By Julia Kramer · Staff Writer
Paul Yater, chief information officer and head of human resources at 84 Lumber, addressed Grove City College students Tuesday on the value and opportunities found in a business career, encouraging them to begin this journey with 84 Lumber’s summer internships.
While extra credit and pizza incentives may have drawn students to the lecture, faculty intentionally chose the topic to promote student success in the working world by developing their beliefs about what it can mean to pursue business.
“As a business professor — and someone who spent over two decades building a career in retail — I hope Mr. Yater’s lecture broadens how our students view what this industry can offer,” business analytics professor Ryan Miller said. “Too often, students see retail narrowly, when in fact it encompasses analytics, operations, technology, supply chain, human resources and senior leadership roles with significant strategic influence. My hope is that Yater’s story and 84 Lumber’s growth help our students recognize retail as a dynamic, high-potential career path and envision themselves leading a retail organization of scale someday.”
84 Lumber is “the nation’s leading privately held building materials and services supplier to professional builders,” but it is also a second-generation family company that states it puts its people first. 84 Lumber emphasizes this purpose in the company’s multiple training programs for new hires.
Dubbing trainees the “life-blood of the company,” Yater described how every year thousands of trainees are brought in through training programs and provided with experiences in a vast swath of roles, including managerial, sales, field operations and traditional corporate programs.
“You don’t need to know anything about the construction industry,” Yater said. “Rather than specific construction abilities, Yater specified the cultivation of soft skills in those seeking to join 84 Lumber.
“You know, if you can be successful, you care, you want to help people, you listen, you ask good questions, you solve problems, we’ll find something for you to do,” he added.
For college students hoping “for something to do,” Yater promoted his company’s summer internship opportunities. Focused on integration, interns at 84 Lumber can interact with interns in other fields and study the company’s cross-functional capabilities.
“We decided we wanted to give interns visibility to not just what they were learning and which functions they were in, but across those different functions.”
Initially a liberal arts major and an IT worker, Yater said that his role at 84 Lumber, in human resources, was not something he imagined for himself, but he stressed that for those pursuing business, adaptability is key.
“You know career paths aren’t necessarily linear any more. Sometimes you have to make sideways moves to move up and experience different things,” he said.
For junior business statistics major Daniel Bell, this versatility of career pathways was encouraging.
“(My) biggest takeaway would be the fact that someone can get into different job fields at any point in their career,” Bell said. “From there, they can grow and go from branch to branch or department for as long as they work. There is never a set job someone must take because of the major they picked or the first job they took out of college.”
“The world is your oyster, and if you work hard and you’re committed and you’re willing to learn, there’s a lot of opportunity out there for you,” Yater said.
