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AUGIE BERING V THE BACK STORY Bering Lumber Company was founded in 1940 by August C. Bering Jr., a descendant of German immigrants who settled in Texas in 1846. The original store, which sold lumber and other farm, home and garden supplies, was located on Houston's east side. His son, August C. Bering III, moved the business in 1952 to its current location on Westheimer Road, then a two-lane blacktop farm-to-market thoroughfare surrounded by ranches and farmland, traversed by both horse drawn carriages and cars. Over the decades, the name was shortened to Bering's, and a second location was opened on Bissonnet in 1988. REBECCA SHERMAN: BERING'S NO LONGER SELLS LUMBER, BUT IN FUNDAMENTAL WAYS THE ORIGINAL CONCEPT HAS NEVER CHANGED. Augie Bering V: It's an old-time general store on steroids. The categories we sell have almost stayed the same. Our Westheimer and Bissonnet stores are 30,000 square feet each, and we have about 7,000 different vendors and 40,000 unique SKUs in the store. WHEN YOUR FATHER, AUGUST C. BERING IV HANDED OVER THE DAY-TO-DAY OPERATIONS OF THE COMPANY TO YOU IN 2000, THOSE WERE BIG SHOES TO FILL. The transition of leadership was hard at times. It took thick skin. One of the first things I did was to stop selling lumber. We used to do custom cuttings. To think that we'd get rid of a core category like that seemed absurd. But we couldn't compete with the big box stores anymore. So, we came up with a better idea that was more in line with what customers wanted, which was our children's category. YOU'RE 45 NOW. HAD YOU ALWAYS PLANNED TO MAKE A CAREER AT BERING'S? I never intended to work for the company, and my family never pressured me to. I left Houston right after high school and went to the University of Montana. Later, I did a lot of writing, was a mountaineering guide and for years did a lot of contracting work building houses in Taos. I explored a lot of avenues, but at the end of the day, retail came more natural to me than anything else. I was about 29 or 30, and had a master's in business by then. BIGGEST HURDLES FOR BERING'S? In 1971, an electrical fire broke out in the store in the middle of the night. The damage was widespread inside the store and it was basically a total loss. My grandfather asked my dad (Augie IV) if he wanted to start over, or collect the insurance and call it quits. I was just over a year old at the time. My dad told him that the only thing he wanted to do was to get working immediately to get the store back up and running. A large portion of Bering's employees felt the same way and rallied to pull all of the burned inventory and fixtures out of the store, rummaging for items that were salvageable. They worked together to clean, paint, rebuild, re-fixture and, with the help of our vendors, re-merchandise and reopen Bering's. The next biggest hurdle that stopped us in our tracks was the 2001 recession with the fallout of Enron and then the tragedy of 9/11. These were the years that changed our perspective forever in so many ways and shook our foundation to the brink. However, through those tough times we learned to be tougher and smarter. It was a perfect time for me to come in and restructure and rebuild. YOUR FIRST CHANGES. I straightened the inventory out, and everything is SKUed and counted, so I know exactly what we have. The shelves are perfectly merchandised, clean and organized. We made over the crystal, china and silver department so that when you enter into that area, you've entered into another world. And at Christmas, we are decked out with trees with millions of ornaments. We make a huge deal of it. Change is great, but if you make things too efficient, you lose that grit and character. You've got to keep it human. INSIDE THE HEAD OF BERING'S, ONE OF HOUSTON'S MOST CHERISHED LANDMARK COMPANIES, TURNS 75 THIS YEAR. AUGIE BERING V, THIRD-GENERATION PROPRIETOR, REFLECTS ON THE HISTORIC HARDWARE AND HOME EMPORIUM THAT HAS BEEN FAMILY-RUN FOR GENERATIONS. BY REBECCA SHERMAN Richard Phillips' Playboy Marfa, 2013 IS THERE AN AUGIE VI? No. My first son's name is Weston Bering. Having too many Augies around has caused enough confusion. THE STREET THAT RUNS BESIDE THE WESTHEIMER STORE IS NAMED AUGUSTA. WAS IT NAMED FOR YOUR FAMILY? That particular street is named after a woman in our family tree named Augusta Bering. Bering Drive is named after my grandfather and his brother Conrad Bering for developing the area. YOU'RE ONE OF THE FEW PLACES THAT STILL DO CUSTOM, ENGRAVED INVITATIONS. We do all the biggest Houston weddings. Custom stationery is a dying business, and a lot of the smaller companies and makers went out of business. But we picked it back up and we have a great following. We're the largest Crane dealer in the country, and we literally have hundreds and hundreds of kinds of stationery, including Vera Wang, Kate Spade. We have full, in-house custom stationery sections in both stores. It's not something that translates online. You have to come in and sit down with a customer representative, and they spend a lot of time helping you. For weddings, we put a whole team on it. BERING'S IS A LOT OF THINGS TO A LOT OF PEOPLE, BUT HARDWARE IS STILL KING. The nuts-and-bolts section in our store follows in the old-fashioned style of offering customers a large selection of fasteners sold by the individual piece. Some examples are sheet-metal screws, wood screws, deck screws, masonry screws, indoor and outdoor lag bolts and many specialty fasteners such as automotive-grade bolts and decorative brass screws. We are well known for our large selection of stainless-steel fasteners that have been sought out by boat and RV owners, as well as doctors, dentists and veterinarians seeking tiny stainless bolts and washers for mocking-up models and inventions. I've had people who are fastener aficionados tell me that they love spending time in this section looking for specialty items to add to their collection. WHO KNEW. I think that one of the most consistent wow factors in our store is in our cabinet and door hardware. I've heard customers say they looked all over town for a particular piece of hardware, trying to fix an old- fashioned item, and they got hold of one of our experts who had them send a picture of an old hinge, for example, then found a duplicate from one of our many resources and saved the day. If we can't find it because it doesn't exist, we find a way to work around the problem and come up with a solution. This is what our hardware staff does every day. HIDDEN GEMS IN THOSE AISLES. We don't do a huge amount of contractor-based business like we used to, but contractors like us because we have items in stock, like decorative hardware, door hardware and mail slots for their clients who aren't willing to wait another week. You'll always see plumbers and handymen in our plumbing and electrical sections because our staff members are highly skilled and, we have many hard to find items for older homes. We have even the oddest air filter sizes for older homes to new homes with the latest technology and we've always been known for our vast array of light bulbs. We've expanded a special-order area, where customers can sit down with an expert and order door hardware, cabinet hardware and decorative hardware for their remodel or their new home and we will deliver to the site. A little known secret: we can re-key almost any lock, and we can re-key your entire home. BERING'S IS FAMOUS FOR HARD-TO-FIND CLEANING PRODUCTS THAT COME FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD. We have one of the largest and most unique cleaning supplies sections than I've ever seen. Mary Burnett has been our buyer for this section for 31 years and I think she could write an entire book on this subject. Every grocery store has a cleaning aisle, but we have products that are only the best and a lot of unique products, such as marble cleaners and old-fashioned furniture paste wax. In my estimation, some of the best are: Semi-Chrome All Metal Polish, which is made in Germany and is the best for cleaning all types of metal. Dirtex is the best glass cleaner and also works great on polished chrome and bathroom fixtures. Spray Away is an all-purpose cleaner that's the best mirror cleaner, strong, but gentle enough for marble countertops. Forever New is the best laundry detergent (just a cap-full) and works great for delicate items. Vanisol — There is no substitute for a toilet bowl cleaner. If you have black porcelain, it will stay black and shiny. Bona X Floor Cleaner is now more widely available, but we helped start the trend and we are still the one of the largest independent dealers in the country. EXPANSION PLANS? We've had a lot of offers to go public. But we are growing organically at our own pace. I hope to have a store in the Woodlands and one in Dallas within the next five years. Bering's on Westheimer, 1960s Bering's on Westheimer, 1960s From left: Norman Bering, August C. Bering III, Augie Bering IV, circa 1970 1960s advertisement August C. Bering III helping a customer at the Westheimer store, circa 1960 Augie Bering V Westheimer store, 1950s