BusinessReport.com

It was 1963. Sidney Genius was 14 years old when he received his first set of wheels and a job.

There were only two wheels, actually, and the front one was smaller than the back one to allow for a large basket to hold lots of packages that he delivered daily for Louisiana Office Supply.

As the teenager started pedaling his bicycle along the streets of downtown Baton Rouge, little did he know that he was retracing his own father’s tracks in the city, in the family business and in life.

“My father was in high school and he started pedaling the bike and delivering packages,” says Genius, whose own route for three summers took him as far north as the State Capitol and as far south as Steinberg’s Sporting Goods.

Genius’ father, Garnet, attended LSU and continued working as the store’s accountant. He joined the U.S. Navy after graduation and saw action in World War II, then returned home and became co-owner of the store.

Sidney attended LSU and worked part-time at the store, unloading freight trucks, stocking shelves, filling orders and wrapping packages. He joined the store full-time in outside sales after graduation and worked his way to co-owner—where he remains now.

“People basically stay here until they die,” Genius says of store employees, including himself. “My father came to work every day until a couple of days before his 83rd birthday. I’ve been here for over 40 years.”

Many of his fellow workers have been on the job more than 30 years, and they’re like family, too. In the more relaxed atmosphere of an independent business, everyone gets to know each other and can focus on customer needs.

This has been Louisiana Office Supply’s story since it was founded in 1936 on Convention Street by Genius’ uncles, Winston Genius and Fielding Phillips. The only thing that changed when the store relocated to 562 Florida Blvd. was the address.

By 1969, the business again relocated to its present location at 5550 Florida Blvd. and shared a building with a fabric store. By 1980, they became the sole tenant. Genius recalled a fire that severely damaged the fabric store but left his side of the building relatively untouched.

“Everything on our side of the building was fine,” he says. “We had a little smoke blow in, but no water damage. The electrical feed came from the other side of the street, so there were no issues there. We opened for business that Monday like nothing happened.”

After 38 years at its current location, Laurie Chapple, Genius’ sister and a co-owner, says the company is considering a move of less than two miles to the 130,000-square-foot Kornmeyer’s building at Florida and North Lobdell boulevards, which would bring their office supplies and warehouse under one roof.

Any move would take place by February, Chapple says. She says relocating is more cost-effective than remodeling their 33,000-square-foot location, which they would sell if the move goes through.

In more recent years, he says they encountered the intense competition of big-box stores such as Office Depot and larger companies that purchased supplies through a central office elsewhere in the country.

Genius says Louisiana Office Supply has become a more efficient operation, and it joined a buying group to get supplies in bulk to offer better prices.

“The big picture is someone may save you 50 cents a case on paper, but if you have to go pick it up and bring it to the business, what good is that 50 cents doing you?” Genius says. “You have to consider the risk of people injuring themselves moving a box of paper. Our drivers bring it to where it’s needed. We’re about personalized service and convenience.”

At Ed Price Building Materials, brothers Jim and Ronnie Price say their strong sense of family, unity and teamwork helped build their father’s company into a major supplier in the area since it was founded in 1977.

“It’s been good having people you can really depend on,” Jim says. “You feel safe. If I’m not here, I know Ronnie’s here. No one will run a company like a family person does. If you’re the owner and your name’s on it, you’ll make that little extra step.”

Ed Price taught key lessons to his two sons and two daughters, Sarah and Peggy: work hard, be honest and “you don’t necessarily have to be a leader.” As a family, they ate together, went to church together and worked together.

Jim and Ronnie Price say their mission to stay focused on those values serves as a cornerstone of the business, which is located at 7835 Airline Hwy. Two brothers-in-law and nephews join the brothers.

“People come here and they feel it,” Ronnie says of the family atmosphere. “They feel like family, too. It does a lot getting you where you’re at.”

Family unity is another element to their success, Jim says. It’s based on allowing everyone to do what they do best and respecting their input, which he says their father demonstrated in allowing his children to implement their ideas about improving and modernizing their business.

“Our philosophy is you don’t work for us, you work with us,” he says of a business where no one’s card bears a title. “The better we work together, the better this company runs. No one runs a company. It takes a team.”

Ronnie says their business strategy has been simply “Service, service, service,” and that combined with Baton Rouge’s diversified economy have brought them steady growth over the years.

“We’ve survived what few little crunches we’ve had,” he says. “We just watched overhead. We worked as a family, and everyone cut back a little bit until it got back to normal.”

Big-box stores such as Home Depot and Lowe’s actually drove more business to Ed Price Building Materials.

“When the big chains came, it just brought more traffic in here because we give good service,” Ronnie says. “They just helped our business. If you go in there, you better know what you want because it’s do it yourself. We’ve always looked at it as a positive.”

One of those tough spots came with getting through the intense demand for building materials after hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated areas of Louisiana. The company explained how it was handling the demand in a letter posted throughout the store.

“We made it through by taking care of our customers and being careful about who we sold to,” Ronnie says. “We waded through it, but probably boosted our relationship with good customers who knew we were loyal to them.”

As with many independent businesses that compete against larger employers with better benefits, the supplier also struggles with finding and keeping good workers. But Ronnie says they’ve always been able to count on family to help. Jim and Ronnie are preparing the third generation of Prices to work at their business.

Because they were raised to anticipate changes in business, Jim says they’ll deal with the economic slowdown he foresees is coming. They’ve grown their business as a family, he says, and they’ll deal with whatever’s coming as family, too.

“It feels good,” Ronnie says of working alongside his brothers and sisters. “They work. It’s good.”