From the chief executive officer to the warehouse, AIS Industrial & Construction Supply is a family business.
Current president and third-generation CEO Dale Hahs II is training his son, Taylor Hahs, the company vice president, to follow in his footsteps.
While that technically meets the definition of “family business,” AIS has expanded that definition beyond one family group.
In addition to Taylor, sales manager Herb Lucier’s son is an outside sales rep for the company. There are at least two married couples that work for the company, including the warehouse manager and his wife, and another pair that create a counter and inside sales team. There’s a father and son who work in the warehouse, and a pair of sisters are divided between billing and tool repair.
“It’s a family business kind of through and through,” Lucier says. “It’s amazing how much family we have here.”
Dale acknowledges that most of his staff comes from people they already know. Even as new employees come and go, inevitably they have a tie to someone else who either had or still does work at AIS.
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| Outside sales team members Jake Lucier, Jaren Craft & Zach Valdez. |
“All we can do is try and treat people fair and well and provide a good place to work, as for the rest, some things are out of my control,” Dale says.
“They’re just really good core common sense values that we try to instill. I think providing a good place for people to work is a big incentive,” Dale says. “We have a nurturing environment where we try and help each other and try and work together as a team.”
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| Chris Lemay working on a locker in one of the divisions of AIS. |
“He’s a fantastic human being and offers a great place for all of us to work,” says Dave Hinrichs, director of purchasing. “Dale Hahs is one in a million.”
He is looking forward to what kind of influence Dale will have on STAFDA as the 2025 president.
Officer manager Shelsea Brookman notes that the resulting closeness of the 44 full-time and five part-time employees creates a good work environment and culture, even if the family atmosphere takes some getting used to.
Having worked for AIS for nearly 20 years now, it is wild for Brookman to recall coming down to the warehouse or the office as a little girl with her dad when he couldn’t find anything for her to do.
“It’s just funny because now we have kind of that same scenario every once in a while when somebody brings their kid around and the child will say ‘Oh, I’m going to work here when I get older’ and I remember being that little girl,” she says. “It’s just so wild to watch the whole wave and see how everything has changed.”
As the third-generation president and CEO, Dale followed in the footsteps of his maternal grandfather Paul J. Christensen who started Aviation Service Supply Company in 1945 after World War II when he saw a need for someone to supply all the airlines at Stapleton International Airport in Denver, Colorado.
In hopes that the company would maintain its status as a family business, Christensen, who had cancer, divided up his stock in 1985 between his three children and his grandchildren, including Dale, just under a year before he passed.
Throughout his high school years, Dale worked his way through various positions at AIS. His son Taylor, AIS Industrial & Construction Supply vice president, has since taken a similar pathway into the business. Like his father, his expansion into the different divisions just kind of evolved that way after his attempted military enlistment was derailed by medical complications.
“I think, like me, the longer he was in it, the more he saw the appeal of the industry and just how cool it is. It’s become a passion and something that’s ingrained in him too,” Dale says of Taylor’s place in the company.
For both Dale and Taylor, the choice always remained to exit the “family business” if there was something else out there that was more appealing. To date, both have continued to learn more about business and the industry.
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| CEO Dale Hahs II and son Taylor Hahs, vice president. |
“I just kept staying and kept growing,” Dale says. “If you put passion into whatever you do, you can make anything rewarding. This industry is just a great industry, and there are good people on both sides, on the customer side and the vendor side and fellow distributor side. It’s a down-to-earth relationship business.”
“I started on the accounting side, but I worked a little bit of everything in the company over the years,” Dale says. “Of course, you don’t really know all the ins and outs until you start working there full-time.”
Returning after college, Dale found that his uncle Coby, then president, was just about burned out being in the top spot as he rapidly gave Dale more responsibilities. He officially took over the role of chief executive officer and president in 2005.
Similarly, Taylor worked his way through various roles before being pulled into the front office due to his computer savvy. He has since helped bring AIS into the digital age.
“When I started, we were still using the old TimeGuard stamps and putting those in manually,” he says, noting that he has since implemented use of digital timecards.
As vice president, he continues to wear several hats for AIS, dealing with HR, IT, and other aspects of the company.
“We started to bring in all the lines to support that, and that is the majority of what we do now,” Dale says.
The warehouse takes up 50,000 square feet and according to Dale, it’s full. All told, AIS is home to more than 200,000 SKUs, everything from ladders to safety gear and school lockers to just about any tool you can imagine.
The facility is so large that offering tours of the warehouse ends up being a reasonable marketing tool.
“We have bumped up our inventory so we can handle the large orders,” Dale says. “It’s a commitment to have additional stock, but it gives you another selling edge when people need it right away.”
The company moved to its present location in 1956. The AIS complex technically consists of five separate buildings and addresses which have been joined over the years with covered walkways and ramps.
“Every one of us does the same thing, you buy the building next to you and you figure a way to make it all come together,” Dale says.
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| Above, Candie Kirkeby AIS Industrial & Construction Supply showroom manager helps a customer at the counter. |
Despite its size, AIS is sustainable and green. In 2020, a solar array with 233 panels connected to the four electric meters on the premises was installed, providing over 99% of the electricity used within the business each year.
To accommodate any walk-in traffic onsite, AIS Industrial & Construction Supply has a 4,000-square foot showroom.
“We work hard at keeping it organized and clean with kind of a retail look to it,” Dale says.
The addition of two specific lines in recent years, Stihl and Diablo, helped improve the look of an already impressive display. Buying into both Stihl and Diablo meant buying into their respective displays.
“It already looked pretty good, but they really upgraded the look of our showroom,” Dale says. “People that come in and see our showroom, they think it’s one of the best they’ve ever seen. It’s a lot of work, but it’s a visual line card for introducing a new customer to all the brands we carry.”
Also, he notes that by having more add-on items, people coming in for pick-ups will often see things they didn’t know they needed until they saw it. Some contractors will just come in and shop, rolling around the showroom with a shopping cart and doing their buying that way rather than having previously come up with a PO or placed an order over the phone or online.
Part of the benefit of AIS customer service is offering delivery.
“We do a free delivery service, so that’s a big part of what we do,” Lucier says, noting that it’s not something a lot of competitors do.
To accommodate larger orders, AIS has a fleet of approximately 16 delivery vehicles including a few Ram ProMaster cargo vans, an F-650 truck, and several regular pick-ups. There also is a trailer available that has been used to deliver orders to jobsites out of state. There is no limit as to the size of the order or the size of the contractor’s business.
“Anybody can come and buy from us,” Dale says. “People come in and buy just a couple of things but see other things that they need. It’s a pretty diverse order size.”
“A lot of these things are particular brands that electrical contractors like and then mechanical contractors is another big one,” he says.
Beyond that is the entire industrial commercial construction space. According to Dale, more business is coming from people who were previously in the oil and gas industry and have diversified because of the uncertainty of that sector.
Outside of the general equipment and tools AIS also has its Shelving, Rack, and Locker Division that includes Penco, Hallowell, and Lyons among the featured brands.
“It’s more of a longer sales process, usually higher profit and more engineering,” Dale says. “It’s just another way to diversify.”
Always looking to set themselves apart, AIS Industrial & Construction Supply also has a tool repair division Dale says whenever it makes sense, they get authorized to service a brand and become a warranty center. Currently, AIS offers factory-authorized service for American Pneumatic, Burndy, APT, BOSCH, Greenlee, Ridgid, Ridgid ProPress, Ridgid Seesnake, Milwaukee, Hougen, Sullair, and Sumner. In addition, AIS can conduct repairs on most major brands of electric, hydraulic, and pneumatic power tools and have a torque wrench calibration machine.
If AIS somehow doesn’t have something in stock or doesn’t carry the particular tool a contractor is looking for, they’ll find it.
“We will do our best to get it, no matter what we have to do,” Hinrichs says. “It’s very easy to just reach out, and if a customer wants us to get something for them, we’ll get it for them.”
Oddly enough, rather than equipment or tools, one of the company’s biggest sellers is pallets of Proline bottled water. When asked to, AIS has even sold coffee and coffee machines.
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| From the chief executive officer to the warehouse, AIS Industrial & Construction Supply is a family business. |
Direct contact with customers is not the only way to engage with AIS Industrial & Construction Supply.
Three members of the staff are responsible for maintaining and growing the e-commerce part of the business which consists mostly of selling items via eBay and Amazon.
In the preliminary stages of developing an e-commerce option, Dale says they started on eBay with a collection of items that had been on the shelf for nearly 20 years and sold nearly $50,000 worth of product.
“Having an avenue like that, I mean, it’s the world’s largest flea market,” he says, noting that what he likes about it is the immediacy.
“You can put it up and you know immediately if you’ve got a home run, and then you just ride it out and go on to the next one, so I love it,” Dale says. “That’s why I just want to develop the efficiencies so we can always have everything listed that we possibly can.”
Items AIS puts online are a mix of old and new, depending on the situation.
“It’s just another avenue for sales and especially for getting rid of dead stock, it’s great,” Dale says. “At that point, you don’t really care, you just want to get it out of there and get something for it.”
He admits that many of his counterparts in the distribution business hate Amazon and refuse to sell anything on that platform.
“The way I look at it is, yeah, you got to pay a lot of fees out, but you’re incrementally paying for what you would’ve had to pay to develop a website with those same type of capabilities,” he says. “I think we’re just scratching the surface.”
Dale’s office is filled with items he has collected from attending various industry events over the years.
“It’s kind of a little museum itself of my years of being in this industry,” Dale says. Other than the photo of his grandfather, his other cherished pieces are a pair of Milwaukee tools from the 1960s that his tool repair division restored and chromed.
“I think it’s so important to continue to honor the past,” he says. “I love the nostalgia of it, the history of us as a business, and the history of the industry and how it ties in together.”
Even his desk, an old surplus World War II-era metal piece of furniture has historical significance. It was the same desk his grandfather used.
“He was so important to the framing of this business,” Dale says, adding that a photo of his grandfather looking rather stern over his glasses adorns the wall in the office as well. The tale is that Dale was wondering about taking photos and caught his grandfather giving him a “What are you doing? Why are you going around taking pictures?” type of look.
“It’s really reflective of the breadth of tools that we sell,” Dale says. Divisions of the company use slightly different versions of the logo, with the truck appearing in assorted colors or different items being in the bed, such as a shelving rack and cabinet for the shelving rack and locker division.
The truck has taken on such meaning for AIS Industrial & Construction Supply that five years ago Dale bought and restored a 1946 Ford F-series truck as a true replica of the logo. It appears at car shows and other events as a promotional piece.
“I like to keep things simple and grow within the framework,” he say, citing e-commerce as an opportunity.
As for any transition of leadership, there is no set time for Taylor to take over, though both are firmly aware that eventually, that time will come. Like his father did previously, Taylor is slowly learning every aspect of the business.
“Every year, he gains more and more knowledge and responsibility, and so a lot of that will be up to him and what his comfort level is for how he wants to grow it and continue to stick around,” Dale says. “Getting older is part of life, and there’s a lot of rewards and wisdom that comes along with it. You’ve got to embrace each passage in life. You can’t be fighting against it, wishing that you were in a different position, because all you have is the present.”
He credits a lot of what he has accomplished to his faith in God. His father was a pastor and Dale has always seen the company as his ministry.
“There’s been so many times where God just gave me the words to speak or helped me through a situation,” Dale says. “I think that there’s a lot of us that are running businesses that have a faith of some sort. That’s been an important part of my journey and it’s something that has sustained us through many years.”
This article originally appeared in the October/November 2024 issue of Contractor Supply magazine. Copyright, 2024 Direct Business Media.
CONTRACTOR SUPPLY MAGAZINE
The October/November 2024 of Contractor Supply magazine is here!
Our cover story, A Rewarding Passion - Dale Hahs II, third-generation of Denver's AIS Industrial & Construction Supply, is STAFDA's incoming 2025 president.
A Special STAFDA section featuring a welcome address, an agenda, session previewss by presenters and much more. Also in this issue are our Industry Updates on: Lifting, Moving and Material Handling; Lasers, Levels and Measurement; Hand Tools; Cordless Power Tools; Drill Bits and Cutting Tools; and Toolboxes, Bags and Belts.
This digital edition, sponsored by BECK AMERICA Inc., is fully searchable and contains live links to every advertiser and new product listing. Click away!
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