today is supercharging the goals of his son, especially, then his grandsons, and now his great-granddaughter, as one by one, each has added a new shiny leadership nail into the house of companies that McCoy has and continues to build.