You might think that a company that is 150 years old with a CFO who has been on the payroll for 33 years would run on autopilot. Not so, says Wendy Bush.
Like every other company, Dyke Industries has to react to external factors — the Affordable Care Act, the Fair Labor Standards Act, etc.
But the wholesaler of lumber and building materials is far from stagnant. In July, it acquired Morgan Wightman Supply Co. of Kansas City, Missouri, which became the company’s 14th location outside the Little Rock corporate office and added 33 employees to Dyke Industries’ employee roster.
“That was definitely a challenge this year, getting all that done, but a good challenge,” Bush said. For Bush personally, the hardest part was “just staying on top of everything and making sure everything was done in a timely fashion.”
A lot of the heavy lifting is done by her “excellent crew” of about 10 staff members. Like Bush, many of them have been with Dyke Industries for years.
“You are only successful with the support of your family and your co-workers. That’s the key to success: if you have supportive people in your life and your company,” she said.
Dyke Industries is a fourth-generation, family-owned business that is a regular on Arkansas Business’ annual list of the state’s largest private companies. Intensely private, it does not share any financial data, but its annual revenue is estimated at about $100 million.
Bush joined Dyke in 1983 as assistant treasurer and was promoted to treasurer in 1992. In the year since she was first a finalist in this category, her title has been changed to chief financial officer.
Bush also added this title a few months ago: grandmother. It’s less hectic than the years she spent raising her daughter alone, but even that contributed to her professional success.
“I’ll tell you what it does: It gets you organized.”
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