Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, October 1, 1994 TAG: 9410030043
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CLAUDINE WILLIAMS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
He had seen many of his aspirations become reality. His company, CMC Supply Inc., was selling $10 million a year worth of heating and air-conditioning equipment and, through a related company, plumbing supplies. CMC Supply this summer completed a $200,000 showroom expansion.
The tale took a turn on July 15, when a fire ripped through the CMC's leased headquarters building on Shenandoah Avenue. In six hours, it suffered an estimated $3 million in damage.
By the time Cook arrived on the scene, there was little left to salvage. "What do you do when everything you worked for is gone?" Cook said.
But, "the first thing that came to my mind was that we were not out of business. This was something we would overcome. We'd worked too hard for too long to let it slip away."
Then, the same day of the fire, a tropical storm flooded the company's branch in Macon, Ga.
In Roanoke, the company's delivery trucks ran as usual. Most of CMC's business forms were destroyed, so drivers used note pads to record sales. Insurance covered replacement inventory and employee wages after the fire.
Cook and CMC co-owner Steve Chisholm decided to rebuild on the site of a former livestock market at Johnston Avenue and 25th Street, behind the burned building on Shenandoah Avenue.
"The location has been so good to us and everyone knows the area," Cook said. "We have established ourselves there and we did not want to move far."
They began looking for a temporary location and, like a fairy tale, business associates appeared to help.
Joe Tatum, CMC Supply's banker at Central Fidelity Bank, had toured a building at 2480 Patterson Ave. the day before. He knew the electricity was on and it was ready for a tenant. The papers were sitting on his desk
"I wanted to get there early and find out what they needed since CMC has done business with us for a long time," said Tatum. "They're a good, rock-solid company - the kind of customer you don't find very often."
By 11 a.m. the day of the fire, CMC had moved into its temporary location.
The next Monday, three days after the fire, employees in both Roanoke and Macon were cleaning up their offices. It was an unspoken message to carry on with work as usual.
"The first week was sort of unreal," Cook said. "It didn't bother me, but after that time you start waking up during the night thinking about the things you have to do to get back to where you were."
Some of the company's 48 employees rerouted incoming deliveries to the new location while others recorded new inventory and what was left from the fire.
"We are as organized as we can be, but it is difficult to do things that used to be easy," Chisholm said. "It is an adjustment."
Current business records were on computers and unscathed by the fire, but paper records accumulated over 15 years were destroyed.
"There is hardly a week that goes by that we don't have to refer to those records," Cook said. "You may have a customer call up and say: 'Hey, remember that thing I got four years ago?'"
Right now, Cook hopes his tale will have a happy ending. About two weeks ago they cleared the existing stockyard, preparing the site for the company's new offices which will be twice as large as the former building.
Construction is to begin in about 10 days.
by CNB