Mckinnon is a family owned lumber yard based in Hollister, California that started in 1869. I joined about eight years ago while still in high school and at the time, I did handyman projects for neighbors who were McKinnon customers. When I was ready for my first official job, my classmate, the granddaughter of the McKinnon owner, John, encouraged me to apply for a job here.
When I did apply, John said, “Why do you want to work here? You are too weak to work here!” Luckily, John had a sense of humor, was one of the kindest men I’ve ever met, and was eager to give me a job. When I graduated from San Jose State last year with a B.A. in Mechanical Engineering, I started full time at McKinnon. My position is hard to describe, I don’t have a formal title, but I oversee a variety of operations, running the business and making sure it runs smoothly. Every day, from 6:15am to 5:15pm, I’m dealing with vendor management, yard activity, deliveries, accounting, day to day sales, and now, the POS changeover.
Unlike many Rundoo clients, we didn’t have a previous POS, we used on-hand tags and our system was actually going really well. We explored Rundoo out of necessity because our old system was no longer going to be supported.
We soon realized that we needed to transform our system and explore new ways of running our business. I heard about Rundoo earlier this year through a conversation with our neighbors, Hollister Paint. They had been using Rundoo, spoke highly of the modern technology, and thought it’d be a worthwhile conversation for of us to have.
Nick, the Rundoo founder, traveled down to our yard to talk and show me the ropes. The Rundoo team got us up and running when we needed to and supported our entire team with this big change so that it wouldn’t be as jarring; it was awesome.
It’s been a little over a month on Rundoo and it’s been a great experience so far. The highlights include their inventory tracking and management, and the mobile contractor app for customers. I’ve gotten a lot positive feedback around the app, contractors trying to quote jobs at 10:30pm and they can see all the prices on their phone, in real-time. The app is really effective and distinct to the lumber market; no other yard has an accompanying POS app so it’s been nice to see the impact of it for our customers.
I think we’ve had a unique taste of Rundoo, being a lumber client, but the hands-on support and determination to deliver what we need makes me excited to see howthe partnership can grow and how we can continue to make each other successful.
