Fall 2019 Hardlines Strategies

CUSTOMER PROFILE

An Unexpected Turn Triple B Ready for a New Path Forward

The Triple B Hardware team, including owners Tony and Joyce Bielamowicz (center), has built a successful business in the building that started as the family sawmill. Today the store houses everything customers around Bremond, Texas, need. W hen drivers head down the roads cutting through the rolling

Bremond, Texas, had previously had small businesses catering to its home improvement, ranch and hardware needs, and most of them were tied to the Bielamowicz family. Starting with the father of Triple B Hardware owner Tony Bielamowicz, who founded Triple B Sawmill after he immigrated from Poland, the family owned a number of businesses. Once Tony’s brother retired from a local auto supply business that also handled hardware, Tony and his wife, co-owner Joyce, decided to turn the sawmill into a full-scale hardware business. “Triple B is here so people don’t have to drive 50 miles to get a pipe that costs a couple dollars,” Tony says. “When we first started, we hadn’t had a lifetime of experience in hardware. We had retired from our jobs in Houston and moved

back to Bremond. But there’s a need for stores like ours, because we don’t just serve the 900-plus people of Bremond. Our service area stretches for 20 miles in all directions to other communities, too.” The business, which the couple officially renamed Triple B Hardware in 2012, is also essential for nearby industrial customers, such as coal mines, power plants and large-scale ranch operations in the region. While those larger accounts are key for Triple B, the area is also seeing an influx of new customers, Joyce says. “We see a lot of millennials, which some might not expect. But you see young people inherit the old family house and come back to fix it up, and they find our store,” she says. “Our experience and our products keep them coming back.”

In the heart of Texas, communities can become spaced out, with businesses catering to the needs of the residents from several towns in their area. It was with that mindset that Triple B Hardware first came to be. hills of central Texas, open pastures and the occasional tourist trap tend to become the main attractions.

32 Fall 2019 • Hardlines Strategies