John Bray; Vanguard furniture company, inc.

AMERICAN HOME FURNISHINGS HALL OF FAME

ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW

JUNE 1, 2017 and FEBRUARY 5, 2019

VANGUARD FURNITURE COMPANY CORPORATE OFFICES

HICKORY, NORTH CAROLINA

Gary Evans and Karen McNeill, Interviewers

INTERVIEWER: John, start with your background, where you were born, and how you grew up.

BRAY: I was born in Fayetteville, North Carolina, a month after the start of the Second World War.  My parents were both working in the Fayetteville Ft. Bragg area when the war began.  My mother always enjoyed telling the story that while I was still in the hospital, Roy Rogers was visiting soldiers at Ft. Bragg.  Her version of the story was that he came to the hospital to see all the newborn babies. Obviously, this story is legendary in our family and my mother never tired of regaling of her memorable encounter with the famous singer-cowboy of the day.

INTERVIEWER: I loved Roy Rogers, so I'm glad you said that.

BRAY: Later, I asked my mother if his famous horse, Trigger, came to the hospital with him; and where did he tie up the horse?

INTERVIEWER:  So you were just a baby then?

BRAY: Yes. I grew up in Fairmont, North Carolina in Robinson County, in a tobacco-farming era. Tobacco was the main industry of the town. It's a small town and had 2,310 people in 1950, and 2,320 in 1970. The town had an influx of tobacco people in the summertime. Farmers came to market their crop at the tobacco warehouses.  Other than that, it was a pretty sleepy little town, but a great place to grow up.

INTERVIEWER: What do you remember? I know that was back in the days when kids didn't have to worry a whole lot about anything.

BRAY: Our mothers were very comfortable with us playing outside and only coming inside for dinner when summoned.  Then many times in the summer, we went back out to play under the streetlights for a couple of hours.

Of course, these were the days before the proliferation of television. You could play hide-and-seek, or kick the ball, or Red Rover, or whatever the favorite game was at the moment and parents were very comfortable with our safety.

INTERVIEWER: I remember our first TV. My dad got it hooked up to the antenna, turned it on, and the first program was Hopalong Cassidy.  I thought I had died and gone to heaven.

BRAY: Those were good times. My first recollection of television was when my next-door neighbor bought the first one in the neighborhood. I remember how much we looked forward to the Friday night fights.  The whole neighborhood came to watch the fights—the kids were lying on the floor watching the television while the adults were behind in chairs.  Watching the fights was a big social event.

I also remember that the Friday night fights were sponsored by Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer.  Since my parents didn’t condone drinking, I was old enough to catch their angst when the beer commercials ran between rounds of the boxing matches.

INTERVIEWER: And if you were like me, it wasn't hard to get up a game of baseball or football.

BRAY: We had a lot of kids in the neighborhood. I recently spoke with my grandson and reminisced that we played a game with a softball in a neighbor’s back yard called “roll-to-the-bat”.  I hadn’t thought of that experience in many years. In that game, one person hits the ball and whoever catches the ball gets to roll the ball in an attempt to hit the bat. The batter has to turn the bat sideways to allow the ball being rolled to hit the bat.  If the person rolling the ball hits the bat, they become the batter.

Since we spent most of our playtime as kids outside all year when weather permitted, we may have been more creative than the current generation with the games we invented to play in the neighborhood.

INTERVIEWER: As kids, we used to know where every pear tree in the neighborhood was. We played baseball; pickup baseball was just so easy. We played it in a church parking lot, and over the fence into the graveyard was a home run. Those were the good ole days.

BRAY: Just as you experienced, we played all the sports in their season.  Softball was a backyard sport taking up two of the larger back yards in the neighborhood.  In typical “kid fashion” we weren’t concerned with the danger at the time, but we did have some potential exposure because our favorite fall sport playing “touch” football in the street in front of our house.  In order for the play to be completed, defenders had to touch the ball carrier with two hands below the belt.  The hard surface of the street was in-bounds and anywhere off the street was out of bounds. Our street did not have a lot of traffic and the neighbors knew to slow down or stop until there was a lull in the football activity.  Those were very idyllic days.

INTERVIEWER: Those were truly good old days, especially for kids. I'm not sure for parents, but they were good for kids.

BRAY: It was probably easier being a parent in those earlier times compared to today—although no one could see the future, parenting today is much more complicated, with many more opportunities for kids to get into trouble.  When I was a youngster, if you got in trouble your parents would know about it before you got home. Everybody knew everyone else in town, so you just couldn't get by with a lot of mischief without being found out.  In that environment, kids weren't tempted to stray too far from normal behavior. You didn't push the accepted limits too far because it wasn't worth the consequences.

INTERVIEWER: I lived next door to my third-grade teacher so, yes, they heard if I made trouble at school, and the rule was if you had a spanking at school, you're going to get one at home.  What was it like growing up in your town?

BRAY: Obviously, we are all products of our life experiences. Growing up in a small community in eastern North Carolina—post WWII, during and after the Korean War, was a bit of a unique experience as I look back on it. Everyone knew each other in the mostly middle-class neighborhood, and you didn’t dare get into trouble.

Looking back at our community and education, the small classes and quality of teachers were especially meaningful.  Our high school graduation class of 35 in 1960 was unique in many ways.  Immediately after graduation, some members went into the military, but most went on to some post-high school education.

There were six or eight people that went to a business school in Columbia, SC, which was an hour-and-a-half away. This timing was a little before community colleges were started in North Carolina.  We had teachers and nurses from our class. There were four from the class who had banking or savings and loan careers. There were sales people.

The valedictorian of the class was a chemical engineering major at N.C. State, who spent his career in the Air Force. Interestingly, looking back, the Air Force was really less than 10 years old when he started his career.  He retired as a full Colonel.

We had another classmate who graduated from N.C. State and was an early major in nuclear engineering.  He spent his career at Duke Energy as well as Carolina Power and Light, creating the nuclear plants in North Carolina.  Probably the most unique person and career out of that group was another guy who graduated in architecture from State. He ended up with his own company in New York City making costumes for Broadway plays.

So, as I look back on those times, I don't know how to describe it any other way than a bit idyllic. And again, a small town. But I think it speaks to the community and the support that the community and the educators gave to our lives. Obviously, I was a product of that environment and blessed by those experiences.

INTERVIEWER: Did you have any connection to any family in the furniture business?

BRAY: No, not at all. My dad was a finish-carpenter and most of the work was done away from our hometown.  When he was working, he was gone from Sunday afternoon to Friday evening. My mom was a Registered Nurse. There was really no manufacturing in our area.  So, when I was growing up, I had no connection with manufacturing or the furniture business.

INTERVIEWER: That's probably why so many people got into tobacco.

BRAY: Yes, it's common, I guess, no matter where you grow up, that the major industry perpetuates itself in your community and the children follow their parents and grandparents into that business or industry.

INTERVIEWER:  Did you go to college?

BRAY: In our hometown, if your parents weren't big farmers and didn’t own a couple hundred acres of tobacco, you really knew that you had better be moving on when you graduated from high school.  Especially if you were looking for opportunities and following the American dream.  I always knew that I was going to college.  I was fortunate to have been accepted at a number of colleges but chose Wake Forest.

INTERVIEWER:  Was that in Wake Forest?

BRAY: No, the school had already moved from the town of Wake Forest to Winston-Salem.

INTERVIEWER:  So, you went to Wake Forest and...

BRAY: I majored in business. I started as pre-med major, but it seemed like every time I made an A, I said, “That's my new major.” And, anytime I earned a C, I said, “Oh, I'm not sure that'll work.” The first semester I earned a C in biology, I said, “This medical idea probably is not going to work.” But I made an A in math, so I said, “Okay, math seems like a good thing. I'll move forward with calculus.” The next semester I think the course was finite math. The only numbers I saw were the 40s, 50s, and 60s I got on tests.

INTERVIEWER:  Yikes.

BRAY: As I remember this math class was about planes intersecting in space. Somehow, I had a problem with spatial relationships that I apparently didn't know about before the class.  I said, “Math is not going to work.” My major evolved into business after I discovered I enjoyed accounting and marketing.  I got a bachelor’s degree in business administration, and that has served me well in my career.

In my freshman year, there was an upperclassman in my dorm who was a captain in the Marine Corps reserves. Once a month he came back to campus to the dorm dressed in his uniform, and I was interested in his experiences.  To make a long story short, I signed up for the PLC program— Platoon Leaders Corps – in the Marine Corps. You go to two six-week sessions while you're in college, which is the same as OCS (Officer Candidate School). You graduate with a commission.  After  Wake, I was in the Marine Corps for three years during Vietnam.

INTERVIEWER:  Were you in combat in Vietnam?

BRAY: I was.

INTERVIEWER: My brother went to Wake Forest and he did the same thing. He was a Ranger, and he’s all messed up now. He was hit by Agent Orange and now has everything wrong with his health.

BRAY: I was fortunate, obviously. If you are in a combat environment and you come out alive and with no scars, you're blessed. It's pretty harrowing—harrowing and horrible. You enlist, you train, and in no time at all you are fighting the enemy—especially when they are shooting at you.

INTERVIEWER: I won't dwell on this but some of my neighbors and I got together for a glass of wine last night and we were talking about what people coming back from Vietnam had to go through. I think the Vietnam veterans are getting their recognition now but ….

BRAY: Some of them were treated really, really badly. I fortunately avoided that experience. When I came back to the

U.S., I landed in Baltimore late at night. My wife and two fraternity brothers met me at the airport with open arms. I didn’t know it at the time, but obviously there were others returning from Vietnam who were treated a lot less honorably. I was happy to be back home.

INTERVIEWER: You went to Wake Forest, majored in business and then what?

BRAY: My three years of active duty in the Marine Corps started out in Quantico for six months in The Basic School, which is customary for Marine Corps officers. I completed TBS in March of '66 and by that time, action in Vietnam was heating up.  I was on track to go to Vietnam, but first I got married right out of Quantico.  We first were stationed in Camp Pendleton in California for about four months.  Then our Battalion was transferred to Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii for another four to five months. By March of '66, we were in Vietnam.  My overseas tour of 13 months was finished in April of '67 and I transferred to Camp Lejeune where I spent the last five or six months of active duty.

INTERVIEWER:  No thoughts of re-upping?

BRAY: No. I really enjoyed the Marine Corps and the great experience in leadership and training. I wouldn't take anything for the experience.

There was more politics in the military than I realized—larger organizations.  I'm just more comfortable in a smaller environment where you know everybody.  When I got to Camp Lejeune, I knew I was getting out, so I started interviewing for jobs.  I ended up with two offers in September of '67.

One was with a company where a friend from Fairmont worked called Sanitary Container Corporation in Winston-Salem. The company had the Dempster Dumpster franchise for the Southeastern U.S.  This method of garbage collection on a large scale was just starting in municipalities.  Business was expanding rapidly so it was a good opportunity for young managers.  The other job offer was from a fraternity brother’s family in the furniture manufacturing company in Hickory.  My wife and I traveled to Winston-Salem and Hickory to interview both companies and we made the decision to accept the offer in the furniture business.

So, we made the switch from the Marine Corps to civilian life and along with my wife and one-year old daughter moved to Hickory on Labor Day weekend in September 1967.

INTERVIEWER:  Wow, and your wife is ... her name?

BRAY: Connie.  I met her when I was as Quantico. We actually had a mutual friend. Her best friend was a student at Wake Forest and was dating another fraternity brother of mine.  My first weekend after I arrived in Quantico, I called our mutual friend and asked her to fix some of my newly made marine friends and me up with “blind dates”.  Connie and I met that first weekend in September and were married six months later.  Fifty-four years later, we're still together.

INTERVIEWER:  What was the job that you took?

BRAY: I went to work with Ron Deal, who was my fraternity brother and whose family owned an upholstery furniture company, Highland House of Hickory. Ron and his family were fabulous people and I learned a lot working with them. We worked together for a little over two years and I left there in January of 1970.

INTERVIEWER:  And what did you do?

BRAY: At Highland House, I started out as Credit Manager.  The credit department was an easy place for me to start. I had taken a “credit and collections” course in college.  I pulled out my old textbook, set up some processes and form letters, and then started trying to collect money. It was a humble beginning, but a great place to start.  I found early on that there was a fine line between alienating customers and collecting money.

INTERVIEWER:  You've got to be a little bit diplomatic.

BRAY: They were good early lessons in the furniture business. It's all about relationships. It's all about keeping the doors open so that you live to get another order.

INTERVIEWER: That's the proverbial, “between a rock and a hard place,” isn't it?

BRAY: Yes. In those days, Highland House was a small company with about one hundred employees.  The management of the company consisted of family members, plus one other gentleman who was in charge of manufacturing.  In that environment, I was able to learn the business from the ground floor—mostly from the administrative side of the business. In addition to becoming office manager, as assistant sales manager I attended the Furniture Markets and traveled with salesmen.

INTERVIEWER:  Did you go to the market in High Point?

BRAY: The company’s showrooms were at the former Hickory Home Furniture Mart in Hickory and in Chicago at the American Furniture Mart.  It wasn't the Chicago Merchandise Mart where the furniture market is today, but in a one story building several blocks away.  Those were the two furniture markets where Highland House had showrooms.

INTERVIEWER: That was in the days before everybody thought Chicago was getting too expensive.

BRAY: Yes, the costs of exhibiting at Chicago markets were a major topic in those days as increased expenses were becoming prohibitive.

INTERVIEWER:  And High Point was coming on.

BRAY: The High Point market didn’t emerge as a major furniture market until the later in the decade of the ‘70s. By that time, I had left Highland House and joined Vanguard.

INTERVIEWER:  And you were good at math.

BRAY: Credit management was a natural place to start in my new environment. The Deal family were very accommodating and open—it was a perfect entrance into a new industry and its unique idiosyncrasies.  What really attracted me to the industry was my belief that furniture was primarily a post-World War II growth industry.  Many of the men who came back to Hickory after the Second World War started upholstery companies.  Before the war, they had worked for Hickory Chair and some of the other larger companies, and when they returned many of them started their own companies rather than rejoining their previous employment.

By the time I came into the industry, these veterans were in their mid-50s and would be retiring before too many years.  It seemed to me to be a good opportunity, to learn the business, learn the industry, and have an opportunity for unlimited professional growth.

INTERVIEWER:  But you were looking ahead all the time.

BRAY: In today’s lexicon, one would call it “vision” or looking for future opportunities.  I was simply looking to connect the dots.

INTERVIEWER:  I mean, like any smart kid would do.

BRAY: We can come back to this later, but I see the same opportunity today for young people that I saw when I first got into the business.

INTERVIEWER: I remember you saying that at the Hall of Fame banquet.

BRAY: The home furnishings industry doesn't have enough young managers to accommodate our future growth

opportunities.  

INTERVIEWER: I remember, and we will come back to it. I remember you pointing that out at the banquet.

BRAY: The Induction.

INTERVIEWER: What was the industry like then, as compared to now?

BRAY: It was post-World War II.

INTERVIEWER: There was a lot of post-World War II housing construction going on.

BRAY: I wasn’t there, but it must have been boom times.  I remember hearing stories about companies in the late ‘40s and early ‘50s that had showrooms in Hickory in a building   named the “Foundation Center.”  Most of these temporary showrooms were for small companies because the larger companies had showrooms in their own factories.  I was told by the owner of one of the companies showing at this marketplace that as the market was closing, he said, “Leave your catalogs here because we have enough orders for the next six months.”

INTERVIEWER:  Whoa.

BRAY: By the time I started in the industry in the mid- to late ‘60s, business wasn’t that robust, but it still was a very healthy business environment.

Another early impression was that the industry valued personal relationships.  In some ways, it was a “good ole boy network”. The salesmen and factory owners were getting older, but they had relationships with all the dealers that sold their furniture—they knew the customers, the customers knew them.  In many ways, it was a family-type relationship.  Relationships were always important in the furniture industry and it remains so today.

INTERVIEWER: I worked for Furniture Today for 23 years. But, I did it in two stints. I left to become editor of a couple of papers and then, they called and I decided I wanted to go back. It always felt like a close industry to me.

BRAY: I recently did some research before giving a speech on the history of furniture in North Carolina.  Even before furniture manufacturing moved to North Carolina, buyers were going to the factories in Grand Rapids. They loved meeting the people and watching furniture being manufactured.  Also, those relationships helped insure that in bad times, there would be a shipment of furniture.  In other words, the retailer wouldn’t be “cut-off”.     

Interviewer:  There was a time when demand outstripped supply. 

Bray: In times past, it was customary to sell only one dealer in a market.  The retailers wanted a relationship with you so they would get first dibs on your new introductions.  Now, the table has turned.  With global production there is much more supply than demand.  Relationships have helped both sides over the years.

The phenomenon of hosting dealers at the factory goes back many years and even existed in the early 1900s. Many of the larger companies like Bernhardt, Hickory Chair, Century, Broyhill, and Drexel all had their showrooms in the factory.  Most of these factory showrooms were initially set up in the corner of the factory warehouse and in time, the space evolved into a more sophisticated showroom in other parts of the factory complex.

INTERVIEWER: I remember coming up here going to the showroom factories and to Bassett, Hooker up all through there.

BRAY: In the 1960s and ‘70s marketers called North Carolina furniture markets the “figure eight” highway. On a map of North Carolina, showrooms in Burlington and Mebane on the east and through High Point and Statesville formed the eastern loop. The western loop started in Lenoir and Morganton through Hickory to Statesville to make the “figure eight” loops. 

INTERVIEWER:  You could do it in about three days.

BRAY: The travel time to shop the expanded geography was a major factor in the furniture market evolving to High Point.  Coincidently, as a smaller manufacturer, selling geographically dispersed retailers, we discovered that we were not important enough to be a destination for customers or prospects.  We needed to see new buyers and customers at our market showroom to grow our business and we counted on our customers and prospects to come to see us while they were travelling to see the larger factory showrooms such as Broyhill, Drexel, or Henredon, etc.

Over time, shoppers spent less and less time on the western loop. When we asked customers why we didn’t see them at “market”, a common reply was “Well, I didn't have enough time, or I didn't even come west when I was at market.” The response to this time crunch from furniture retailers, while shopping the furniture market in North Carolina was the beginning of the emergence of High Point as the furniture market capital. Vanguard and Classic Leather moved our market showroom from Hickory to High Point in 1976 in response to the needs of the buyers.

INTERVIEWER: I didn't come until '79, I think. Then Dallas was coming along. That probably really put High Point into high gear.

BRAY: Competition is always good.  It makes everyone better.

INTERVIEWER: Dallas was going to take over the High Point Market, just as Las Vegas was going to take over the High Point Market.

BRAY: By that time, to hedge our bets, we also had a smaller showroom in Dallas. There was the fear that the market in Dallas was going to cannibalize the High Point Market. After participating and measuring both markets, we concluded that High Point was the place for us as our primary market.

In retrospect, the major furniture market is always going to be where most new products are introduced.  The Dallas market had a very effective public relations campaign and did an effective job of marketing.  If you're going to be successful as a manufacturer at furniture markets, you need to be where there is the most traffic.  The costs to show products at a market are real—both in dollars and in opportunity costs because executives preparing for market aren’t focused their daily tasks.  The decision to show at a market is a simple business calculation.  Can you sell enough product to justify the incremental expense?  Did you get new buyers at the market who don’t visit your other showrooms?

INTERVIEWER:  Was Bill Cooper there?

BRAY: Yes. Trammel Crow was the money behind the Dallas market real estate and Bill Cooper was the Dallas Market manager.

INTERVIEWER:  Did you work for other companies before?

BRAY: No, I have been fortunate to have only worked for two companies in my career. After Highland House, I joined Vanguard in January 1970 during their first year of business.  When I started, the company was making samples for showrooms and the few customers they were selling.  Vanguard was started by Tom Shores, who had previously started Classic Leather in 1966 to manufacture leather upholstery.  Tom related that he was having difficulties hiring salesmen and creating enough products for his sales representatives to be successful.  He saw that velvet fabrics were starting to sell with his customers. He had some leather vendors who were also representing velvet fabric mills. He connected the dots and started Vanguard, specializing in velvets. With two companies instead of one, he solved his problem of being more important to his sales reps.  

INTERVIEWER:  Tell us about the beginnings of Vanguard.

BRAY: During the first 25 years, when we, as a management team, had a new idea, we started a new company.  For example, Classic Leather was the original company manufacturing leather upholstery. Then two years later, Vanguard was formed to produce velvet upholstery.  In 1973, we started St. Timothy Chair to make vinyl furniture for the contract industry.  A couple of years later, we started Craftwork Guild to combine all of the styles from Classic Leather, Vanguard and St. Timothy to produce furniture to comply with the new flammability requirements for furniture shipped into California. In addition, this new company made recliners and sleep sofas using all the fabrics, leathers and vinyls from the original companies. Each company entity was set up as a separate corporation with a combination of shareholders that included the senior sales and production managers from the new company.

INTERVIEWER:  And today?

BRAY: Today, we've separated all those companies and there are only two entities—Classic Leather and Vanguard. St. Timothy was integrated into Classic Leather and Craftwork into Vanguard.  In 1993, we separated the shareholders and each of us sold our interests in the other company.  I sold my interests in Classic Leather, and the Classic Leather executives sold their shares to Vanguard.             

INTERVIEWER: You had an interesting start in Vanguard and very quickly became the head of the company. Tell us that story, and then how you grew Vanguard into what it is today.

BRAY: As I mentioned, Vanguard was formed the year before I came onboard and Tom Shores was looking for someone to help manage the business.  

I started as the President of the company and was its eighth employee.  I was offered an option to buy 10 percent of the company when I came onboard.  As shareholders retired or wanted to sell their shares, in most instances the company bought and retired the shares.  Over time, I evolved as the majority shareholder.

INTERVIEWER: But in terms of growing Vanguard: you started with eight employees. Today, you have how many?

BRAY: We have approximately 600 associates at Vanguard.

INTERVIEWER: When Vanguard started, it was as a high-end upholstery company?

BRAY: The Company started as a velvet upholstery specialist and by keeping the velvet colors in inventory allowed us to manufacture and ship orders in two weeks. The “velvet specialty” concept transitioned to other fabrics over time. We were always in the “upholstery customization” business and were making and selling custom items to designers and furniture stores in the industry. We never thought of ourselves as making high-priced furniture, but rather making products with good value.

Also, from our inception, we were in the “fashion” business.  Our business model was to design and make products for the higher end or fashion part of our industry. We were constantly looking for ways to “differentiate” ourselves from other companies who made similar products.  We thought that to be successful, we needed to own a niche, to be a little different, to offer customers something that they can't get, or a service we could perform better than our competitors.  From the beginning, we have always been looking for ideas to improve our company internally and externally to our customers.

INTERVIEWER:  When did you add case goods?

BRAY: In the early 1990s, we added case goods. We always manufactured upholstery from the ground up—starting with raw lumber for frames and rolls of fabric for upholstering. But, we were never in the case goods manufacturing business.  We entered that category because we realized that in the “showroom environment” we could merchandise a beautiful setting for our upholstery.

Then, we were fearful that our beautiful velvet sofa would not be shown in a vignette with attractive case goods and also that when case goods pieces were sold off the floor, they would be replaced with a truly incompatible piece—like a low-end colonial cocktail table.  We started creating case goods products that complemented our upholstery and could be used to enhance the display of our products at retail.

INTERVIEWER:  You started manufacturing case goods?

BRAY: No, we never manufactured case goods and still don't today. We design and engineer our case goods and   occasional products and then find case goods manufacturers to make the products to our quality specifications.

INTERVIEWER:  And when was that?

BRAY: We started selling our occasional products in the early 1990s.

INTERVIEWER: You started buying it offshore in the early 90s?

BRAY: That’s correct.  First, we found manufacturers to make our products in Italy, then in Mexico, and afterwards in Coloumbia and Brazil in South America.  Later, we added vendors in Asia—first in the Philippines and then China, and eventually in Vietnam and Indonesia.

INTERVIEWER: And then you went to the Bobbin Show in Atlanta and you had an idea.

BRAY: Well, I was looking for new sewing machines and unique stitching ideas when I went to the show. I had never been to a Bobbin Show previously, so I didn’t know exactly what to expect but understood the vendors would primarily be apparel industry focused.

INTERVIEWER:  And the date of that was?

BRAY: That was in 1989.  At the show, I saw this young lady in front of a big screen.  This was before the days of big screen TVs. But it wasn't a TV, it was a computer screen.  She was designing a blouse. With a click of the mouse, she could change the blouse from long sleeve to three-quarter length sleeve or short sleeve.  She could change the neckline from crew neck to a V-neck and do magic with this piece of apparel on the screen.  I was immediately struck by the idea that if this company had programs that could change these features with clothing, surely, they can create similar concepts with changing fabrics applied on sofas.

One of the unique problems in our industry was that consumers were buying our products from a picture in a catalog and a fabric swatch that was often a miniscule, postage-size fabric clipping. There were too many surprises for consumers; customers buying fabric on a frame being surprised with the placement of the fabric on cushions, for example. If we could develop a computer program that featured a digital facsimile of how the fabric design would appear when applied to the upholstered furniture, we could really enhance the consumer’s ability to visualize what the furniture would look like before they purchased the furniture.  In theory, this new program could virtually eliminate “buyer’s remorse” related to disappointment with fabric applications on custom upholstery.

The company showing the blouse at the Bobbin Show was MicroDynamics.  We contacted the owners of the company and briefly explained our industry’s unique problem.  Our first meeting was the start of a relationship with the organization that evolved as the MicroD company.  The original company created a spin off management group that was dedicated to creating programs and processes to solve this visualizing problem for our upholstery industry.

INTERVIEWER: They were primarily in the apparel business then?

BRAY: Yes, among the products they were creating were programs like the one I saw at the Bobbin Show that the apparel industry was using in their product development departments.

INTERVIEWER: And you went to them and you said, hey I'm in the furniture industry.

BRAY: We followed up our meeting in Atlanta at the Bobbin Show by visiting MicroDynamics’ offices in Dallas in the summer of 1990 and eventually persuaded them to invest in the furniture industry and Vanguard was their first customer. Initially, we bought a camera and accompanying programs for our product development area.  Their camera system was similar to our current “photo-shopping” in that it allowed us to change areas on the chair or sofa without having to build or re-upholster the arm or pillow being worked on. 

The project for visualizing fabrics on frames took a lot of education for the MicroD team.  First, the programmers had to understand some of the unique features of cutting fabrics and rules for centering designs and aligning stripes and plaid fabrics on upholstered frames.  Eventually their engineers worked with our production experts and gained the specialized knowledge needed to develop programming to get the fabrics sized correctly so that when you put a flower print on the back pillow of a sofa for example, the design was proportioned correctly. 

INTERVIEWER: From the time you got that idea and approached them, to the time that you were actually using it, how long did the development process take?

BRAY: As I recall, from our first meetings to the first demonstration, it took about 18 months.  We began with a demonstration to a select group of customers in our showroom in High Point. We showed what several print designs would look like on several different frames.  There were some early adopters—customers who saw the benefit of this new program that could create a digital rendition of upholstered fabric to frame. I think we must have had five customers buy the new program within the first 18 months. I do remember that the new program was pretty expensive.  My best recollection was that customers had to invest about $10,000 for the computers and programming from MicroD.

INTERVIEWER: And then how long was it before the industry started doing this?

BRAY: We weren’t aware at the time but another group of programmers from Masco and the automotive industry were tackling the same visualization problem at the same time.  The other group dropped out of the picture within 18 months or so and MicroD set the technology standard for the home furnishings industry.  From the time of the conceptual conversations to MicroD becoming the dominant supplier and selling other manufacturers and retailers was about 5 years.

INTERVIEWER:  By the mid-90s?

BRAY: Yes, by the mid-90s.

INTERVIEWER: So, it took really about five or six years in development to become something that was generally used.

BRAY: In the earliest days, from the time you chose the fabric and frame until you saw the final product could take as much as five minutes. Which in those days was a problem but not nearly the problem that it would be today because now everybody expects to see the final product instantly. The chip processing technology improved so much that in less than five years an image could be completed within 30 seconds or less.

INTERVIEWER: And then how long before that started to go online on the website of a retailer?

BRAY: In less than 10 years from the standing start the technology and programming was available online.

INTERVIEWER: So, it took about 10 years, really, for it to really go to the consumer.

BRAY: The advent, development and the proliferation of the internet was the impetus to drive the technology to the consumer mass market.  As we all know, advances in technology move at warp speed.  So, advancements in computing speed and capacity facilitated improvement in the functionality of the MicroD’s project.

Today, for example, 3D Virtual Reality technology is the state of the art, instead of the 2D technology of 30 years ago.  Companies are starting to use technology that allow consumers to take pictures of a room in their home and then digitally place the furniture in the room with the previously selected fabric on the furniture.  You can also add occasional furniture, case pieces as well as accessories and carpet, as well as showing the paint colors for the room.  Today you can envision a total room environment, and it all started with viewing a fabric on a frame some 30 years ago.

INTERVIEWER: Wow. And this whole process, what is the value to you as a manufacturer?

BRAY: Although not as prevalent, we continue to experience the same challenges we had in the early ‘90s.  Most consumers don’t purchase upholstery frequently enough to have the experience of visualizing what their furniture will look like after it’s been custom ordered from the factory.  When this visualization technology is used, it cuts down on dissatisfaction and claims from customers. 

INTERVIEWER:  So, no returns.

BRAY: As a consumer, the last thing you want is to be surprised negatively or not be happy with your furniture purchase when you are upgrading or refurnishing a room in your home.  Our industry goal should be to eliminate “buyer’s remorse” where possible.

INTERVIEWER: Tell us about the growth of the company. You started with eight employees, adding a couple of zeros, that’s 600 today. So, what was the growth like in terms of building the company, the labor, finding the right labor to do this?

BRAY: For our first 40 years, we really had no problems hiring skilled labor.  The furniture industry in North Carolina had a positive legacy of good jobs and steady income.  Multi-generational families, grandparents and the parents worked in furniture in the Piedmont part of the state.  When young people graduated from high school, because of their family and community’s traditions, they were naturally drawn to the furniture industry. There was an aspirational as well as generational draw to a career in furniture.

Then with the growth of Asian imports in the 1990s, compounded by the economic recession beginning in 2008, the furniture industry began to lose job positions.  As the economy started to rebound, skilled labor became a real challenge for the industry starting in 2010.  Economic problems coupled with retirements, an aging workforce and the lack of young people entering the furniture industry has led to a shortage of skilled workers.  This lack of skills for the industry has not changed. With a renewed growth in furniture manufacturing, we continue to have the challenge of not enough skilled employees to support the jobs available.

INTERVIEWER: Tell us also about the growth of the company in terms of style and design constantly evolving.  How was that for you to lead?

BRAY: From our earliest days, we focused on the latest fashion trends in fabrics for our styling and fabric presentations. Our initial styles were “period” classic pieces. The styling trends evolved to “casual traditional” in the ‘70s, “transitional” in the ‘90s, to “mid-century modern” in the early 2000s. Our retail and design customers have always looked to Vanguard for the latest in styling trends.  Our very name, Vanguard, literally means “a group of people leading the way in new developments or ideas.”

From a fabric standpoint, as previously mentioned we started with plain velvets.  Over time, our fabrics migrated to imported, cut-velvets.  Then we learned that the mixing of printed fabrics with our velvets was popular with our customers, so our fabrics included significant offerings of prints from Greeff and Schumacher.  Later we introduced woven jacquard fabrics with classic designs.  Then, woven chenille textured fabrics became popular and those designs evolved into plain linen and on to plain woven textured fabrics.  In addition, we feature many “performance” fabrics.  Sunbrella is the leader in that part of the industry with functional fabrics that are colorfast and easily cleaned or dry-cleaned.

INTERVIEWER: What about the speed of change of the styles and the fabrics today? Have you seen an increase in the speed of change?

BRAY: Historically, there was a connection between the residential fabric and textiles in the apparel industries, with furniture designs following a season behind apparel.  Today, fabric and woven textiles from furniture may be leading the trends with apparel following a season later.  Nonetheless, there's still a close timing connection with the introduction of textile colors and constructions in both industries.

The speed of change may depend on your vantage point.  Some may see change as gradual while others feel change at a dizzying, warp speed.  In our industry, there are only a few leading companies, but many followers.  The leader companies experiment with a new idea.  If there’s an appearance of success, there's a great herding instinct and everybody copies that new idea from the last season.  So, the creator’s “cutting edge” from last season becomes everyone’s “standard” for the next season.

On one hand, rapid change has always been prevalent in our industry.  At the same time, it’s interesting to observe that we see fashion and material ideas being recycled today from past decades. Velvets and prints are coming back into the fabric markets and so are fashion trends we saw in the 1970.  Today we are more attuned to trying to provide products that customers want.  From a frame and fabric perspective, the breadth of offerings is massive, and consumers can get most anything they desire in the marketplace.

INTERVIEWER: What about changes over that period of time in marketing and advertising?

BRAY: Historically our advertising budget was limited primarily to developing functional sales aids to help explain why our products were different and better suited to our retail customer’s needs. We were among the first upholstery companies to go to large 27-inch fabric swatches so that the customer could see the full repeat of the fabric at our retailer’s stores.

Many of the original prints we introduced were designed for draperies and their use for upholstery was a new idea. We were also among the first upholstery companies to use color in our catalogs. We didn't have the budget to both develop an effective national advertising campaign and invest in these advanced sales materials.  With a limited budget, we thought it was more important to invest our funds in these point-of-sale materials and closer to where the money changes hands.  We also relied on public relations, the trade press and shelter magazines to enhance our marketing efforts.

INTERVIEWER: Have you seen changes in that? Are you into digital now? Is that more important to you, or is it supporting the retailer doing digital?

BRAY: We do a lot of digital work and have invested a lot in our online website.  Through the website, we offer advertising materials for retailers to place in their newspaper or TV ads.  We provide social media tools to support our customer’s advertising needs.  We have staff devoted to active involvement on Instagram and Facebook platforms.

INTERVIEWER: Now we're going to talk about furniture, the industry as a whole. We already know what positions you've held. Share with us changes in production that you have seen.

BRAY: In upholstery, for the first 25 years of our existence, like most other upholstery manufacturers we had a traditional bench-built, piecework production environment. In the mid-90s, we switched to a custom, bench-built production environment. In the early 2000s, we   changed   again   to a team-based, “lean-focused” production environment. 

In case goods, we always designed products and commissioned vendors to make these products to our specifications. Initially, we just had these products in inventory ready to ship. In 2012, we added “custom finishing” to our case goods options and allowed consumers and customers to choose finish colors for our occasional and casual bedroom and dining styles. In a similar fashion, we have mirrored the options available for upholstery.  Similar to putting any fabric on any frame in upholstery, a consumer can put any finish and change hardware on most of our case goods offerings.

Growth and inherent demands were the initiators of this evolution in production. As a company focused on change and continuous improvement we were and are always looking for new tools to help us gain internal efficiencies and to differentiate us from our competitors. For example, we bought one of the first automated cutting machines in the mid-90s to improve our cutting efficiencies. Those first cutting machines used lasers to cut the fabric. Subsequent generations of automated fabric cutters use circular knives because we found that the weight of the laser cutter slowed the cutting movement and they were too slow to be efficient and competitive.

Another interesting decision we made that served all company associates well was that from the purchase of the first automated cutting devices and the subsequent machines and systems that enhanced automation, we've committed to our associates that no one would lose their job due to these new machines.  Our current skilled people would have the first right to be trained to operate any of the machines that were purchased. It was readily accepted that nobody's going to lose their job due to automation, so even our employees became early adopters of change.

The internal production processes and systems evolved from our earliest modest production environment to today's more sophisticated operations. Initially, production standards were verbal or understood in the smaller plant environment.  Today, we have written standards of work and instructions for every job in our multiple factory facilities. Our customizable merchandising and production concepts create a complicated manufacturing environment with so many integrated and moving parts. It is important that every job is executed according to the engineering plans to ensure that all products are built according to plans and without mistakes.  For example, there's no room for a rogue worker to operate on their own. We really have to operate by the system that's created so that everything is connected.  You have to follow the processes.

“Lean” manufacturing processes were an additive to our factory in the early 2000s. The lean disciplines and lessons used to maximize timeliness and efficiencies throughout the company have proved essential as our company has grown.  The fact that everyone in the company has bought into the lean knowledge has been a positive, cohesive and competitive advantage. We train every person to understand ‘lean’ concepts within the first six months they are hired. We spend a full day and require participation in exercises to help them understand “why lean“ and how they should think “lean”.

Associates also have opportunities to participate in Kaizens to work to solve process or production problem as a team.  “Kaizen” is a Japanese term for tearing things down and rebuilding them. We have these events throughout the company on a regular basis to solve problems and make improvements. Our team-based manufacturing has proven to be a positive organizational change.  We have transitioned into our current role of training younger associates with fewer or no skills to gain the proficiencies needed to build our products.

We have found that motivating and teaching the skills needed to produce our products is best accomplished in a team environment, where groups of associates build every piece of furniture. The team’s focus is on quality and it often takes teamwork to achieve individual and group success. Those are just a few of the changes in production through the years that brings us up to today's environment.

INTERVIEWER: One of the views is that China came in with new equipment in bright new factories, and they were able to manufacture products more efficiently, whereas the southern manufacturers were still using old machinery in dark factories in the old ways without investing in new equipment. It sounds like you've gone through three major changes. How did you navigate that change?

BRAY: I'm afraid that in the beginning we were like everybody else in the region in that we didn’t have the most modern facilities.  We didn't have air conditioning and didn't have the best lighting in our working areas.  Over time, we realized that a work environment that’s safe and comfortable creates a positive attitude and productive work environment.  If you have an air-conditioned facility, associates can be more productive and not slowed by the heat in the summer.  Gradually over time we have invested in our facilities and equipment to create a better working environment for our associates.

INTERVIEWER: Did you start doing that before the China effect or did you do it as a result of that?

BRAY: I don't think China had an impact.  These changes happened in the process of developing ideas and working on enhancements to our internal efficiencies and productivity.  We believed these improvements and investments would solve issues and make us more productive. There were incremental changes along the way.  For example, some of our facilities can't accommodate air conditioning—areas like our machine room or finishing.  In these areas, air make-up equipment is used to constantly bring air in to replace the outflow of air in those areas.  Bringing new air into these facilities via air conditioning isn’t practical.

We are constantly experimenting to create better working environments. One of our recent investments was to build sanding booths connected to our finishing department so that our people can have a safer and healthier working environment.

INTERVIEWER: What are some of the changes you've seen in how you have operated, for example in purchasing, sales, merchandise, finance and management, from your earliest days with Vanguard to now?

BRAY: I'll just make a few comments about each of these areas.  Growth and automation have been the biggest drivers of change in purchasing processes.  We're light years from our earliest days with all paper or verbal purchasing to today's highly automated digital environment.  We have computer-enhanced systems, from our initial communications with purchase orders to direct deposits for accounts payable.

Today, relationships with vendors are critically important if we're going to ensure adequate inventory positions for parts that are purchased. Since many of our vendors are international and speak different languages, live in different time zones and have cultural differences, good communication and integrated systems are critical to our success. It's an essential business investment in our “custom order” businesses to have processes in place that ensure a high percentage of in-stock inventory because consumers expect us to respond and fill orders quickly. We need to excel in the culture of instant gratification.

INTERVIEWER: So, instead of the just-in-time, you've found actually you have to carry more inventory.

BRAY: Some of the added inventory comes from increasing the custom options we offer. If we don’t manufacture the components ourselves, we have to have inventory to be able to ship in a short shipping cycle.

From our earliest days, we were always looking for ways to differentiate our company from our competitors. As I mentioned earlier, we started with velvet fabric shipping in two weeks versus the six to eight weeks that our competitors were shipping. As a result, the quick-ship environment has always been part of our DNA and it still is today.  Our goal is to provide a manufacturing environment that allows custom upholstery to be delivered to the consumer customer in 30 days.

The inventory I mentioned comes from the case goods and other imported products, we offer.  The purchasing lead times and transportation for imports don’t accommodate our 30-day delivery goals unless we have inventory in stock when customer’s orders are received.

In the sales and merchandising area, again in our earliest days, we had a combined sales force with Classic Leather and had success in hiring sales executives who were focused only on our products. In the early ’90s, when we divided the companies, we separated the sales reps.  After that point, each company had its own sales representatives.  Then, we allowed our Vanguard sales reps to carry other non-competing lines and that is still the case today.

INTERVIEWER:  So, they're multi-bag reps?

BRAY: They can be, or they can choose to carry our Vanguard lines exclusively.  Our product line is so broad and comprehensive that most of our sales people today choose to be exclusive reps, just to simplify their lives and be an expert at selling our products.

INTERVIEWER:  Two weeks is your basic shipping cycle?

BRAY: We currently have a two-week manufacturing cycle and add a little time on the front end to get a customer’s

order into our system and a little bit of time after completing manufacturing to get the order wrapped, picked up and delivered.  Again, as I previously mentioned, barring extended delivery times, we would like to have the order delivered to the customer in less than 30 days.  Occasionally, transportation issues for extended distances from Hickory preclude these delivery goals from being met.

INTERVIEWER: I'm a consumer in the store. I place my order. When might I receive it, if I'm not on the west coast, I'm on the east coast and relatively close by?

BRAY: You should have it in your home in four weeks or less.

INTERVIEWER: Four weeks or less. And it used to be manufacturing time was six to eight weeks?

BRAY: In many custom furniture manufacturing environments not using lean manufacturing processes, orders can still carry six to eight weeks lead times.

INTERVIEWER:  Plus delivery. So, it was more like ten?

BRAY: That’s correct.  Again, we have always looked to differentiate our company’s services and products, so shorter shipping cycles are a competitive advantage.  We achieve this advantage by using lean processes and improvements to eliminate waste, mistakes and loss of production time.  In many manufacturing environments, there is as much as one week’s work between cutting and sewing, another week between sewing and upholstery, and another week in upholstery. In this environment, orders in process are lined up and waiting for somebody to pull the item and send to the next builder.  When the order is completed at one station, it waits, build, wait, etc. until the order is completed.

In lean environments that are functioning properly, once the order is started by cutting the fabric and building the frame, the order should move without delay from the time it starts until production is completed. There is a significant reduction of work-in-process inventory in our lean production environment.

The lean work environment does require coordination of communication and processes between departments.  Before our associates had experience with lean, they were concerned that when they didn’t see a lot of work lined up in front of them, it meant they would run out of work.  Managers have to implement processes and signals that allow for a sufficient amount of work in front of each person.  When experienced associates gained confidence in the processes, they have confidence that coordination and timely delivery of work will keep the product flowing and they will not run out of work before the end of their workday.

INTERVIEWER: It would seem that now there might even have been a new job or position created just to manage the flow of the elements that go into building your furniture?

BRAY: We do have a team of people working on processes that facilitate coordination of continuous improvement and efficiencies within our production, logistics and administrative work areas at Vanguard.

INTERVIEWER:  What are they called?

BRAY: The Continuous Improvement Team.  This group leads our company in developing process improvements as well as organizing our Kaizen events. Our CI teams works with managers and leaders to solve production or administrative problems and eliminate or reduce errors and wastes.

INTERVIEWER:  How many people are on that team?

BRAY: Usually there are from three to five people working on some phase of continuous improvement. They assist with establishing and writing standards of work for process improvements with each department.  The team helps establish the priority and calendar of Kaizens.  These events take three to five days in one week, and at the end of the event, they report their observations and corrective actions taken during the Kaizen.  Kaizens always include members of the department being affected by the event, and they report improvements in terms of money and time saved, and wastes eliminated.

As an example of the work of this team, a recent five-person Kaizen team spent a week converting a manual “repair” process from all paper to digital.  Prior to the event, an individual could spend up to five minutes filling out paperwork describing what was needed to fix a repair to a fabric.  During the event with the assistance of our IT department, they wrote a simple program and created forms and a reporting format that reduced the administrative portion of the repair process to 30 seconds. 

INTERVIEWER:  A repair of machinery or the product?

BRAY: The Continuous Improvement team works in each area, but this example was a team working on repairs in the upholstery production area.  For example, if a flaw or defect is found in the fabric on an outside arm panel and you need to re-cut the panel, somebody has to pull the upholstery piece off the line, get the fabric cut and sewn in the respective departments and install the repaired panel back on the original product and then continue the normal upholstery process.

INTERVIEWER:  Now how long does that take?

BRAY: After the Kaizen it takes only 30 seconds to fill out the form to get the repair process started.  Another part of the improved process from the Kaizen was to send the repair information digitally to the person retrieving the fabric from inventory.  Formerly, the paperwork and fabric went by courier from factory to factory and could take several hours to get the repair from the start of the    process   to the   person who  is executing the repair.  These examples are typical of the results and improvements from Kaizen events.

INTERVIEWER:  Interesting.

BRAY: You had asked about the impact of growth in all parts of the company.  In finance, similar to purchasing, processes have been driven by growth and company automation. Process automation and computer applications have allowed us to double our sales with only nominal increases in headcount in these “back of the house” areas in our company. Automation has also been critical in payroll with not only our growth in personnel but also the increase in tax and other HR reporting needs. Again, without automation in ERP systems in Human Resources, we could easily have six to eight additional people doing our payroll and tax reporting. 

Changes in management have been primarily driven by the challenges of growth and the diversity of our product offering. The organizational needs and  structure at a 100-employee level are significantly different than they are at a 600-associate level.  Of course, our business is further complicated in managing multi-plant and even multi-state facilities. 

In addition, when we made the transition from a traditional production line, piecework environment to our current team-based lean workplace, the changes needed to effectively manage in the new environment meant we had to think and speak in another language. 

Similarly, managing in times with an abundant, experienced and skilled labor supply is different than in today's environment with a dearth of skilled labor and a younger workforce. Creating a successful training process and an accommodating workplace environment will be critical factors for our success in the future.

INTERVIEWER: In terms of management, how have the managers changed? Are they more trained in management? Is the nature of management more professional? What changes have you seen?

BRAY: We have spent a significant amount of effort with our managers over the last ten years to prepare them to manage in our changing environment.  Most managers in our industry started their careers working on the production line. Typically, they were promoted and became a lead person and then became responsible for leading a group of people.

I heard someone say, “We’re all products of our life experiences.”  Most managers are using examples of leadership observed from their previous managers.  Thus, it would be natural to want to avoid examples of poor leadership we experienced with past managers, but then embrace the positive leadership experiences with those leaders you respected and admired.  It would be human nature to want to emulate those positive attributes when adopting your own leadership style.

Like most companies in our industry, we have been challenged by our aging management team as we have grown over the last ten years.  For example, through no fault of their own, most managers over an age of 55 didn't grow up using computers. Today, these same production leaders need to know how to use a spreadsheet to properly manage information such as managing orders, workflow, or hours worked.  Many of the tools they need are available in Microsoft Excel. We have created an extensive leadership learning environment for our managers.  We've consciously developed a “learning culture”, for all of our people, but especially our managers.  It's one aspect of our history of which I’m most proud.

In a similar vein, I’ve recently had an epiphany.  It’s really important that everybody in our organization in every work group adopt and buy into our Vanguard culture.  One can be the most skilled person at his or her job, but if they can’t get along with people or if a manger can’t be an effective “servant” leader, their group can’t be as productive in their jobs as they need to be.  Everyone needs to know our company’s vision and work together to accomplish communicated goals.

Traditionally, leadership was all “top-down” where the boss dictates orders to subordinates.  However, today we have adopted a bottom-up leadership environment, where our leader’s job is to support the success of the people reporting to them.  We're always working to refine and enhance this culture at Vanguard.  I think this is the biggest transition I have observed in my career—going from “top-down” leadership to “bottom-up”, servant-leadership styles.

INTERVIEWER: What do you think the impact of that is on the furniture industry and in a manufacturing environment?

BRAY: I can't speak for anyone else, because I've mostly worked in our environment at Vanguard.  When you think about it, what higher calling can you have in your career than to create an environment where every associate feels good about the job they're doing, the product they're building and their fellow associates. In order to accomplish this goal, it is incumbent on senior management to create an environment that enhances that feeling about each person’s job—an environment where everybody looks forward to coming to work, to building the product, and working together with their fellow team members. We're spending more time together at work than we are with our families, so creating a wholesome work environment is really important to everyone. Again, it's art of our culture and   we constantly work at creating this environment.

We all make mistakes.  Maybe in a moment of frustration, we don't always treat others the way we want to be treated.  We remind each other of our core values and how we should always be looking for ways to complement each other when we observe a job well done. We have had success with our managers giving $25 gift cards to anyone they see doing something that's out of the ordinary and positive.  The giver and receiver have a good connection when “good work” is recognized.  This activity appeals to a basic need we all have for recognition and appreciation from those we respect and appreciate.

INTERVIEWER: Thinking of your people who work here and again looking back to the beginning of Vanguard, do they view it less as a, “I can't move away.  I'm going to work in this job for the rest of my life” to “I choose to work here"? Because people are more mobile. They can go different places. Is there a shift in the mentality of the team workers who are actually building the furniture?

BRAY: Clearly, current times are different in many ways than they were forty or fifty years ago. The old management model of “my way or the highway” doesn't work in today’s work environment.  We want to keep everyone who joins our company.  We aren’t always successful, but we do our best not to lose anyone.  In our earliest history, if a person was skilled and experienced and if they didn't like their work environment for any reason, they would give their notice and have another job the next day.

Today's environment is somewhat the same way if you're skilled because there are not enough skilled people to do the work that we have available in the marketplace.  Our challenge is to convince people that our company is a great place to work and our industry affords lots of opportunities for a good career.  We have more and more young people working for us. Our average age at Vanguard in the last 5 years has gone from 53 years to 46 today.  We've had some success in hiring younger people, but we anticipate the challenge of hiring and keeping trained associates to be constant for the foreseeable future.

INTERVIEWER: You've been involved in helping to build the skilled workers in a training program through the community college?

BRAY: Yes, we realized during the recession of 2008-9, that once the economy turned-around the industry was going to be in trouble from a labor standpoint because we were experiencing a triple whammy.  Not enough young people were coming into the industry.  A lot of people were retiring, and others were leaving the furniture to go to other industries. 

We contacted our local community college, Catawba Valley Community College, to discuss our industry’s pending labor challenge.  Along with five other upholstery manufacturers, we worked with the college to create a Furniture Academy. Starting in 2010 the Human Resource teams from these five companies and the college worked together to develop the curriculum to match our mutual company and industry skill needs.  Today the Furniture Academy offers an eight-week soft skills course where students learn people and team-building skills, as well as basic computer skills.  They also learn about the expectations that furniture companies have for new associates in the factory environment. 

Fast forward to today, our Catawba Valley Furniture Academy is housed in a permanent 40,000-square-foot building that replicates an upholstery factory environment including classrooms to facilitate the teaching/learning experience.  After the soft skills courses, students are working in the factory environment from 5:30 to 8:30 at night, four nights a week to learn the upholstery skills that they’ve chosen for their career.  Upholstery technicians from the local factories or retirees teach the needed skills.  Future plans include expanding the Academy to eight hours during the day to accommodate more students.  The good news is we're graduating up to 150 people a year to industry jobs.  The bad news is we currently need to fill about 1,000 new positions a year in our area to allow for growth and to replace retirees.  We have a long way to go to match graduates with industry openings in our area. 

INTERVIEWER: You also were involved in making some changes in healthcare to create a better healthcare program for your employees.

BRAY: We have developed some creative programs to improve the health of our associates and their families. Starting about ten years ago, together with eight other companies in the area, we formed a healthcare purchasing group. These companies were all self-insured. The group was created to negotiate contracts with hospitals and doctors in the area.  Today we have about 7,000 lives covered with our cooperative company called “DirectNet”. 

In addition to the joint purchasing, DirectNet facilitates “best practices” with member companies and assists in managing the health clinics at each factory.  In Vanguard's case, we created a “patient-centered medical home” ten years ago.  Historically, as healthcare consumers, we went to the doctor only when we got sick, but in a patient-centered medical home, we go to the doctor before you get sick.  We went from a reactive health delivery system to a proactive one.  We want to keep our people healthy, out of the hospital and working.

Another unique thing about our healthcare plan is our doctors are involved to assist in suggesting improvements to our plan.  Our Doctors and their associates are currently at our clinic three-and-a-half days a week. There's either a family doctor or physician assistant working under the doctor at the clinic each day.

They use electronic medical records at both the clinic and their offices so our medical records are integrated, which allows an associate to see one practitioner today and another one next week and both doctors have access to information from prior visits.

We have a tiered premium payment plan for our employees who choose to be covered by our company health insurance.  Everyone’s premium payments are based on best practice healthcare habits.  In order to pay the lowest premiums for health insurance, each year employees are required to see the doctor for an annual physical, plus another check-in with the doctor for an update on any health conditions.  Also, for the lowest premium, they can’t smoke, have to take prescriptions for any chronic medical conditions identified by the doctor, and manage their weight.  We still provide insurance for employees who don’t go the doctor, smoke, or don’t manage their weight if over a BMI of 30, but they pay a higher insurance premium.  The overall focus of our company’s healthcare plan is on preventative health.

We recently introduced mental health coverage to our insurance program at the clinic.  At Vanguard, we are looking for a holistic healthcare solution for our employees.  It is human nature to bring our life problems to work.  For example, if a person is feeling stress, hopefully, the source of the stress is not from the job environment, but it could be.  Stress could also come from problems with parents or grandparents or debts or whatever life's issues are.  At our factory clinic that’s been in place for over 30 years, in addition to medical doctors and nurses, our clinic now has a behavioral health professional.  As a mandatory part of our reduced premium plan, we also need to visit our behavioral health specialist once a year.

The latest introduction to our healthcare plan has been our introduction of nutrition classes and exercise after work.  If employees choose to participate, they get additional reduction in insurance premium by participating in both additions to the program.  As you might imagine, we communicate a lot about staying healthy and practicing wholesome physical and mental health habits.  In transitioning from being reactive to proactive with our individual healthcare, our company population is healthier and we get a better return on our investment for our healthcare dollars.

Based on data provided by DirectNet and our other medical partners, our associates are healthier today than when we started our medical home plan.  Another important corporate perspective is that our healthcare costs per employee have increased less than 2 percent a year from our start in 2008.  Most companies in our region have experienced double-digit growth in healthcare costs each year, so corporate healthcare costs for some have increased 70 percent over the same period.

INTERVIEWER: I would think it's become a model for other businesses.

BRAY: Our DirectNet group has opened our membership to other companies in our community.  We've held open forum-type meetings to share our successes in healthcare for our employees.  We have had several companies join DirectNet over the last couple of years.

INTERVIEWER: Less than 2 percent. That is an amazing testimony. Describe the support that you've had from people in the industry.

BRAY: For the most part, manufacturing companies in the furniture industry are isolated entities. Most companies were started by entrepreneurs and tend to be insulated from a communication perspective and don't readily share information with each other.

Nonetheless, there is comradery among members that extends to sharing noncompetitive information including healthcare information. I’ve found that you have to share information to be able to get reciprocal information when you need it.  When you join industry organizations such as the AHFA (American Home Furnishings Alliance) and High Point Market Authority, you have an opportunity to build relationships with other leaders and it allows you to share experiences and hear about successes and best practices from other people in the industry.

Our company benefits from partners in the industry.  Our employees go to industry meetings and share best practices. Our company has a reputation of being a good, contributing community, corporate and industry citizen.

INTERVIEWER: Thinking historically when you first started with Vanguard and where you are today, how have your business strategies and approach to growing the business changed?

BRAY: I don’t think we’ve philosophically changed our business strategies over the years but what we have changed is that we are more intentional about proactively developing strategies and about how we communicate them. Early in our history, we were building a “What are we going to be when we grow up?” kind of environment. Today, we're more mature.  We know who we are and how we plan to grow. 

An important aspect of today’s strategies is that we want to build a winning team. We want to win. We want to be successful. We want to implement a successful succession plan and other strategies for the long-term health of our company.  We have purposefully created a learning culture at Vanguard to ensure that our people are exposed to the latest, best practices in both hard technical and soft people-skills. We think holistically when solving business and industry issues, as well as being conscious of our associates’ personal and family needs.

Again, I would say that our strategies haven’t changed too much but we are more intentional today.

INTERVIEWER: What about your management techniques? Talk more about culture and the change in management.

BRAY: I would summarize our change or culture evolution by saying we listen to and attempt to understand individual or group requirements, empathize with their needs and aspirations and hopefully solve their problems.  As we have matured as an organization, we have learned the importance of listening and understanding.   We can’t always execute on every idea or concern, but we can listen and acknowledge that we have heard each other’s ideas or concerns.

We also have learned the importance of recognition for good work accomplished.  We intentionally look for ways to compliment, to recognize, and reward anyone for a job well done. This level of recognition is critical to creating the culture that we want to achieve.

Thirdly, no matter the environment or situation, even in a crisis or making tough decisions, we want to treat everyone with respect and dignity.  These are critically important elements of who we are and are essential for the culture we want to create at Vanguard.

INTERVIEWER: Now we're going to talk about goals.  Again, thinking historically, have your goals changed personally, interwoven with your business?

BRAY: My personal and our corporate business goals were the same in our early days as they are today, but we do a better job of articulating them now.  Our company is the vehicle to create a financial quality of life for our associates so that when they retire, their economic quality of life is equal to or better than while they're working. The company is a vehicle to accomplish this overarching goal. 

A second goal is that we use the organization to contribute to the improvements in our industry and to the quality of life in our communities. We strive to leave our world in a better place than we found it.  We consciously try to be a good corporate citizen and look for ways to support making our community a better place to live, whether it's education, arts, or non-profits. We can't solve all the problems, but we can contribute in our own way—both individually and corporately. Those are two important personal goals for how our company is the vehicle to make the world a better place and to support our communities and employees.

INTERVIEWER: What would you say was your business philosophy when you got into business and is it still the same?

BRAY: My basic business philosophies are the same now as they were 50 years ago. At the same time, our goals and philosophies are a work in progress.  At our core, we're a “learning organization” that’s constantly experimenting and working to improve our business or processes.  I'm always looking for fresh ideas for improvement and the culture we create in our organization is to think the same way.  Our larger departments and our smallest teams are daily exchanging ideas and looking for improvements in processes, service to our customers and improving the quality of our finished product.

INTERVIEWER: One of the things that strikes me is you've never said, "My goal was to create a certain size business."

BRAY: I would agree. Growth in and of itself is not important, but achieving goals and improving or automating processes are critically important. A goal of creating a wholesome environment for our employees to grow personally, financially and professionally is always more important than “corporate growth” for growth’s sake.

INTERVIEWER:  What does “winning” look like?

BRAY: Winning is exceeding the financial goals that you set for the year.  Winning is also about facilitating individual growth and creating a learning environment for our people that encourages and stimulates continuous improvement in processes and quality.  All these elements of winning put us in a position to create new products and deliver quality, on-time furniture for our customers. Those are the most important aspects of winning.

INTERVIEWER: Describe your relationships with the essential ingredients of your business – your suppliers, your customers, your competitors, and the industry.

BRAY: We try to create a business relationship with our suppliers that's based on mutual appreciation and respect. We're asking for competitive value pricing, consistent quality, and reliable delivery. In return, we try to be a responsible, reliable customer with consistent business and order flow for our suppliers.

Similarly, we strive to be a reliable, trouble-free vendor for our customers by offering fashionable styling and value pricing with predictable quality and delivery. Our goal is to be easy to do business with by offering industry leading sales materials, Internet-related communication applications and tools for convenience and information to our customers.

For example, an important challenge in the customized manufacturing business is our printed price list.  It could be three inches thick because it requires all the pricing on paper for the breadth of the product we offer and each product could have as many as 30 options from which the customer must choose and price. When the retail salesperson is in front of a consumer fumbling through the price list, it can be a point of frustration for everyone involved and may lead to a lost sale. As a result, we work diligently to create unique tools to prevent this negative scenario.

We have a healthy relationship with our competitors. We have a lot of respect for them.  They all run honorable businesses with good products and we share common customers all over the world.  So generally, we speak respectfully about each other.  At the same time, we’re constantly looking for ways to compete or differentiate our products or programs. 

Interestingly, since most of our industry is centered in Hickory, we have an interesting and unique social community.  It's not uncommon, for example, for competitors’ children to be best friends or classmates, for our wives to be in the same book clubs, or go to the same church, Rotary Clubs, et cetera. During the day, individuals in our industry are fierce competitors, but at other times, we're friends socially, active community citizens, and play golf in the same foursome.  It's a unique community environment that may not be duplicated in other industries.

INTERVIEWER: This industry has a history of being interconnected and highly relational. Has that created a challenge in business, that your competitors know all your customers and all of your suppliers as well?

BRAY: Our industry does present an interesting challenge in that at the manufacturing level we are fiercely competitive for the same labor force and selling to many of the same customers.  Most manufacturers are entrepreneurs who have grown their companies incrementally and organically over the years.  As a result, there’s a lot of pride and historically we have not been open to sharing ideas or best practices.  In most instances, these ideas represented the competitive advantages for each company—or at least we thought that was the case.

In the marketing or selling environment, competitive advantages or secrets don’t last long as your customers are always using their ingenuity to get a better price or service from each seller.  In more recent times, as I mentioned we have joined together as an industry to solve common problems such as working with our local Community College to start a Furniture Academy to train future employees.  Similarly, a group of manufacturers formed an organization to share best practices for providing quality and manage affordable health care for our employees.

INTERVIEWER: What has your involvement been in the industry trade associations?

BRAY: I've been a member of the American Home Furnishings Alliance for close to 40 years and have served on their board of directors for several terms, including serving as chairman several years ago. I've also served on the High Point Market Authority Board of Directors. I was chairman for two different terms. These are the two organizations I've been most involved with in our industry.

INTERVIEWER: What has your greatest benefit been from that association?

BRAY: When you roll up your sleeves with industry contemporaries to work on common industry issues, such as governmental regulations on flame retardancy or formaldehyde, for example, you get to know each other on a personal or social level. This experience establishes some comfort for calling those individuals to get answers on questions of mutual interest. It has been helpful to develop those personal relationship with other leaders in the industry.

INTERVIEWER: Now, have you had any other business enterprises, or joint ventures?

BRAY: I previously mentioned our experiences with forming the Furniture Academy as well as our experience with Healthcare and the company DirectNet we formed with other manufactures to address common health care issues and assist in managing the Health Clinics at our facilities.  More recently, we acquired Clarity—a software development company that developed several information technology programs that help us better serve the needs of our customers.

INTERVIEWER: Let's talk about changes in the furniture industry. In general, what changes have you seen?

BRAY: In answering that question, I am reminded of the old saying, “the more things change, the more they remain the same.”  On the one hand, in the manufacturing segment, upholstery remains highly labor intensive with only subtle changes due to automation.  On the other, automation and “just in time” and other “lean manufacturing” processes have been the primary impetus for change in the case goods as well as upholstery segments of the industry.

Imports and mergers of companies have created the biggest changes in the industry in more recent times.  The dominant players today are larger companies that have replaced the predominantly smaller “mom and pop” manufacturers in earlier years.  The impact of imports and the subsequent Asian ownership of many manufacturing factories have been the most significant factors in the changing landscape of our industry.

INTERVIEWER: With importing, you've been able to survive and done quite well. Has that made you better? Has that made you more competitive or really no impact on your part of the business?

BRAY: We are able to provide the best of both worlds to our customers by combining the cases and parts we import with our state-of-the-art finishing abilities.  Our goal is to manufacture and customize both imported and domestically manufactured furniture to fill customers orders.  We have a robust website, which allows customers to search for their favorite furniture selections before visiting our retail or designer customers to place an order.

Our import business plan is predicated on being in an “in-stock” position when an order is received to allow us to custom finish the item and ship it quickly.  Of course, this requires advanced strategic and logistic planning with our vendors.  Members of our staff meet with most overseas vendors every six to eight weeks to resolve any issues and plan for product and logistical fulfillment.

INTERVIEWER: It used to be that whatever the name of the company was, the top person had the same last name. It always was a very entrepreneurial business with many, many different exhibitors in this industry. Do you think that is now coming back, an entrepreneurial nature versus the big corporation? Is the entrepreneurial nature of the businesses still strong or do you think we are going to forever go the way of big corporate companies?

BRAY: That's an interesting question. I think unfortunately, the banking and financial marketplace has significantly changed from 50 years ago.  In the post-World War II and into the 1970s, if you had an idea for a new business, you could go to your local bank, get a loan and start your business.  Today, you need more capital to approach the bank with your entrepreneurial idea.  If you want to borrow a million dollars, you probably need to have two million in the bank. So, the amount of capital needed for start-up companies has changed significantly in the last 50 years.

There are as many ideas today for forming new companies as there always were, but increased capital requirements and more bank restrictions for new start-ups has significantly slowed the formation of new furniture manufacturing companies.  At the same time, there are new businesses such as designers who have ideas for products or concepts who then sell their ideas to established manufacturers and work on a royalty or commission basis.  In addition, several larger retailers are going vertical by starting their own manufacturing facilities to support their retail operations.

INTERVIEWER: If you have a great creative idea, the buyers are always looking for the next great thing. They're always looking for something different. InterHall in IHFC, for example, is all about bringing in the fresh, new looks and young companies. Do you foresee that going away?

BRAY: I don’t think companies with new ideas are going away, I certainly hope not.  The challenge to new companies showing in Interhall will be one of scale; they can make their samples in their small shop or garage but getting the capital to have enough critical mass to initiate production will be their challenge. 

INTERVIEWER: Because it’s harder and harder to get started.

BRAY: I am concerned that unless there are significant changes in banking laws and processes, capital available for new companies without deep pockets will be limited.  At the same time, I think there will be new products or products for new markets that result in new companies or divisions that are spin-offs from existing companies.  Also, there may be spin-offs from mergers with products that don’t fit the plan of the acquiring company.

INTERVIEWER: The regulations and environmental regulations make it difficult sometimes for manufacturing.

BRAY: Managing regulations are becoming a full-time job for our staff.  With the diversity of our upholstery product line, just getting the correct Law Label for each unique chair or sofa takes a lot of effort to insure the regulations are followed.  For example, if the same product is made at our different factory locations, it takes a label to identify the location where the product was produced. This is just one example of the impact to follow current, ever-changing regulations from state and federal governments. 

INTERVIEWER: What other changes have you seen in manufacturing, the marketplace, or your own business?

BRAY: I think the most significant change in recent years in furniture manufacturing has been the introduction of “lean manufacturing” from Toyota and W. Edward Deming.  These changes have increased efficiencies in manufacturing and improved value and pricing.  Lean processes feature quicker shipping times, smaller cuttings, and the elimination or reduction of wastes including errors, time, materials and space utilization.

Another change primarily in case goods manufacturing has been the introduction of more sophisticated machinery and automation. Although not universally adopted, team-based manufacturing is a new phenomenon to the industry.  It requires different manufacturing and plant processes than traditional upholstery factory operations.

INTERVIEWER:  What about in the marketplace?

BRAY: One of the biggest changes in the retail marketplace is that there are fewer big box retailers. Fortunately, for our industry, at the same time there is an increase in the number of independent interior designers.  This group of design professionals give consumers a resource for creating a home environment that’s both customized and personalized.

Another change in the marketplace is less recognition and demand for the “brand” of the furniture manufacturer.  Obviously, the buying preferences of today’s consumer and the impact of the internet have enhanced the ease of purchasing and buying processes by providing them the availability of more product knowledge and information in advance or at the time of purchase.  The future direction is that more consumers will be purchasing their furniture online via the internet.  Purchasing furniture via the internet will be a game changer for our industry.

INTERVIEWER: Go back to less brand recognition. Is that because the retailers don't want a brand on it?

BRAY: I think this phenomenon is driven more by consumers in making home furnishings purchasing decisions. 

INTERVIEWER: In home furnishings, because in the other areas, it's all about the brand.

BRAY: In the home furnishings industry, previous generations grew up in an environment where the product’s “brand” name was significant.  In prior years, some larger companies had effective consumer marketing campaigns on national television.  Other companies made significant financial investments in national advertising campaigns with newspaper or shelter magazines. 

Today, we see many consumer habits changing, and print is less important today than it was 30 years ago.  Some of those companies who built their brand names with national advertising no longer exist.  Clearly, the impact of the Internet and social media has had the effect of leveling the playing field and some companies are finding effective marketing strategies without an emphasis on “brand” for getting their products placed at retail and on to consumers.

INTERVIEWER: Is part of that because of China, that the furniture is not made in the US, it is made somewhere

else?

BRAY: Again, I think it's driven primarily by consumers.  Younger consumers are purchasing furniture differently than their parents did when much of the “branded” product was bought because of a pride in ownership with whatever the name manufacturer was – Heritage or Broyhill or Henredon or whoever dominated the advertising space.

In the early 2000s, imports accelerated due to Asian investment in machinery, currency advantages, and cheaper labor costs.  This allowed furniture to be manufactured, imported and sold at retail for approximately 40% less than comparable domestic products sold five years earlier.  Even though the brand was important, consumers could not reconcile a 40% price delta.

Additional reasons for this lack of importance of name or brand recognition is that the companies may be non-existent or the retail brand’s products are not manufactured by them at all.

INTERVIEWER: Like Restoration Hardware, it's not made by Restoration Hardware at all.

BRAY: That's a prime example of the “brand” not being the manufacturer. 

INTERVIEWER: It's a look put together by Restoration Hardware.

BRAY: That's a retail brand, not a manufacturing brand, although RH does some limited manufacturing.  They’re part of a trend of some companies being more vertical as we've already seen happening with Williams Sonoma, Restoration Hardware, Crate and Barrel and others.

This retail branding scenario may be limited, but it also could become the dominant home furnishing organization structure with the retailer owning their own manufacturing facilities.  At this point, the retail branding trend is dominated by U.S. retailers becoming vertical for products in the domestic market.  

On an international front, Asian owners of retail stores and manufacturing facilities such as Robb & Stucky and Markor plan to market their retail “brand” at stores in the Asian market.  This trend of vertical integration may become the dominant organizational structure in our industry with Ashley, our industry’s biggest retailer and manufacturer as the model. 

INTERVIEWER: What do you see as the most serious problems facing our industry today?

BRAY: I think the issues relating to regulations and the Internet are our industry’s significant challenges. 

Most manufacturers have difficulty in being compliant with all the different state and national regulations.  For example, it is hard for a manufacturer to be compliant when regulations in each state are different for reporting fire retardancy, foam, formaldehyde levels in plywood and the onerous law label requirement for different cushioning.

Another issue is that our industry has the challenge of determining the future of furniture on the Internet.  How can companies effectively market our products to accommodate both consumer’s preferences and at the same time keep our retail customers healthy?

INTERVIEWER: Why are regulations so difficult to keep up with?

BRAY: The challenges relating to flame retardant (FR) chemicals has been ongoing for over 30 years and have centered on both carcinogenic FR chemicals and agreement for adequate testing for flame retardancy.  Also, most upholstery manufacturers don’t manufacture the foam we use, so we depend on our foam suppliers to provide documentation stating compliance with the latest regulation requirements. 

Moreover, keeping abreast of the changes in labeling requirements for cushion component contents for each item of upholstery have been onerous. Each product we produce is unique and we are required to list the contents of each cushion component for each item on every individual production ticket.  The labeling requirements of any product will depend on the state it is shipping to as well as the cushioning materials.  As I mentioned previously, the same item produced at different locations requires different law labels.  Keeping this information accurate takes extensive programming as well as training to avoid making mistakes.

INTERVIEWER: Yet, we're an industry that's creative, has a lot of technology in terms of design, manufacturing, and how you sell the product online, and is a highly relational and close-knit industry. And we're really nice people.

BRAY: Another challenge that our furniture industry has to address is our need to attract young people in the next generation and to effectively sell them on the idea that furniture can be an attractive career.  Currently, our industry is struggling to overcome the negative public relations from our past experiences with the loss of furniture jobs during downturns in the economy. 

We are beginning to make some inroads with overcoming this negative image, but our industry could be more effective if we could coordinate our recruiting efforts to those people about to enter the workforce.  There are some efforts taking shape to address these issues by the AHFA.

INTERVIEWER: What do you consider to be your own greatest contribution to the industry?

BRAY: First of all, I have been blessed to work with a talented and committed team at Vanguard.  Any contributions I’ve made to the industry have been as a result of a collaborated effort with our Vanguard team.   

There are two contributions by our company that come to mind.  In each case, we were trying to solve problems by enhancing our customer's experience with the furniture purchasing experience.

The first was the introduction of digital simulation in the 1990s with MicroD that allowed consumers to see what fabrics would look like when applied to unique upholstery frames. The challenge for the purchasing consumer was they only saw a small fabric color swatch and a picture of the frame style because it was difficult for consumers to envision what the final fabric-to-frame would look like.  Our partner, MicroD, provided a computer simulation that showed a computer-generated representation of the fabric properly scaled and placed on an upholstery frame.  Fabrics such as “prints” with designs throughout were popular in the marketplace in those days and the newly developed computer solution was especially successful by virtually eliminating consumer “buyer’s remorse” or being surprised by the fabric application on a sofa.

Fast-forward 30 years and this 2D technology is being replaced by VR (virtual reality) and 3D renderings that even place the envisioned furniture in actual rooms in the customer's home.  Who could have anticipated where this technology would evolve?  Certainly, we can now give consumers a clearer picture of what their investment in decorating their homes can be before making a final purchasing decision.

More recently, the second contribution our team has developed is a pricing configurator to simplify the pricing of customized furniture for upholstery and case goods ordering. 

INTERVIEWER:  Is that computerized?

BRAY: Yes, the configurator is a program designed to price all of Vanguard’s products.  The problem with the existing configurators in the marketplace was they were limited in the number of options they could price.  I heard of one configurator that would limit the user to eight options—so for every piece of furniture ordered, you could choose only eight customized options.

In the Vanguard upholstery product line, the options we offer are virtually limitless. There are no fixed number of options from which to choose.  For example, you can change the width, depth, height; you can change fabric placement location, you can change size of nails, you can change colors on nails, you can also choose cushion options for seats and backs, etc. and the configurator prices the options chosen.

We've created a configurator that solves the related pricing issues with all of the options offered.  We partnered with a small IT company and developed a proprietary configurator that prices custom-made upholstery and case goods furniture.  This digital configurator—with an unlimited number of options and enhancements—will eventually replace the printed price list.  It allows retail sellers to use our “quote builder” configuration tool not only to price furniture, but also to submit an order electronically into our order entry system at Vanguard that is free from omissions and mistakes.

Internally, when the order placed by our customer is received by Vanguard, without re-keying the order, we can schedule and acknowledge the order back to the customer within minutes.

It's state of the art.  Again, this configurator has become the pricing vehicle of choice for interior designers and retail sellers. They can use their cellphone, iPad, laptop, desktop or whatever computing device is convenient, to get pricing from the configurator on our company website. 

INTERVIEWER: It is a tool for pricing but it also is involved in going ahead and placing the order.

BRAY: In many of our product lines, we have a visualizer available that is an updated version of the old MicroD technology.  For example, if a nail head is silver but purchaser wants to change the color to bronze, this change can be visualized on the computer screen.

In case goods, the newest introductions have been for bedroom furniture.  You can choose the case size you want to use for a dresser or a smaller nightstand, then choose the base from eight options available.  You can then visually see the base option chosen or choose another base until you see the base choice the purchaser likes.  Similarly, you are able to view your choices and literally build the piece of furniture after choosing drawer faces, hardware and  finish options.  As each option is chosen, prices are available on the visualizer.

Our retail sellers are finding that using our configurator and accompanying visualizer tools eliminates mistakes and omissions in their order-writing process.  The instructions on the screen are user-friendly and take the user through the process step-by-step.

When orders are received at the factory, all of the option choices are complete—there are no unanswered questions.  We can immediately schedule the order for production, provide the planned shipping date on the acknowledgement and send this information back to our customer. 

Our customers have embraced our enhanced configurator for pricing and customizing upholstery and case goods furniture.

INTERVIEWER: In that case, did you develop that in-house?

BRAY: We developed the configurator with a small local IT company—Clarity Solutions.  We were working with the company on unrelated internet projects and in conversations, we discussed our need for a configurator that would solve pricing needs for our customers when pricing our broad, customizable product line.  Clarity’s owner said he could program a configurator to solve our problems.  His team of programmers working in conjunction our internal IT and Order Entry teams developed our configurator.  We subsequently purchased majority ownership in Clarity and it operates as an independent company within Vanguard today.

Since our configurator can work in any customizable manufacturing process in any industry, we are offering it to other furniture companies as well as marketing it to custom manufacturers outside of the home furnishings industry.  Any company using the configurator can securely load its own product line and accompanying pricing rules onto their own stand-alone configurator.

We have invested capital to create a great product that is working for our customers.  At the same time, if a number of other furniture manufacturers were using it, the tool would become a marketplace standard and hopefully simplify buying custom furniture at retail for industry consumers.

INTERVIEWER: In your work career, you have modified at least two technological ideas for furniture manufacturing because you had a problem and you saw a way to solve the problem: No returns or virtually no returns, which also got consumers excited to be able to solve a frustrating problem. "I can't visualize what that fabric would look like on that sofa. I think I'd like to have it this way, but I can’t visualize it.  And, I really need to know the price before I order it." You have simplified two big parts of buying furniture.

BRAY: We have captured the problems we were seeing at retail with our customers and consumers while selling and buying our furniture.  Selfishly, we felt that if we could solve this problem for our customers, we could create more orders for our company.  You might conclude that adversity is a great motivator for inventions when searching for solutions—"necessity is the mother of invention”.

INTERVIEWER: Are there other contributions that we haven't already discussed that you want to discuss?

BRAY: We have also been diligent about improving our environment inside and outside our own facilities.  Internally, for example, we've focused for more than 20 years on recycling all possible production waste: wood scraps, dust, metal, fiber, plastic, and cardboard.  Where feasible, we bale this waste and find companies who will accept the recycled materials. We try to sell these recyclables when possible.  Our recycling goal is to put only food scraps in the

landfill.

INTERVIEWER: Other inductees talk about how they made recycling profitable, either by reducing costs, or in some cases by generating revenue. How important is recycling to you from a business perspective versus feeling good about preserving the Earth? From a dollars and cents perspective?

BRAY: In our case, we have turned an expense into a revenue stream.  Our revenues fluctuate depending on the products and recycling marketplace.  For example, it is hard to sell sawdust or wood scraps in the summer time to

buyers using these materials for furnaces in cold weather.  We have staff dedicated to collecting the recycled materials and finding vendors to purchase recyclables.  On average, our recycling revenues equal our expenses.

INTERVIEWER:  There's a cost.

BRAY: I think for the most part, it’s a “feel good” to say we're not creating landfill and subsequent environmental problems.  A second area that we've spent time and energy on has been to create a safer work environment for our employees. Every person building our upholstery has a lift to place the item on in an ergonomically correct position based on the person’s height and the size of the product.

Similarly, we discovered that our sewers working in a standing position behind the sewing machine can improve their health by eliminating shoulder and repetitive motion issues.

INTERVIEWER:  Really? Standing?

BRAY: Standing while sewing virtually eliminates Carpel Tunnel Syndrome with our sewers.  Sewers who have moved to standing from sitting say their arms, shoulders, neck and back are less fatigued at the end of the workday.

INTERVIEWER:  Do they like it?

BRAY: Ergonomically, sewing while standing exerts less pressure on the back and shoulder.  The operator can adjust the sewing machines for the desired height.  The mechanical sewing portion of machines are the same as the traditional machines. The foot pedals are changed to accommodate controlling the machine with either foot and the stands are on adjustable stilts to raise or lower the sewing platform. 

INTERVIEWER: Now the outside factors on the furniture industry. Vietnam, you served in Vietnam, correct?

BRAY: I was in the Marine Corps in Vietnam for thirteen months in 1966 and 1967.

INTERVIEWER: Have any of the other wars had any impact on you?

BRAY: I think any war experience leaves an indelible mark on you.  Nothing can quite compare to a wartime environment.  Consciously or not, your mind compartmentalizes those experiences and I don’t consciously think of those experiences unless I am with someone who had similar experiences to compare war stories.

At the same time, I have an affinity for and connection with anyone who has served in the military and in our more recent wars and conflicts.  We  recognize our veterans on veterans Day to show appreciation for their military service.

INTERVIEWER: What about racial attitudes? Vanguard was started in what year again?

BRAY: 1969.

INTERVIEWER:  '69. You joined in?

BRAY: 1970.

INTERVIEWER: '70. What changes have you seen in the workplace?

BRAY: Related to racial attitudes and woman’s issues, our company has created an integrated and inclusive work environment.  Negative racial attitudes have not been an issue for our company.  Over the years, we have established a race-neutral work environment where every person is accepted for their individual contributions, without consideration for race or gender.

I am really proud of the fact that many of our supervisors and company leaders are non-white and/or female.  They are effective leaders in our company, and they are respected by their associates and contemporaries in a very positive, productive and wholesome manner.  Every associate at our company knows that these attitudes are an integral part of our culture and when we have those who are not in agreement, they don’t feel comfortable in our workplace and eventually leave the company.

INTERVIEWER: Going to women, would you say you have more women working today as a percentage for Vanguard than you did at the beginning?

BRAY: I think the percentage of women in our workforce is about the same as when I joined the company.  Women make up about 45% of our total employees.

INTERVIEWER: Is that because more women are working out of the home or because you're hiring more women?

BRAY: There are very few positions at Vanguard today that we wouldn't a hire woman to fill. Historically, certain jobs were female only. For example, sewing has historically been female only, but our most recent sewing trainee is a man who just graduated from the Furniture Academy in sewing.  This new hire is an anomaly and is not the norm for sewers. 

I admit to having a bias towards women as managers at Vanguard.  They tend to be more empathetic and emotionally connected with the people reporting to them.  Our company would always hire the best candidate for any opening, but we seem to have an abundance of female managers for the stated reasons.

INTERVIEWER: Do you think that there are more women working here because more women are working outside of the   home or because the industry has changed and more women are being hired?

BRAY: Clearly more women are working outside the home today than in past generations.  I think we were part of that societal trend of more women working in our company’s early history, and that trend has continued in subsequent years.  At the same time, I have observed that women can now do most tasks that men can do in our manufacturing workplace and they are accepted by their peers in their expanded roles when compared to the more limited job opportunities for women 60 years ago.

A number of our jobs require a heightened attention to detail and the person executing these tasks need to be part artist and part mechanic.  Setting the welt or nails straight and other detailed tasks can be performed effectively by both women and men.

INTERVIEWER: Some of it, I would think, is now mechanical, that you don't have to have the upper body strength to do things because the machine is moving it along or raising it.

BRAY: Most jobs have a weight limit of 35 pounds for lifting, and above that weight, we require a partner to assist with lifting or moving an item.  Most everyone can handle the 35-pound weight limit. 

INTERVIEWER: So, you are creating more opportunities that women can do and want to do.

BRAY: I am not sure that the jobs were created with hiring more women in mind, but it has worked out that either men or women can do most tasks at our company.

INTERVIEWER: Talk about product shipments.  Has this changed through the years in terms of both how you receive materials as well as how you ship products, and then also, of course, dealing with importing from overseas?

BRAY: Since we started the company, there have always been specialized furniture trucking carriers to deliver our furniture to retail customers.  Our customers choose the method and company for transporting our products and we work to ensure we have carriers available who will deliver to the appropriate states. 

The biggest change over the years has been with our imported case goods.  We ship and receive containers of imported products today that weren’t a part of our business 30 years ago.  The knowledge about the logistics for purchasing, communication and coordination of information required for importing products is a specialized skill set that is necessary for our business today. 

INTERVIEWER:  What about the speed of delivery?

BRAY: On our shipping side, our customers would probably say that deliveries from our factories are no faster today than they were 30 years ago.

INTERVIEWER: Is that because of overseas shipments or is it domestic?

BRAY: The domestic shipments mostly result from the lack of drivers for our furniture carriers. It's not uncommon for our retail customers to complain that we can manufacture a customized product in two weeks, but it may take three weeks to deliver the order after it’s picked up from our factory.  Of course, the farther the store is from our factories, the longer the delivery takes.

INTERVIEWER: Thinking historically, what has the impact of environmental regulations been?

BRAY: I think the only regulation we had when we started was that all of our products were required to have a law label that documented the components in seat and back cushions. As previously mentioned, with today’s breadth of the products and the varied components in every piece combined with requirements that are different for each state, it is an onerous task to keep this information accurate on law labels. 

Our goal has always been to manufacture and ship a safe product.  We invest a lot of time and effort to educate and supply information to consumers with product labeling and information on our products and website.  We strive to meet or exceed all required environmental regulations.

INTERVIEWER: Talk about the challenge of that in doing business competitively today and the impact of those regulations.

BRAY: Most regulations are in effect today for a reason.  Historically, there was abuse or neglect or some entities were not being good corporate citizens.  As a result, many regulations were created in an attempt to eliminate a safety hazard for consumers.  Also, there have been occurrences of unintended consequences from products not being used as originally intended that have resulted in safety issues.

The current “tip-over” rule for furniture is a good example.  Case goods, dressers, or any furniture item that accommodates clothing and is above 30 inches height must pass stringent specific “tip over” rules.  This regulation resulted from accidents and even some deaths in homes when children climb onto the drawers the furniture tipped over onto the child.  Everyone wants to make these items safe or to ensure that the furniture doesn’t tip over when kids are playing in the drawers.  Everyone I know in our industry would agree that these are good rules.  Most regulations are created in reaction to solving a perceived safety problem in the marketplace.

INTERVIEWER: There are environmental regulations but then there are also manufacturing regulations. Are there categories of regulations?

BRAY: Currently, some regulations apply to upholstered products and others apply to case goods or wood only. Regulations in upholstery are more fire or flammability focused, and case goods regulations are predominately related to “tip-over” or formaldehyde contents in synthetic materials or plywood.

INTERVIEWER: What has been the involvement of your family business with the community? You touched on this just a little bit about being a good community citizen.

BRAY: Our employees and managers are intimately involved in our community in a number of organizations, including serving on school boards and boards for the Chamber of Commerce, banks and savings and loans, Family Guidance and other non-profit community groups.  Other associates are involved in the YMCA and other community youth activities. Several employees are involved in local art museums and other groups and boards. We're intimately involved in the fiber of our communities.  We have an unwritten code at Vanguard that we want to contribute to making our communities a better place for our families to live and work.

INTERVIEWER:  How important is that, as a businessman?

BRAY: We want to make sure that we're creating a community that improves the environment and creates an economically healthy community for our current and future employees.  We support education and we want our communities to be a good place to raise our families. We support these goals with direct financial contributions as well as providing furniture for fundraising auctions. 

INTERVIEWER: What is your favorite charity? Or category of charities?

BRAY: My favorite charity is Exodus Works. Exodus is a 20-year-old organization that was started by two ministers for recovering addicts and people recently released from prison. The organization is supported by the United Way and other contributions from the community.  We provided leadership and completed the first Exodus capital campaign that raised $1.4 million dollars. This new capital will allow Exodus to buy a building for their revenue-producing Thrift Store and offices, as well as to make improvements to residences and the quality of life for their clients. This is an important and successful ministry in our community for those people recovering from issues related to dependency and addiction.

Several years ago, our company had an issue getting dependable “temporary help”.  We were receiving from two to six containers daily and with these inconsistent deliveries, we used “temp labor” to receive or offload containers and to put products into our warehouse.  Often, these workers were unreliable and didn't show up for work as contracted,   or    they might start work, then leave for a doctor’s appointment an hour later while leaving the work unfinished.

We contacted the Exodus leaders to ask if they could help solve the problem we were experiencing with temporary help.  The Exodus recovery program includes finding temporary work for individuals at companies in our community.  In our case, the Exodus clients have solved our problem with the temporary help by providing reliable workers for this work area.  In addition, we found that a number of these Exodus residents had excellent work habits and skills.  They were good candidates for the permanent jobs we had available.

Over time, we have hired over twenty full-time employees from our relationship with Exodus.  What initially was a solution to our temporary worker challenge has evolved into an opportunity for these new associates to regain a personal and financial quality of life while going through their recovery program. 

INTERVIEWER: What are your leisure activities, when you're not working?

BRAY: I love to read and belong to a couple of book clubs—one focuses on history and the other club reads “short stories”.  I enjoy the social aspects of these groups and the engaging dialog and discussions while discussing our readings.  Occasionally my wife and I play golf together, but not as often as we would like. I love to travel and spend time with my younger grandkids.  My older grandchildren are grown and we were actively involved in their school and sports activities.  Now with the younger grandchildren, we are enjoying going to their volleyball, basketball, baseball or soccer games.

INTERVIEWER:  You're not retired.

BRAY: I'm not retired because I don't like a lot of the alternatives to working.  I am fortunate to work with both of my children along with a very capable and talented management team and they do most of the heavy lifting at work.  My commitment to our team is to get out of their way when I can’t keep up with the pace needed to execute our corporate plans.

INTERVIEWER: Is there anything else that you think we should be talking about in terms of historical perspective?

BRAY: In the decade of the 1990s we were looking for marketing ideas that were having success in other industries and that we might learn or adapt for our company.  I felt that our industry and certainly our company needed to be more aggressive with our advertising and public relations efforts.  I had a friend who was in the “branding” marketing business and used sports figures to brand his company’s hosiery manufacturing products.  I approached my friend to discuss how we might adapt some of his branding ideas for our   company  as  I   thought, “If  his  ideas worked for hosiery, they could work for furniture.”

We decided to explore the idea of licensing brand names to help market our products to the furniture industry.  Within the year, we had agreements with three different well-known brands in the marketplace—Stetson Hats, Kathy Ireland Home and the PGA Tour brands. 

The good news was that these brands had immediate recognition in the marketplace. The bad news was that none of these three brands created product ideas.  We had to create the marketing and product ideas for each of the brands:  What does a Stetson product line look like? What should furniture for the PGA Tour or golfing community look like? What does furniture for Kathy Ireland Home look like?  We met with each of the brands and developed unique marketing strategies with each group. Kathy was a working mom, so our furniture was created to fill the needs of that audience.  Stetson was furniture designed to support the classic, out-west, rugged “Marlboro man” life style, and the PGA Tour obviously was themed for the golfing community’s life style.

We had contracts with each of those initial brands that ran three years.  As the end of our contracts approached, we realized how exhausting and time-consuming it was for our internal creative staff to create and maintain these three different lifestyles.  As a result, we decided to change direction and look for new brands, which would bring us their own product ideas.  We collaborated with new brand owner/designers to create products and lifestyle for our own customer base. 

In the years after those initial three brands, we have been fortunate to work with Michael Weiss, Thom Filicia and other designers who have had a reputation for developing exceptional products.  In collaboration with these design professionals, we have been able to enhance our position in the marketplace with their products and increased brand recognition for our company.  Again, it all started with the idea of adapting and bringing marketing successes from other industries to the furniture business.

INTERVIEWER: In my marketing days, my conclusion after introducing many celebrity brands was that very few of them were successful in terms of the product. What it did was raise the visibility of the company and get retailers that had never been into their showroom before and it took them to another level. So many of them would say, “Well, we didn't sell any of their product but it did bring us a lot of business for what we were otherwise doing.”

BRAY: We have experienced the same phenomenon.  At the end of the day, we’ve found that—it's all about the product.  Our first success following those initial licensed brands was with Michael Weiss.  His focus on mid-century modern designs was a new product category for our company.  In those times at the turn of the century our product direction was very traditional.  Our customers knew us and expected us to have familiar traditional lifestyle products.

The first market with Michael’s designs brought thirty new mid-century modern customers into the showroom. We realized that this was a new styling category with a new customer base.  Then, during Michael Weiss’s second market, our regular traditional customers began to accept the new product styling and we doubled the number of mid-century modern customers at that market. 

By the third market, the marketplace had adopted the mid-century modern category that began with Michael's inspirations. He was at the forefront of the design trend and this product category that started for us in 2001 continues to be an important part of our product categories and lifestyles.

Following our mid-century modern successes, Thom Filicia brought his interior design talents to our company and based his designs on those he was using in interior design projects with his celebrity client base. 

INTERVIEWER:  Thank you, John.

BRAY: I have enjoyed this opportunity to reflect on my life experiences—both in my personal and corporate lives.  I appreciate the opportunity you’ve afforded to put these reflections on paper.