Multi-generational furniture company gets innovative

JTB in Columbus starts residential furniture line amid pandemic

Brooks Berry hardly goes anywhere anymore without his companion, Murphy.

That includes Wednesday afternoon walks through the Johnston Tombigbee Furniture factory off Waterworks Road in Columbus that his family started nearly 90 years ago.

With Murphy — an Irish Doodle with a “strong Irish name” — trotting loyally beside, Berry speaks to every employee he encounters by name as he purposefully moves through each section of the factory.

“The average tenure for someone working here is 25 years, if you can believe that,” Berry says.

“There are people here who remember seeing me walking through when I was this high,” he adds, placing one of his hands roughly three feet from the floor.

The smattering of busy workers represents a sample of the 99 now employed at JTB, a little more than half the furniture manufacturer’s manpower in early 2020, when shutdowns caused by the COVID-19 pandemic thwarted the global economy.

Toward the back of the plant, Berry walks into the “printing room” to check on his latest passion project — one he is sure will expand and diversify JTB’s operation. Inside are four Vanguard wide-format printers sitting ready to apply a smart veneer of high-resolution flat or textured digital images to any flat surface.

“Blend this with furniture making, and it creates some interesting opportunities,” Berry says.

The long way home

Russell B. Johnston, Brooks’ great-great-grandfather, founded JTB Furniture in 1932. Reau Berry, Brooks’ father and third-generation owner, took over as company president in 2000.

Starting in the residential furniture market, JTB began also making furniture for hotels in 1980. By 2004, the company shifted to manufacturing solely for hospitality. Today, as one of only three large-scale hospitality furniture makers in the U.S., JTB boasts clients like Hilton, IHG and Wyndham, and its products outfit tens of thousands of hotel rooms across the country.

“If you’ve stayed in a Hampton Inn or Holiday Inn Express, chances are you’ve seen our furniture,” Brooks said.

For Brooks, the road to the family business was anything but direct. He graduated from Columbus High School in 1999 and took off for Los Angeles to “find himself.”

As a model, he appeared in print ads, television commercials even a Hillary Duff music video. He also dabbled in music production.

“When it comes down to it, I’m a creator,” Brooks said. “I like making things.”

He came home in 2006, and Reau sent him straight to the factory floor to learn each step of the family business firsthand.

“Brooks has grown up in this business and he knows every facet of it,” Reau said. “And if you’re going to be successful, you have to know every facet.”

Brooks was promoted to vice president of retail sales roughly 18 months ago, just in time for COVID-19 to change everything.

Re-entering the residential market

People stopped traveling, meaning they stopped staying in hotels. Soon, hotels stopped buying furniture.

JTB sent nearly half its workforce home, and Reau said the factory operated just 165 days in 2020. The Berrys started looking for ways to reinvent the company. One possible strategy seemed pretty obvious.

“The residential retail sector was booming,” Brooks said. “Everybody’s at home (because of the pandemic), and they are looking around the house thinking, ‘We should change things up a bit.’”

Overseas shipping, especially from Asian furniture makers, stalled and the price skyrocketed. That has led to months-long wait times for customers that have not yet abated.

“We felt like it was a good time to re-enter the residential market,” Reau said. “We had the equipment to do either-or. It was just a matter of remarketing.”

Brooks, spearheading the company’s “pivot” back to residential, remembered his Uncle Duke Berry, JTB’s chief operating officer, talking about Vanguard printers he had seen years ago that could print images onto furniture. Brooks tracked down the equipment, bought one, then another, then two more.

Over the past eight months, those printers helped JTB design a line of about a dozen bedroom suits Brooks is now marketing to hundreds of retailers across the country.

“There’s nothing else like this that can be found on showroom floors because of this technology,” Brooks said. “We’re going after the big guys (for clients). That’s who we’re targeting.”

The printers can apply any high-resolution photo, graphic, pattern or text to flat surfaces in color photo quality — making it perfect for headboards, nightstands or cabinets. Their texturing capability introduces even more design possibilities.

For now, the bedroom line offers limited designs, but JTB is offering chests and novelty items through Etsy.

It will take “a lot more infrastructure” to evolve to a direct-to-customer model with custom-made pieces, Brooks said. He hopes to move one day more in that direction.

“I have a vision of where I want this to go,” Brooks said. “We’ve just got to get some traction with it.”

Coming back ‘big time’

On the factory floor, dozens of cabinets roll down a conveyor belt in the factory waiting for finishing touches. They, too, wear accents of the smart veneer technology.

Reau points proudly to each, identifying their final destination: This one to a casino in Washington, that one to a hotel in Texas.

As people have begun traveling again, pent up demand has driven JTB’s hospitality orders upward.

“It’s coming back big time,” Brooks said. “We used to have to go out and pitch these hotel companies. Now companies like Mariott and Wyndham are coming to us.”

Ideally, Brooks wants hospitality and residential manufacturing to each make up 50 percent of JTB’s business. Right now, though, the factory is understaffed and finding workers is as challenging as ever.

“Crazy times, I guess,” Brooks said.

To “add energy” to the factory environment, Brooks’ sister Frances, a Memphis-based artist, plans to paint murals on the now drab interior walls throughout the plant. Brooks also is pitching JTB as a good, creative place to work with a legacy to back that up.

“We want to create a fun environment for people to work in,” Brooks said. “We also know there are people out there who want to do something they can grow with. Those are the people we’re looking for.”

STORY BY ZACK PLAIR

PHOTOS BY AUSTIN FRAYSER