Fences, family and a legacy
In the Seegars family, having the name isn’t enough of a plus to get you the job.  If you wanted to be part of the business, you had to earn it-for generations.

Story by Matthew Whittle
Photos by Mitch Loeber
February 29, 2008

Seegars and his son, Ben, company vice president and chief operating officer, talk about what it's like working together as they walk through their warehouse on Patetown Road.

That and the knowledge that a successful man owes something to the community that supported him. 

Ever since 1949, the Seegars family has sold fences, beginning in their downtown hardware store on John Street. 

“We sold fences just like we did paint, nails, and anything else,” Seegars said. Young Wes wasn’t too interested in the nuts and bolts back then. 

“I hated working in that store,” he said.  “I always liked being outdoors, I hunted and fished and played sports in high school.  I did not like being inside that store.”

Fortunately for him, his father, Neal Seegars, soon decided to go out of the hardware store business and to concentrate solely on fences, opening up Seegars Fence Co. on George Street in 1968.

“I think he saw a greater opportunity in the fence portion than he did in the hardware store downtown, and that turned out to be a good idea,” Seegars said.

Today, after a 2006 move to the company’s current distribution plant on Patetown Road, Seegars Fence Co. is open in 16 different locations in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia, with plans to add two more offices this year.  It also employs more than 300 people-25 times the number who were there when Wes joined full time after graduating from N.C. State University in 1973.

“I came directly back here to work and have been here ever since.  But it's changed a little bit.  We kind of started out fairly humble to say the least,” said Seegars, now, 56.

Among those changes are his big rise to presidency and the employment of his own sons, Ben, 30, the vice president and chief operating officer, and John, 25, the operations manager.  

But, he emphasized, like him, both have worked their way to their positions. 

“I’d always worked on the fence crew, since I was 12 years old in the summers to earn money,” Seegars said.

And when he came back after college, even though his father was excited to have him, he still had to earn his own keep.

So he decided that he would do so in his father’s office, working, directly with him and watching everything he did.

“I told him, I’ve got to learn how to run this business,” Seegars said.

Then, after three years of watching and learning, he decided it was time to make suggestions.

After church on Sunday, he told his dad that he had an idea he wanted to present, handed him a pad and pencil and asked him just to write down any questions, not to interrupt.

“He said, ‘OK, fair enough.” The plan was one of expansion-six new offices in 10 years.  

When he finished, his dad agreed, with only one caveat.

“He said, ‘if I think you’re putting the company in jeopardy, no fussing, no fighting, I’m going to tell you to stop, and I expect it to stop,” Seegars said.  “We started the next day.  We missed opening the sixth office by two months.  It took 122 months, not 120.  It was an incredibly ambitious plan.”

He wasn’t nervous about presenting such a bold initiative to his father, he said- mostly because he had spent three months working on the proposal and was confident in it.

Wes Seegars, president of Seegars Fence Co., left, and his son, John, operations manager, talk with employee Solomon May as he guides a fence piece along the rails to be painted in the back of the company's Patetown Road distribution plant.

Of course, it also helped that they had a good relationship.

“At times it was great, and at times it was pretty feisty,” he said.  “We were always very open and honest.

“A lot of times it’s very difficult for children to work with their parents, but we maintained a great relationship.  We’d lock horns, but it was never an impasse, it was just two different ways of looking at things, and at the end of the day, we never lost sight of what was important.”

And today “it’s still pretty much a family affair,” Seegars said. 

“It’s exciting to see the third generation taking over,” he said.  “They’ve done it pretty much like I did.  And when they run me off, they’ll be in charge.”

But just like Neal did not hand the keys over to his son overnight, neither will Wes.

Seegars said both boys worked in the company first and showed that they knew the business-just like any other employee.

Even estimators, Seegars explained, aren’t allowed to work in the office until they spend time on a fence crew learning what the job actually entails.

And really, it’s that type of hands-on experience that is emblematic of the kind of company he has tried to build.

“My name’s out there on the front, but as far as I’m concerned, I’m an employee here just like anybody else, and the day I look at it any other way is the day we start downhill,” Seegars said.  “I work here just like everybody else- for the benefit of this company.

“I get up and come to work and pursue opportunities.  You don’t build a business like this just by working 40 hours a week.”

And he expects the same from everybody else- so much so that he once even fired one of his sons when he was a teenager.

John explained that he was about 15 or 16 years old working on a fence crew during the summer when his father fired him for being late to work three days in a row.

Needless to say, he got his job back a few weeks later, but he remembers the lessons of responsibility and dedication he learned that day.

“When you’re at work, you’re at work.  When you walk out the door, you’re family again.  But at work…everything is earned around here. Nobody gives anything,” he said.  “It’s great.  It’s a really good experience.  There is so much that we can learn from him.”

Now, Ben added, they plan to use those lessons to continue improving the company.

“(After college) I just identified this as a great opportunity, and now I’ve done every job here. I’m not hiding behind what my dad’s done,” he said.  “He’s giving me the opportunity to participate in all of the new growth because we're not happy staying a small company.  We’re going to keep growing.”

Seegars, an outdoorsman and avid hunter, poses in his home, surrounded by the many trophies he has collected through the years all over the world. A longtime volunteer with the Boy Scouts, he said that being out in nature helps him relax.

“I don’t think about it in those terms,” he said.  “If there’s prestige and stature and all that goes with it- that’s just a byproduct.  There’s not a second a day, a month, that anybody thinks about that here.”

The idea of giving back is just a “simple concept.”

“You live in a community-you’ve got to put something back into your community,” he said.  “I don’t care if you’ve got a lot of money or not a lot of money.  Everybody’s got the same amount of time.  It’s what you do with that time, and I just think it’s important to put that back in the community.”

Out of all of it, though- all the chairmanships, the presidencies, the time on the Wayne County Chamber of Commerce, the United Way of Wayne County, the state economic development board, the state tax review board and currently the chairmanship of the state Wildlife Commission- the self-described outdoorsman said that he has most enjoyed his time with the Boy Scouts.

Working with Troop 2, Troop 3 and now a member of the Tuscarora Council, he has always had an affinity for being outdoors and away from the office- at least on occasion.

And, despite the fact that he doesn’t get out with the Scouts as often as he once did, he still enjoys hunting and fishing with his sons when he can.

For him, he said, “there’s just nothing like being in a duck blind or in a deer stand and seeing the sun come up and the woods waking up.  Just the beauty of it is refreshing.

And being able to share some of the experience through scouting has been one of the most rewarding parts of my life.

“If the boy came, the father had to come,” Seegars said.  We had some wonderful trips and a lot of fun things that the boy’s wouldn’t have had the opportunities to do otherwise.”

He is particularly proud of the fact that during the years he spent as a co-scout-master for Troop 3, they graduated between  40 and 50 Eagle Scouts- a process that he went through, and one he said teaches boys self control, self discipline, and responsibility. 

But for all his community involvement, it’s something that he is not boastful about- just like he doesn’t consider himself to be anything more than just an employee for Seegars Fence Co.

“Everybody’s got an ‘I love me wall.’  Mine’s just in the bathroom,” he said, opening the door to a room with a sink, toilet, and a wall lined with plaques.  “That’s not why you do it.  The good Lord gave you opportunities and talents, and you need to share them.”