Brant Lillian has been involved with Sunpro for the majority of his career. Even when he briefly left the company, fate brought him back.
“When I first heard of Clyde Companies, I was buying materials from Sunpro (previously named Sunroc Building Materials),” Brant said. “I knew one of the employees there pretty well and saw what was happening with the company. My future was unstable with my current employer, so I talked to my friend and was interviewed and hired right away.”
Brant spent seven years at Sunroc Building Materials before transitioning to Columbia Millworks in Vineyard, Utah, for the next six years of his career. In 2021, Columbia Millworks was acquired by Sunpro.
“I always tell people that Greg Templeman and Matt McDonald (President and Vice President at Sunpro) wanted me back so much that they bought the company,” Brant said jokingly. “The structure is nice at Sunpro, and it has definitely helped our location in Vineyard.”
The Vineyard location provides custom millwork solutions for contractors. Brant works as a project manager, primarily working on pricing for custom doors.
“Some of the crazy stuff the designers and finish carpenters hand over for me to figure out how to build has been very challenging but very rewarding,” Brant said.
“Of course, the most recent challenge has been related to COVID — trying to find materials. It doesn’t necessarily feel very rewarding since they’re already so delayed in arriving, but it’s nice to finally see everything come together.”
Another annual challenge that Brant faces is working on material for the various parades of homes each year.
“They’re fun but also quite challenging because of the short timelines,” Brant said. “You have to be done quick and get materials out to them for installation. However, going to see all the hard work you put in afterwards is so fun.”
Some projects are more compelling to Brant than others, including those involving Sunpro’s computer numerical control (CNC) machine.
“I’ve really enjoyed some of our projects with this machine,” Brant said. “We’ve done some interesting things with it, namely radius and custom beams. It’s always fun to measure and build beams so that it’s easy for the finish carpenter to install.”
Each day Brant appreciates his job and the industry more because of the constant variety. He’s very innovative and does an excellent job of incorporating new technologies and processes into his day-to-day routine to make him more efficient.
“I love the construction and building materials industries because it’s something new every day,” Brant said. “Someone’s always asking us to do some new crazy, custom door, or someone has an interesting new idea for finished materials in a house.”
He’s seen that hard work will help him go far in his career and advises anyone to take a chance at new opportunities.
“Be eager and willing to take on challenges and kind of put yourself out there,” Brant said. “If you dig in and do good work, you’ll get noticed and move up. That’s what I mainly noticed when I first started working for Sunpro all those years ago. I saw an opportunity here and there and jumped into it, figuring it out as I went. I’ve seen great rewards from following this process. I know anyone can find success like me at Sunpro.”
