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Tag: leola

Leola-based Stauffer & Sons acquired by Virginia wood preservers

Pressure-treated wood producer Culpeper Wood Preservers of Virginia announced Tuesday its acquisition of Leola-based H.M. Stauffer & Sons. 

Culpeper Wood Preservers President Jonathan Jenkins said the acquisition adds diversity to the company’s product offerings, as H.M. Stauffer & Sons has been a leader in various facets of their industry. 

“The principles and values of H.M. Stauffer & Sons coincides with what we believe in at Culpeper Wood Preservers,” Jenkins said on the company site. “The combination of these two companies strengthens our ability to provide greater value and service to our customers and expands our geographic reach. Our continued growth highlights our commitment to excellence for our customers, suppliers and employees.” 

Based in Culpeper, Va., Culpeper Wood Preservers provides pressure-treated products for commercial, industrial, marine, and residential markets. Started in 1976, the company’s products are sold exclusively through lumber dealers throughout the Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, Northeast, and Southeast. 

The acquisition of H.M. Stauffer & Sons allows Culpeper to strengthen its distribution coverage area for pressure-treated wood into markets across the country. Culpeper has 17 treating plants within its coverage area. 

H.M. Stauffer President Ray Bures said in a release that his company is pleased to be associated with Culpeper. “Through the years, our customers have come to expect top-quality products and unparalleled service. Our product mix of treated lumber and structural building components has always been a winning combination. We are excited to continue our long history of success by joining forces with the Culpeper team.” 

Founded in 1890, H.M. Stauffer initially serviced Lancaster as a coal, feed, and lumber supplier. In the 1960s Stauffer, a leader in the building industry, started supplying trusses and wall panels. Wood-preservation capacities were added in 1975, and Stauffer expanded a decade later to nearby Myerstown.

Emerald Asset Management names new CEO

Scott L. Rehr
Scott L. Rehr

Leola-based Emerald Asset Management announced that Scott L. Rehr has been appointed the new CEO, succeeding Emerald’s founder Joseph E. Besecker, who will assume the new role of nonexecutive chairman.

David A. Volpe was named the company’s new president, and Mark F. Schlegel takes over as chief marketing officer. Rounding out the senior leadership team at Emerald are Chief Investment Officer Kenneth G. Mertz II and Chief Operating Officer Richard Juliano.

“As Emerald approaches its 30th anniversary managing client funds, I’m proud of our team and of these longtime leaders moving into these new roles,” Besecker said in a release.

Rehr co-founded Emerald Advisers in 1991. He served as chief operating officer of Emerald since 2012, where he has been responsible for all noninvestment-related functions.

“We’re excited to continue to bring ‘The Emerald Advantage’ to our clients in the years to come, working to provide an exemplary client experience and grow Emerald in a strategic fashion,” Rehr added. “We’re thankful for the path Joe has led us on and will continue to rely on his guidance and experience.”

Emerald Asset Management PA LLC is a diversified investment management holding company that operates through subsidiaries Emerald Advisers LLC, Emerald Mutual Fund Advisers Trust, Emerald Separate Account Management LLC and EmStone Advisers LLC. Assets managed by these companies totaled approximately $3.9 billion as of June 30. Beyond the Leola global headquarters, Emerald and its subsidiaries maintain offices in King of Prussia, Pittsburgh and Cleveland.

Paula Wolf is a freelance writer

Palmyra restaurant group buys TJ Rockwell’s 

TJ Rockwell’s in Mechanicsburg. PHOTO/PROVIDED

TJ Rockwell’s American Grille’s Mechanicsburg and Elizabethtown restaurants were recently purchased by the owners of Palmyra-based restaurant Funck’s. 

The restaurant’s 9,000-square-foot 896 West Grathem Road, Mechanicsburg location was sold to Grathem Road Enterprises and its 6,000-square-foot 800 Mount Gretna Road, Elizabethtown location was sold to Mount Gretna Road Enterprises.  

Both Grathem Road and Mount Gretna Road enterprises are owned by The Funck’s Restaurant Group. The group owns a number of restaurants including Funck’s Leola, Funck’s Palmyra and Funck’s Leola Dinner. 

In a Facebook post about the sale, Funck’s Restaurant Group welcomed the two restaurants to the Funck’s family. 

“We look forward to growing together and getting to know all our new friends and guests,” the group wrote.  

Nik Sgagias, of Lemoyne-based commercial industrial real estate firm, NAI CIR, handled the transactions. 

“Selling operating restaurants right now can be challenging, but the seller’s transparency and cooperation created the right foundation for this deal,” said Sgagias. “We found the perfect buyer with tremendous experience in the market.” 

 

Roofers improve social media ads with Lancaster software company

Jared Neff and Sam Beiler launched their social media advertising software, Boostpoint, in 2018 and have continued to grow the app into 2020. (Photo: Ioannis Pashakis)

A Leola-based roofing equipment company set out to build an app that would improve its social media outreach, but found that roofers weren’t the only businesses that needed help with this form of advertising.

Sam Beiler and Jared Neff began working on a concept for software that could help companies make the most of their Facebook and Instagram ads while working at Equipter, Beliers’ family business.

What began as a side project to support Equipter’s clients turned into its own business when Beiler and Neff realized that their app, now named Boostpoint, could stand on its own and cater to businesses outside of roofing.

Boostpoint offers businesses a streamlined process to post advertising to Facebook and Instagram and works with the websites’ ad managers to let clients pinpoint where they want their ads to be sent down to the neighborhood.

Social media ad managers can be difficult to navigate for business owners that don’t have the time to learn their nuances, but can be useful for businesses like roofing contractors that want to find new leads in neighborhoods they’ve already worked in, Beiler said.

“Let’s say you are a roofing contractor and you’ve done five jobs in the last two weeks,” he said. “You can just put in all of those addresses and target the radius around those neighborhoods. That’s where we are seeing companies generate leads.”

Businesses working through Boostpoint can create their social media advertisements with templates provided by the app. After the company inputs where they want their advertisements to be sent, Boostpoint will then target certain client demographics to receive the ads based on the company’s industry.

“We have the targeting happening in the back end of the app based on the industries and what we see best, our clients don’t really see that,” Neff said. “It’s kind of our secret sauce. That living algorithm.”

It’s that algorithm that Boostpoint adds after its companies find clients that makes it more useful to its customers compared to someone using the ad managers on their own, said Neff.

Beiler and Neff launched Boostpoint in late 2018 and currently have around 50 active users on the app. A majority of those users are roofing companies, but Boostpoint has also found interest from real estate agents and retail businesses such as local coffee shops.

With a social media ad, a business is generating its own leads and choosing where it wants to target those ads, unlike internet service companies like Angie’s List and HomeAdvisor that connect businesses to potential customers with a broader net, said Beiler.

“(With social media advertising) you are not relying on someone else to generate your leads like on Angie’s List or HomeAdvisor,” he said. “With their model, there are so many contractors on the platform that I end up paying $70 to $100 only to find out that three or five of my competitors reached them first.”

Boostpoint began 2020 by moving into new office space and for the rest of the year, will be looking at raising more capital and enticing more companies to use the app.

Boostpoint’s marketing efforts are still focused on roofing companies, but Beiler and Neff said the following year will give the company a chance to continue to expand their target market beyond roofing.

“We’ve seen that what we built works and people really like it,” said Beiler. “It is now about building the product faster so competition can’t replicate what we are doing and scaling the customer base to more clients.”

This month, Boostpoint was approved to receive a $100,000 match from Ben Franklin Technology Partners, an economic development program that funds innovative businesses in the tech space.

“Sam and Jared are sharp guys, said Andy Long, director of business development for Ben Franklin. “They have previous experience that speaks to their character, the ability to get things done and demonstrated a very healthy self-starting attitude.”

Over the next year, Boostpoint plans to use the matched funds from Ben Franklin to increase the money it spends on ads, fund trips to trade shows and hire a new developer.

Beiler and Neff chose to work in Lancaster because the co-founders felt they could be part of the city’s growing startup scene. Lancaster’s proximity to Philadelphia could also help attract new employees, said Neff.

“The people are here and they are going to Philadelphia because that’s where the jobs are,” he said. “If we can keep the people here instead of sending them to Philadelphia, we can build that ecosystem.”