NuWay: Growing Team, Relationships… and Tomatoes
Date Posted: May 5, 2015
Posted In: News, Organizations,
by Tom Finan, Executive Director, Construction Forum STL
Greg Rhomberg and Joe Wibbenmeyer started working together as classmates in primary school. Joe helped out on the tomato stand Greg’s grandfather Adolph had set up for Greg and his brother Jeff. Adolph, who had grown up on a farm, grew tomatoes as avocation and set up the stand as a learning experience for his grandsons.
Adolph, Jerry, and Greg Rhomberg at the HBA Home Show in 1985.
“I learned how to budget, how to deal with people,” Greg Rhomberg said. “Everything I learned about business started with that tomato stand.”
Today over four decades later, Greg, Joe, and Jeff are all still working together. But it’s construction materials, tools, and equipment from Nu Way Concrete, the firm that Adolph and his brother Arthur started 60 years ago, that they’re selling and renting.
With a seven-acre main headquarters in south St. Louis County, Nu Way also has facilities in Jefferson City, Jackson, and Wentzville, MO and Troy, IL.
At an interview at Chris’ pancake house in South St. Louis Rhomberg, COO of Nu Way made it clear that he is proud that Nu Way has remained an independent business in an industry that has become full of national construction distributors, rental companies, and big box stores. He’s also dedicated to his employees and management team, citing the fact that the company kept its entire team employed through the catastrophic industry depression that began in 2008.
Locally-owned, Family-owned
In a recent news release Wibbenmeyer, Nu Way’s general manager echoed those thoughts. “A company with 60 years of sustained growth in any industry is remarkable,” Wibbenmeyer said. “To do so while remaining a locally-owned, family-owned business is even more extraordinary.”
Ten years ago Rhomberg told the St. Louis Business Journal that Nu Way’s employees are at the core of its success. In his interview with ConstructSTL.org he reiterated that point.
“Our most valuable resource is our management team along with our dedicated employees,” Rhomberg said. “I’ve always said anyone can stock a building full of product. But it takes educated professionals to suggest and deliver quality products to the trade. For 60 years Nu Way has assembled the best team in the Industry and delivers quality products at competitive prices.”
NuWay was founded in 1955 by Rhomberg’s grandfather Adolph and his brother Arthur, who were both carpenters. Greg Rhomberg remembers his grandfather as always working. The tomato field and stand his grandfather set up for him gave Greg Rhomberg a love for hands-on hard work. Today Greg still maintains a sizeable vegetable patch near NuWay’s headquarters.
In the early 1950s Adolph Rhomberg and Arthur Rhomberg, Sr. saw the introduction of the first reusable concrete forms. The Rhombergs saw it as a “new way” for forming. “Nu Way” became the company name as they joined forces to form Nu Way Concrete Forms, Inc. in 1955.
Around 1961 Greg Rhomberg’s father Gerald (Jerry) Rhomberg came into the business and began adding supplies to the mix. Art Rhomberg’s son Arthur Rhomberg, Jr. (Artie) also joined the company, focusing his efforts on technology and on discovering new products to add to Nu Way’s line.
From the company’s founding until the 1980s the company was primarily focused on supplying residential foundation, flatwork, and carpentry work. As a new generation of family came on board, the company began transitioning into the commercial market.
A Nickel a Bolt
When Greg Rhomberg was around eight years old he began working at Nu Way. The company bought bolts in large lot cartons and broke them down into smaller boxes. “They could save a nickel a bolt by doing that,” he recalled. “I still think that way.”
Joe Wibbenmeyer began working at NuWay when he was around 14 years old. After a while, Greg realized that Joe was drawing a paycheck while he was not. He petitioned his father to be paid, and was reminded that he was family. Eventually, Greg was added to the payroll. He and Wibbenmeyer have been a team ever since. “I tell people Joe and I have been working together for 40 years, and he’s 50 years old,” Greg said.
Greg went on to study management and marketing at St. Louis University. He credits that education with the organizational, financial, and marketing direction he has brought to the company. He did research on Sam’s Club while in school, which led to the company’s store layouts of open stocking on industrial shelving. Along with Greg’s father and uncle, the first generation of ownership was still very active when he started, which helped him to understand the business in a global sense.
Greg Rhomberg assumed management of the company 23 years ago. His cousin Daphne is vice president.
Adding Lines
Through the years the company has added lines and services. First power tools were added, then light construction equipment, which he describes as, “anything you can tow behind a one-ton truck.” In 1990, Nu Way started renting equipment – Bobcat skid loaders, compressors, and compaction equipment, later adding personnel lifts. “If we sell it, we most likely rent it and repair it,” Rhomberg said. Shortly after the equipment rental business began the company began adding branch locations.
Nu Way contracted with a Chicago company to develop and manufacture its own line of Uni-Ply multi-purpose, hand-set concrete forms. Rhomberg is intent on buying U.S. made products, not simply out of patriotism, but because he finds that foreign manufacturers will try to cut prices “by making things lighter and thinner” Nu Way also sources and fabricates rebar for concrete, which the company brings in by multiple barge loads at a time, using a river terminal.
“We’re really great at listening to our customers and we’re able to make decisions immediately,” Rhomberg said. “Maybe they don’t even know what question to ask. Our resources go so deep with manufacturers. When you start with the best credit in the industry, you’re able to get what people need, when they need it.”
Building an Organization
When the construction depression hit, in addition to retaining Nu Way’s infrastructure of employees, the company remained committed to promotion and to fully-stocking all of its branches.
“Everybody here is in sales or they support sales,” Greg Rhomberg said. “What I’ve brought to the company is building an organization.” Today that organization has 180 employees, five locations, and 60 years to celebrate.
Adolph and Art Rhomberg both have would have liked them tomatoes.