By: Stephen McCollum

Charlie Gillman is a builder. And a salesman. Gillman Home Center, founded in 1995, will open its 14th store on the north edge of Hartford City late this summer. Gillman will oversee the construction of the store and his team, including as many as 20-25 new employees, will stock it with inventory. [https://gillmanhomecenter.com]

Gillman Home Center (GHC) was named a Dealer of the Year in 2020 by LBM Journal® for companies with annual sales of $50-100 million. The journal noted Gillman Home Center’s “…fierce commitment to finding ever better ways to serve their customers and their communities.”

“One thing we do with our business is bring people back to town,” said Gillman. “Hartford City and Blackford County fits our model. It’s a county seat. We try to go to communities where we can fill a gap with the services we offer.”

Gillman was born into a family of builders—his father and uncle started a lumber yard to service their own construction business and others in the Brookville area. The younger Gillman entered the business right after college and soon after opened his own lumber yard in Batesville. While contractors are a large portion of GHC sales, the Do-It-Yourselfers can always find an experienced, helpful hand with their project. Gillman’s niche of combining hometown hardware service with big box product offerings is incorporated into a 25,000 square foot building and a 17,000 square foot lumber area.

“We want to be there for the Hartford City/Blackford County community as a more easily accessible resource for their projects” he said. “You can’t anticipate everything. Whether it’s a standard repair or renovation, plumbing, or electrical work, you realize you’re short something. You can lose a good chunk of your day if you have to drive to the next county to get what you need.”

That’s a fitting analogy for the dilemma facing local leaders trying to bring economic development and enhanced quality of life to the community. 

“The whole process of getting Gillman Home Center to Blackford County took more than a year, more than 60 meetings and planning sessions, and as a result we now have a new Economic Development Target Area on the north side that allows us to seek more retail and residential housing opportunities,” said Warren Brown, Director of the Blackford County Economic Development Corporation.

“Gillman Home Center accomplishes several things,” added Brown. “It increases the traffic—offering residents more options and also encouraging people in surrounding areas to visit. The jobs that Gillman brings are a bonus. And, Gillman’s choice of a site gave us the reason to invest in the infrastructure necessary to serve Gillman as well as future businesses and residents.”

Gillman invests in the community by hiring local. By the time the Hartford City store is fully staffed, Gillman Home Center will have about 330 employees company wide. [To file an application and learn more about employment go to: https://gillmanhomecenter.com/employment]

“We hire from inside the community,” Gillman said. “There’s no company anywhere that takes care of employees like we do. I tell the store managers that if they take care of the employees, they will take care of the customers.”

It’s too early to predict what the presence of the new Gillman Home Center on the near north side of Hartford City will bring. But Charlie Gillman’s foray into this business 30 years ago in his home town of Batesville is a laboratory case waiting to be replicated.

“I was young and inexperienced and I saw this 80-acre parcel of land for sale,” he said. “It was more or less on the edge of town and I bought it to put in a development. Now, one of our stores is there, there is residential, including my home, and several other retail businesses as part of the mix. Over time, the property across the road also got developed.”

As Gillman Home Center gains a greater foothold in eastern Indiana and western Ohio, its purchasing power for inventory is strengthened. This is important when it comes to competing with the big box home improvement stores.

“What we fight is perception,” said Gillman. “The public perceives the big box stores will be cheaper. We have taken on that challenge with competitive pricing for both our commercial and retail customers.” Evidenced, he says, by the fact that Gillman Home Center regularly supplies product for projects ranging from backyard sheds to major hotels and retirement communities.

“I believe that the north side offers untapped potential for future growth,” Mayor Dan Eckstein said. “By extending the water line north, including to the high school so it can get off two aging wells, we’ve opened new options and I think this is going to be a whole new part of the city, with a whole new look. Gillman Home Center is the first step.”

“Charlie Gillman is an entrepreneur who focuses on community first,” added Eckstein. “He knows that being part of a community where both established and new businesses can thrive is essential to success. Gillman Home Center is engaged with the communities where it has stores. He sees the big picture.”