DALTON – Matt Williams has a hand in many things: excavation, construction, demolition, the sale of landscaping supplies, dock-building, pile-driving, the cutting, packaging and sale of firewood and even the occasional rental of dumpsters.
“That type of setup doesn’t work for everybody but it works for us,” said Williams, owner of MHW Construction, LLC, as he discussed his enterprises. It was a recent Saturday morning, and Williams had just directed an employee to take one of MHW’s small dump trucks and deliver a load of topsoil to a customer.
“Diversity keeps us busy,” Williams said. “The economy is good and we are busy. We can’t keep up with the workload.”
There are eight employees. Three normally work with the owner on a construction and excavating crew, doing various earthmoving, demolition and utility work around the area.
“I don’t just sit at a desk and bark orders,” Williams said. “I’m on-site, 60 to 70 hours a week.”
Three other MHW employees work on a crew for the Dockworks division, which builds docks and boathouses, and drives piles on lakes throughout Northeast Pennsylvania.
The remaining two employees are normally posted in MHW’s yard.
Williams established MHW Construction as a limited liability company in 2003. He leased eight acres beside U.S. routes 6 and 11 in Dalton and used the land as a base for his equipment and the materials he and his crews used on job sites. The property, in a high-visibility location on a heavily trafficked road, made it easy for passersby to see MHW Construction’s stores of mulches and stones.
“People were coming in and saying, ‘Hey, can I buy that?’ – and I was like, ‘Sure,’” Williams said.
In 2014, what had been a sideline for the construction company was formalized into a division called MHW Landscape Supply.
“We sell a lot of decorative stones,” Williams said. “We also carry six different varieties of mulch. We have topsoil. We have mason sand. We carry a lot of flagstone products.”
Williams later purchased the property from his landlord, and a large steel building is currently being constructed – by MHW’s own crews – behind the small shack that now functions as the sales counter for customers making purchases of landscaping materials. Williams runs MHW out of his home in Glenburn.
“We’re building it when we have time,” Williams said of the new Butler structure. “We’re also a dealer for Butler Manufacturing.”
When completed, the building will contain MHW’s offices, a retail showroom, a bay where mechanics can service equipment, and increased production space for the firewood division.
“Last year, we did 400 cord,” Williams said. “We could probably do 800 if we had the space to keep it.”
MHW Firewood is produced from locally harvested hardwoods, including oak, maple, cherry and ash. The woods are dried in a kiln on the MHW property. Some customers buy their firewood in bulk quantities, but MHW Firewood also produces firewood bundles, which are sold in Gerrity’s Supermarkets and other retailers.
“Originally, the firewood was meant as a way to keep the yard guys busy during the fall and winter months,” Williams said. “That has become an almost full-time operation that runs hand-in-hand with the landscape supply. We’re one of the biggest suppliers of firewood in Northeast Pennsylvania.”
MHW Landscape Supply sits across Maple Street from Dalton Lumber’s Do it Center. The proximity is mentioned on the business cards given out by Williams.
“We compete on a lot of stuff,” Williams said about his commercial neighbor. “We’re very friendly. We send business their way, and they send it our way. We spend a lot of money a month on our account over there.”
MHW’s yard is open every day but Sunday. Williams said about half the revenue from landscaping supplies is made from sales to homeowners, while the other half of the money is spent by local landscapers, contractors and excavators. During the winter months, the six-day yard schedule is maintained to facilitate the sale of firewood.
“That’s how we’re able to stay as a year-round operation, and keep good employees here,” Williams said.
Williams said the MHW Landscape Supply concept would work elsewhere, but he has no interest in establishing a satellite location. When the new building is opened, MHW’s management and operations will be consolidated into one location. Selling landscaping supplies from a second yard would make oversight difficult.
“We’re into this for five years now, so we’re at the point where we’ve found out what works, what sells and what doesn’t,” Williams said.
Many consumers automatically go to big-box retailers for things like retaining-wall blocks, Williams explained, and no longer need them when they come by his yard for stone or topsoil.
“We’ve spent money on inventory that’s still here from a couple years ago,” he said. “And there are other products that we can’t keep on the ground, and sell as fast we can get them.”
