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Wednesday, Feb. 04, 2009

Warner Robins Supply keeping the faith

The only people who haven’t felt the tight and frightening economy are in prison. They’re not like the rest of us. They still get hot meals, supervised play time, cable television and medical treatment and medicines without going to the pawn shop to pay for them.

It’s only the rest of the people who warm themselves with Snuggies and space heaters, watch the Golf Channel instead of playing and look for creative ways to stretch a can of tunafish to the end of the week.

But this isn’t about the perks inside the Houston County Jail or the McEver Correctional Facility. It is about the extraordinary efforts of one company, a commercial giant, and its allegiance to its employees and clients.

It’s about Warner Robins Supply and the family who opened it on a wing and a prayer and a barrelful of nails.

These aren’t good times for the building supply company Ed Bayer opened in 1947. But there have been trying times before. Like the dark days of the post-war 1940s when the base was supposed to close. Ed Bayer didn’t buckle then and Mark Bayer, his son and today’s company president, isn’t buckling today. He is fighting back, particularly against the rumors that Warner Robins Supply will be sold or close its doors.

While it’s against Bayer’s better judgment to argue with rumor-builders, he feels the need to make an exception in this case. He’s probably tired of hearing it.

If you don’t know Mark Bayer you can’t know his deep feelings for the business his family created or the place where he was reared and where he chose to raise his family. Nor, perhaps, can you appreciate his concern for the men and women who have spent their careers working for him. His concern for them is not secondary. You see it in his face as he walks from department to department and into the Warner Robins Supply lumber yards to do what he can to keep spirits up.

It doesn’t hurt, of course, that despite bad times in the past, Warner Robins Supply has consistently treated its employees as family.

Even so, spirits do need boosting, for employees and customers and the rest of us. The depressed housing and construction markets have seen to that. And that’s the strength and value of the assurance by Mark Bayer that Warner Robins Supply isn’t going anywhere, that despite hard times, there is promise in the things to come.

So, don’t be surprised when you see the gaggle of Chamber of Commerce members cutting a ribbon in front of Warner Robins Supply on Watson Boulevard next Monday. It will be a bit like the long-married couple deciding to retake wedding vows. It will be a reminder that the company’s covenant with the community — through better and worse — are lasting.

Contact David Cranshaw at dcranshaw@macon.com.