I grew up around the building supply business as my grandfather was the owner operator of Bankston Lumber when I was born. Shortly after, my dad started a 10 year buyout process which made him the owner operator of Bankston Lumber by the time I was 12 or so. I worked in the lumber yard some throughout high school and college, mainly in the summers, as a delivery driver/ lumber puller. Upon graduating Griffin Christian Highschool in 2012 I attended Georgia College and State University for 3 years before transferring to Georgia Southern University. While at Ga College I was able to do a spring semester through the Disney College Program where I attended classes on site in Orlando twice a week and worked the other 5 days in the transportation department under the watercraft division, deck handing and operating ferry boats, cruisers, and water taxis at the magic kingdom and Disney Springs. In 2015 I transferred to Ga Southern where I graduated in 2017 with a bachelor's degree in business management. Upon college graduation I immediately took a job with a local convenience store chain Flash Foods as a district manager. I trained in store as a store manager for 3 months before training on the road with other supervisors for another 3 months. I worked as a floating district manager for a few months before I was awarded a territory that consisted of 12 stores in 3 different towns. Around this same time, Flash Foods was acquired by Circle K, which brought a huge culture change for employees across the board. There were many challenges with staffing and training throughout this period which was severely challenging. I continued to work for Circle K through the transition and learned a lot through that time period. In 2019, my dad called me and was in need of some immediate help at the building supply, particularly in our truss plant. I decided to return to the building supply and begin my career in the construction industry. I was fortunate enough to spend the first 6 months of my career working with some friends of ours at Howard Lumber in Statesboro Ga. They were in the process of opening a greenfield location on the coast in Eulonia Ga. I was able to work alongside the store manager and one of the owner's sons in opening this yard, training employees, staging materials, and sorting through all the growing pains that come with opening a location from scratch. This was extremely beneficial to me as it opened my eyes to common practices of a well run operation in our industry, it also taught me the importance of proper training in key positions. After a 6 month stent with them, I returned to Bankston Lumber Company where I was immediately put to work as the manager of our truss plant. I worked as the truss plant manager for 2-1/2 years through the covid era from 2019 to 2022. I was able to grow our sales each year while also improving profitability tremendously, which had been a big issue prior to my arrival. In 2022 I moved into outside sales for the building supply to fill a new need that we had as a company. I was able to attain a few key customers my first year and start a book of business from scratch. In 2023 I surpassed our other salesmen to become the top selling outside salesmen for Bankston Lumber that year. I am still currently in outside sales and am starting to see the challenges of a slowing economy, especially leading into an election. I continue to enjoy the work I do daily and look forward to new challenges as I eventually transition into the owner operator roll and navigate a buyout process with my dad.