Cabinet making business recovers after fire
Sunday, July 29th, 2012 -- 7:21 AM
In the small town of Cornell, the sound of saws and sanders buzz at Larson's Custom Cabinets.Here, 35 employees make cabinets found in bathrooms, kitchens and utility rooms.
But a little more than two weeks ago, everything went silent.
Travis Glaus, a local firefighter and co-owner of the business got a page early in the morning about a fire at Larson's Custom Cabinets.
"I think I was down here in about a minute and the fire was already through the roof," he recalled.
The fire destroyed the building. But the business was a different story.
"We knew if we wanted to keep going forward, we had to hit the ground running and that's what we did" he said.
Glaus says they had phone lines and computers up the next day, sawdust flying another day later, and two weeks after the fire, they are in a new building with new equipment.
Sam Johnson is one of the people who put cabinets together. For 15 years, he has worked for Larson's Custom Cabinets.
When the fire broke out, he worried about ending up in the unemployment line. But instead, found himself working overtime to get machines on and projects out.
"When you see one of the workers busy or tired, you take their spot," Johnson said. "You know nobody had to say take their spot, they just jumped in and volunteered.
He says that team effort is a big part of what has kept things moving forward.
"It's been a stressful bump in the road, but we're going strong," Glaus added.
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