Family First

Carter Lumber is one of the biggest and best building materials suppliers in the United States, but we are a family company first. Since our beginnings, we’ve persevered with determination and integrity, all with a family-oriented mindset of working together and having fun while we do it.

Working Together

Nothing is accomplished in the building materials industry if we don’t have a strong work ethic and respect for our peers to keep doing the best we can every day. We believe that taking care of each other and knowing that it takes everyone to do their job to the best of their ability, day in and day out, keeps our company growing.

Investing in People

We’ve been a family company since 1932 and because of this, many of our employees have stayed with Carter Lumber throughout their entire careers. Yes, we work hard, but we have fun while we do it, and the results of our work are tangible. Carter Lumber has grown exponentially over the past decade with no signs of slowing down. Our success is because we have the best people in the industry. We treat them as such, investing back into our people and assets to give them the tools they need to succeed.

Fun is Fundamental

We hear it all the time from our employees, customers and vendors, "It's a Carter Lumber event, I knew it was going to be fun." As a large company, we take pride in the fact we haven't lost that aspect of our business. It means everything to us that our employees truly enjoy coming to work every day, not only because they're challenged, but too, because they know they'll be spending the day doing something they love with others that have the same passion.

We encourage and invest in getting our people together inside and outside of work, to enjoy time with each other. From cookouts in the yard, to market family picnics, and even our President's Club trip, where we reward our top performers with a resort vacation, we love when our people get to spend time together. We know the bonds built during those times transfer over to help Carter Lumber in immeasurable ways.

Family of Companies

Today Carter Lumber is represented by seven brands servicing professional builders and homeowners across thirteen states. Many of our brands have serviced their local areas for more than fifty years and we're excited for them to be part of our family of companies for the next fifty plus.

1932

W.E. Carter opened the first location in Akron, Ohio, in the midst of the Great Depression. He focused on providing his customers with the best products and service they could find anywhere.

1940

Carter Lumber became known for its customer service and honesty in pricing, something not common at the time. It quickly grew to three locations in the Akron area.

1990

or the next 50 years, we continued to expand our footprint into underserviced areas of the Midwest, taking advantage of the housing booms of the 1970s & 80s. In many cases, we were the only option for homeowners and builders in rural areas. We were engrained in the communities we serviced.

2000

At the turn of the century, Carter Lumber had more than 260 locations across 15 states. Primarily servicing homeowners, we were the “hometown lumberyard” for millions of Americans across the Midwest.

2005

Like other local lumberyards at the time, the influx of “big-box” stores into our areas made our business model unsustainable. However, instead of withering away, we adapted. We changed the focus of our business to servicing professional builders in metropolitan markets. This change likely saved our business from a fate that so many other family lumberyards faced.

2009

With a new focus on professional builders and abundant opportunity during the housing downturn, we expanded our operations with several large locations capable of servicing larger metropolitan markets like Detroit, Indianapolis, and Chesapeake.

TODAY

With over 180 locations across 15 states and more than $2.6 billion in annual revenue, Carter Lumber is the 5th largest lumberyard in the United States. We still hold strongly to the values we were founded upon more than 90 years ago.