GREENHOUSE BUSINESS MAGAZINE

If there's one lesson X. S. Smith passed on to his grandsons, it's knowing to take advantage of what's put in front of them. For X. S., it was a stack of hotcakes.

As a young man during the Depression, a destitute X. S. was standing on a Columbus, Ohio sidewalk, gazing hungrily through the window of a flapjack house. A man came along and offered to buy him a meal. That man was R. J. Reynolds, who soon had X. S. in a job selling tobacco shade cloth.

Through the years, X. S. developed a reputation selling textiles; by 1946, he incorporated a shade-cloth-weaving business under his own name.

Two of X.S.'s grandsons now run the business, President Richard "Skip" Smith and his cousin, Executive Vice President, Scott S. Thompson. For them, the lesson is to take advantage of new technology and trends.

That has been the modus operandi through all the changes the company has seen. X S SMITH, INC was one of the first companies to meet the demand for power-driven spooling of shade cloth in the '50s, when the business was under the tenure of Scott's father, X. S.' son-in-law, H. E. "Ernie" Thompson, and Skip's dad, R. W. Smith.

In 1959, the advent of polyethylene sheeting caused a boom in the greenhouse structures industry. "[Growers] could get into the industry and build a lower cost structure at about one-tenth of the cost of a glass house," says Scott. So in 1960, the company started manufacturing greenhouses to fill the niche while still selling accessory products.

Recent trends have created new opportunities for X S SMITH: new types of coverings that are longer lasting and allow more light transmission; monorail and computer systems; shade systems that shield products from the sun and serve as heat retention systems. The company also takes advantage of changes in the way growing operations process materials.

"Perishable commodities are not a typical loading-dock scenario," says Scott. "The trend we've seen in the last six years is...to create greenhouse structures and production facilities that will [allow] more room inside to bring vehicles under the greenhouse and out of the weather." Although growers sometimes balk at the expense of overhauling their operation, Scott believes that by integrating production facilities with the handling of materials from seed through shipping, major changes can be made cost-effectively.

The cousins agree that the next major area for improvement will be irrigation and water control. "Light and water is what it's all about," says Scott. "There is a move toward taller structures and better shading, [but the big changes] will be in better ways to store, collect, recycle and pump water."

Skip takes a special interest in structural standards for greenhouses, another area ripe for change. As a member of the National Greenhouse Manufacturers Association (NGMA) structural board, he is taking an active role in ensuring that greenhouses meet minimum building standards. Before his '87-'89 tenure as president of NGMA, there were no greenhouse definitions in any of the major building codes, he says.

A new code which will revamp the SBCC, BOCA and UBC codes and roll them into an International Building Code is expected to be established by the year 2000. Through the NGMA, Skip intends to check for codes adverse to growers and to object if necessary. "We want to make sure the people creating the codes are aware of the special construction concerns for greenhouses. A greenhouse is a greenhouse, and certain requirements for industrial buildings don't apply."

Growers might do well to heed X. S.' lesson themselves. Convincing growers to take advantage of changes in the industry is an ongoing challenge. "We're in a very conservative industry," Scott says. "People aren't going to dramatically change their [way of doing things]. They're going to refine and enhance their process.

"The industry is going to evolve. A lot of growers will have to [adapt] by legislation or by the bottom-line."