2026 IHI Conference Recap: Ideas, Connections and a Look Ahead
Retailers arrived at the 2026 Independent Home Improvement Conference (IHI Conference) with plenty to talk about. Technology is advancing quickly. Consumers remain cautious. Labor, margins and operating costs continue to pressure businesses. Meanwhile, the industry’s largest competitors are investing heavily in technology, services and the pro customer. But the mood at the JW Marriott Orlando Grande Lakes in Florida was considerably more energetic than that list of challenges might suggest.
Hosted by the North American Hardware and Paint Association and The Hardware Conference, the IHI Conference brought retailers, wholesalers, manufacturers and service providers together for two days of education, conversations and industry recognition. For many retailers, the value came from gathering ideas they could take home—and comparing notes with people wrestling with many of the same issues.
IDEAS, CONNECTIONS AND A LOOK AHEAD
Jammie Joseph, general manager of Paradise Lumber & Hardware on St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands, attended IHI for the first time with technology high on his agenda.
“My whole purpose going to IHI was to learn more about AI and how I can integrate that into the store,” Joseph says. “The networking was also really great.”
First-time attendees Alison Korell and Edith Almeida of AL&M Building Supplies in Texas found ideas they could begin applying incrementally.
“We can extract little pieces of what we could take home and apply,” Almeida says. “It could be baby steps to something even bigger.”
That combination—big changes discussed in practical terms—ran throughout the event.
PARTNER DAY SETS THE STAGE
Before the IHI Conference officially opened, Partner Day brought retailers together July 28 for discussions on margins, operational efficiency and technology, including an update from Orgill president and CEO Boyden Moore, whose message was that independent hardware retailers are indeed able to compete in a rapidly changing market. Moore outlined Orgill’s five-year “Onward” strategic plan, which is focused on improving how the distributor serves independent dealers.
After investing $270 million in its distribution network and innovation center in recent years, Moore says Orgill expects that network to accommodate another $1 billion in growth without opening or closing a distribution center during the next half-decade. That gives the company room to direct major investment toward technology designed to reduce some of the scale disadvantages independents face against Home Depot and Lowe’s, according to Moore.
Other priorities include a supply-chain transformation aimed at efficiency, expanded private brands, customized pricing and assortment strategies, e-commerce, data and business intelligence. Orgill also plans to use its Central Network Retail Group (CNRG) retail operations to test services that can be scaled to independent customers.
Moore also acknowledged the difficult near-term environment. Orgill sales were up 4% year to date and existing business was up 1.7%, while CNRG comparable sales were flat after a stronger first quarter. He characterized current home improvement weakness as delayed demand rather than disappearing demand, pointing to long-term industry fundamentals and major investments being made throughout the channel.
AI MOVES FROM THEORY TO STORE
If one subject followed attendees throughout the IHI conference, it was artificial intelligence. The conference offered education across employee engagement; retail operations and technology; marketing, merchandising and management; and executive leadership. But AI generated particular interest among retailers—including Korell, who describes the home-improvement AI panel as “eye-opening” because it identified areas where her operation could improve quickly.
During an education session, host Joe Bullock, CEO of FastQuery AI, offered a practical demonstration of what the technology can mean to hardware retailers. Bullock joined Tal Building Centers CEO Jason Blair, Family Hardware’s Jeremy Peterson and Busy Beaver Building Centers vice president of business intelligence and strategy Adam Gunnett to move the conversation beyond “What can AI do?” toward “What are retailers already doing with it?”
The answers ranged from surprisingly simple to highly sophisticated. Blair created a virtual CEO roundtable that gives him several perspectives on business problems, leadership questions and presentations. The exercise began with a basic prompt asking AI to help him create the group and evolved as he supplied more information about his company and leadership approach. His broader advice for retailers was considerably simpler: Start using the technology.
Blair says basic tasks such as drafting emails and maintaining continuity across long email conversations save him time while helping him become more comfortable with AI before tackling larger applications. Gunnett offered a bottom-line example: When he noticed negative sales at a Busy Beaver location, an AI tool traced the problem within minutes to two large contractor returns, located the original transactions and determined they appeared legitimate. It then suggested examining whether a restocking fee might be appropriate. Gunnett says the experience helped turn what would have been a manual investigation into a business decision much more quickly.
Peterson has taken AI directly to customers. His “Howard” chatbot on Family Hardware’s website answers questions about products and services and can add merchandise to a customer’s cart. As customers began asking whether the store offered propane exchange, sharpening and screen repair, Peterson added more store-specific information so Howard could answer—and even quote some services.
WHERE CONVERSATIONS GET LONGER
The Partner Pavilion brought retailers together with manufacturers and service providers for product demonstrations and conversations about technology, regulation, product availability and other issues affecting their businesses. NHPA’s Retailers’ Choice Award winners were also displayed there. For Harley Schreiber, regional manager with Hy-Ko and Midwest Fastener, the format allowed for discussions that are difficult to have on a crowded buying-market floor.
“You don’t get a chance to spend face-to-face time at the bigger shows with these people,” Schreiber says. “This is a lot more intimate setting.”
At A.O. Smith and Reliance Water Heaters, retail sales manager Fon Wixon fielded questions about efficiency standards and regulatory changes that could eventually affect retailers’ inventories and customers.
At Watcher Total Protection, conversations centered on loss prevention, while company leaders pointed to relationships formed at previous IHI conferences that later developed into customers. Those conversations continued outside the Pavilion, including at the Independents Celebration and the Independents Awards Gala, which brought together NHPA’s Top Guns and Young Retailer of the Year programs alongside Hardware Connection’s Beacon Awards.
For Korell, that social side remains inseparable from the educational value.
“To be able to come to IHI and see friends and colleagues and catch up and learn is excellent,” she says.
Independent Retail’s Best Take the Stage
There are plenty of ways to build an exceptional independent home improvement business. At the 2026 Independents Awards Gala, some of the industry’s best retailers demonstrated just how different those paths can be. Held during the Independent Home Improvement Conference in Orlando, the Awards Gala brought three major industry awards—the Beacon Awards, NHPA Top Gun and Young Retailer of the Year—together for the first time during an evening celebrating established leaders, emerging talent and retailers whose businesses are raising the bar for the independent channel.
Hardware Connection’s Beacon Awards recognize retailers for career achievement, innovative store design and digital marketing excellence, with this year’s honorees ranging from multigenerational hardware businesses to operations reinvented by new ownership and a building materials dealer launched from the ground up.
The 2026 Beacon Award recipients honored during the IHI Conference Awards Gala included: Retail Beacon Award Bill Gilbert, Gilbert’s Hardware; Tommy Simpson, Beaufort Hardware & Paint Co.; Mark and Joe Jaconski, Stanley’s True Value Hardware Digital Beacon Award of Excellence David Strano, Ambridge Do it Best Home Center Beacon Award for Best New Store David Rivas, Riverside Building Materials; David VanderWeele, Big Rapids Lumber & Hardware; Julie Walker Martin and Corey Martin, Howard Walker’s True Value Hardware
THE PEOPLE BEHIND THE AWARDS
For Bill Gilbert, six decades in hardware made receiving a Retail Beacon particularly meaningful. Gilbert grew up in the Owosso, Michigan, business his parents opened in 1965, eventually helping transform it through expansion, continual reinvestment and a willingness to keep learning. He told the audience he had missed just one market in 55 years and had spent those decades seeing firsthand how many outstanding hardware retailers populate the industry.
“It’s very humbling,” Gilbert says. “I’ve always been amazed at the number of truly great hardware stores out there.”
His remarks quickly turned from his own accomplishments to those of the people around him: his business partners, employees, wholesaler representatives and family. He became particularly emotional thanking his wife for supporting the business while raising their four children. That instinct to share the recognition continued throughout the evening.
Beaufort Hardware & Paint Co.’s Tommy Simpson spoke about the value of gathering with other retailers who understand the same problems.
“It’s just wonderful to have partners and people like y’all in the industry to share your goals, share your concerns, share what you do,” Simpson says. “And then I take it back and I share that with my employees.”
For brothers Mark and Joe Jaconski, the award represented another chapter in a Philadelphia hardware business now moving toward its fourth generation. The brothers undertook the largest investment in Stanley’s True Value history when they replaced the company’s aging store while keeping the business operating through a seven-phase project. Today, another generation of the family is entering the operation.
The night also celebrated newer routes to independent retail success. Riverside Building Materials owner David Rivas came to retail from residential construction and built his business around solving the frustrations he had experienced as a builder. Since opening in 2023, Riverside has grown from less than $500,000 in inventory and one delivery truck to more than $1.5 million in inventory, eight flatbeds and more than $15 million in annual sales. Standing on the stage accepting a national award was a moment Rives once had trouble imagining.
“Three years ago, Riverside was just a mission,” he says, recalling repeated attempts to get the business open. The experience, he says, taught him that success goes beyond sales and growth to “building strong relationships with partners, earning trust [and] serving our community with integrity, transparency and honesty.”
SOME INDEPENDENT SWAGGER
Perhaps the evening’s biggest challenge to the conventional David-versus-Goliath view of independent retail came from Big Rapids Lumber & Hardware owner David VanderWeele.
Since he purchased the 40-year- old Michigan lumberyard in 2020,
VanderWeele has reworked much of the operation, from merchandising and inventory to kitchen-and-bath and construction services. Changes cited during the presentation included a power tool and accessory reset that increased category sales nearly 40% and an inventory strategy that reduced annual carrying costs by nearly $400,000. His acceptance speech put those accomplishments into perspective.
“I’m not the big box with a $30 billion budget to launch a new campaign,” VanderWeele says.
But independents have another resource, he told the audience: one another.
“I think it’s easy for us to get intimidated by big boxes,” he says. “I personally think it’s time they start getting intimidated by us.”
Julie Walker Martin brought the evening back to the deeply personal side of independent retail. Howard Walker’s True Value Hardware grew from a desire to honor her late father, Howard Walker, a longtime teacher and pastor who devoted more than six decades to serving the Henrietta, Texas, community. Howard had planned to be part of the store after retiring, greeting customers and doing what he had always done: connecting with people.
From the stage, Martin thanked the employees and industry partners who helped turn that idea into a business, then spoke about the father whose name now hangs over its doors. She credited him with teaching her the value of hard work and service to community, lessons she says she has come to understand more deeply during the past few years.
“I continue to feel his presence here,” she has said of the store. “He would have been thrilled to see what we’ve built.” Her remarks also connected that legacy directly to how the store competes today.
“We’ll never lose a customer if we have the right customer service,” she says. That commitment comes from the example her father set and from a shared passion for serving the town where she grew up: “We try to compete every day with our customers and serving our communities. It’s fundamentally who we are.”
READ THE FULL BEACON AWARD STORIES
Get to know the retailers behind the 2026 Beacon Awards in upcoming issues of Hardware Connection. Look for full profiles of the Retail Beacon Award and Beacon Award for Best New Store recipients in the September 9 issue, followed by profiles of the Digital Beacon Award category winners and Beacon Award for Digital Excellence recipient in the September 23 issue.
CELEBRATING TODAY—AND TOMORROW
As part of the Awards Gala celebration, the evening also honored recipients of NHPA’s Young Retailer of the Year Awards and Top Guns Awards. NHPA’s 2026 Top Guns included four leaders who have helped shape their companies and the independent channel: David Enmark, CEO of The Helpful Hardware Company; Ash Ebbo, CEO of Clement’s Paint; Jason Blair, CEO of Tal Building Centers; and Denise Brookhouse, CEO of Massachusetts-based Koopman Lumber. This year, the Top Guns program is celebrating its 20th year.
NHPA also marked the 30th anniversary of its Young Retailer of the Year Awards by recognizing eight emerging industry leaders: Haley Chapel, COO of Timberland Ace Hardware; Sean Downey, general manager of West Whittier Paint Co.; Jeff Kuenning, co-owner of Western Ohio True Value; Taylor Cole, retail development and marketing support for Cole’s Hardware; Shannon Davis Morrow, business manager for Tweedy Lumber and Hardware; Félix-Antoine Moisan, director of operations for Jean Denis Limitée Home Hardware; Grant Raynor, store manager for Town and Country; and Summer Vasquez, store manager and project manager for Matt’s Building Materials.
MARCO ISLAND ON DECK FOR 2027
During this year’s IHI Conference in Orlando, organizers announced that the event will return to Marco Island, Florida, September 28-30, 2027. Independent retailers, vendors and industry partners will gather for another round of education, networking and product discovery focused on helping independents strengthen their operations and prepare for what’s next. The Marco Island location also marks a return to a familiar Florida setting for the conference. For more, visit YourNHPA.org.
