2026 Beacon Awards: Navigating the Local Current
Tommy Simpson was having a bad day when he learned he had won the 2026 Retail Beacon Award.
He was standing on a ladder, cutting a hole in the side of a brand-new house for an exhaust vent, when his CFO called with the news.
“That took me from one mood to another,” Simpson recalls.
There was Simpson, more than 25 years into running a hardware store, standing on a ladder, saw in hand—fitting for a retailer who came to hardware through construction and still approaches the business with a builder’s instinct. From the ladder or on the store floor, he understands what people need, figures out how to provide it and keeps adjusting until it all works.
Since opening Beaufort Hardware & Paint Co. in 1998, Simpson has expanded the store from about 7,000 square feet to more than 18,000, supplemented by a 10,000-square-foot lumber warehouse and a large garden center. The business has grown by paying close attention to Beaufort, a small coastal North Carolina town whose population swells during the summer and life near the water shapes what customers need.
In 2025, Simpson made another significant move, leaving a national branded co-op and taking Beaufort Hardware & Paint fully independent. Simpson says the change gave the business greater latitude over pricing, product selection and merchandising, an approach that better fits the market he has spent decades learning. That autonomy extends to the people who know the store best: his employees.
For Simpson, the Beacon Award belongs to the people who work those aisles every day.
“My employees are the ones who should get it,” he says. “They’re the ones customers see and the ones taking care of them.”
Built for Beaufort
Simpson graduated from high school in 1975 and spent the next several years working in construction. The property where Beaufort Hardware & Paint stands today was then Huntley Building Supply, a place that became important to Simpson well before he imagined himself running a hardware store.
When Simpson was getting his construction business started, the lumberyard’s owner extended him credit for building materials. Years later, Simpson would purchase the property and open his own operation. He credits that early act of faith from Huntley as instrumental in getting his first construction company up off the ground.
As he embarked on his new career path as a hardware store owner, Simpson knew construction well, but retail hardware was something he would need to learn. He did have one considerable advantage: He knew Beaufort.
The town has about 4,500 year-round residents, with tourism swelling that population during the summer. Fishing and boating are part of everyday life, and Simpson’s own family connection to the area stretches back centuries. As such, Beaufort Hardware & Paint has increasingly become a reflection of the place outside its walls.
Stainless-steel hardware receives particular attention because of the marine environment. The fishing department carries rods, reels and supplies for customers heading out onto the water. Water pumps sell well enough that Simpson says another 15 to 25 might be waiting in the back room beyond those on the salesfloor.
“We try to be really good at single categories rather than trying to cover all bases,” he says.
Grilling helped prove the efficacy of that strategy.
When Beaufort Hardware expanded from 7,000 to 12,000 square feet, Simpson wanted to test what would happen if he gave important departments considerably more depth. He created enough space to display about 30 grills.
Before the change, Simpson says, the store might have sold one grill a month. After, they started selling daily, and the store became a destination for grills and accessories.
Later expansions carried that thinking into other departments. Simpson wants to give customers confidence that when they visit Beaufort Hardware & Paint for a project, the items they need will be there.
Today, the store combines hardware and building materials with paint, tools, plumbing, lawn and garden, outdoor living, home goods and other categories. Its current assortment includes a full-line Benjamin Moore paint department, expanded Milwaukee and DeWalt tool offerings and a lumber barn stocked with treated lumber, plywood, concrete and other building materials.
The store keeps changing, too. Simpson says he regularly reworks center aisles and endcaps, and department heads have latitude to identify products they believe belong in their areas.
Technology has changed the mechanics behind those decisions. About 45,000 electronic shelf tags now enable pricing to update without employees having to manually replace tags throughout the store. Simpson says the need became particularly apparent during the pandemic, when rapid price changes made keeping thousands of items current increasingly difficult. Market-based pricing information also helps Beaufort Hardware & Paint evaluate prices for its own trading area.
Give Them Something to Own
The same independence Simpson values as a retailer extends to the way he manages roughly 50 employees. Beaufort Hardware & Paint operates without a traditional general manager. Instead, department heads receive considerable responsibility for their areas, including the opportunity to bring in merchandise they believe customers will buy.
Simpsonsays employees regularly come to him with ideas about what they want to do with their departments and how they want them to look. His role is often simply to give them room to follow through.
“It’s very personal,” Simpson says. “They take ownership.”
His marketing team works much the same way.
Employees take ownership of social media and appear in the store’s advertising, often developing ideas and campaigns largely on their own. Simpson may offer a suggestion, but he doesn’t dictate what happens next.
“We might have suggestions, but they take it and go with it,” he says. “It’s a fun group to work with.”
The results have attracted attention beyond the store’s social feeds. Simpson says Beaufort Hardware & Paint has received calls from other businesses asking who handles its marketing.
The store’s “Tommy’s Top Picks” promotion adds Simpson himself to that outreach, highlighting a changing selection of products he recommends. Other fun, recurring employee-driven posts, such as “Whatchamacallit Wednesdays,” also bring lots of engagement and thousands of social media views.
For Simpson, the freedom employees get comes with an expectation that customers enjoy coming in.
“It’s hardware; it’s fun,” he says. “Working in a hardware store has got to be one of the most rewarding things in the whole world. You talk to people and solve their problems. They love the attention, and they love that we know their name.”
Such enthusiasm regularly spills past ordinary business hours.
A Ladies’ Night event that began five or six years ago quickly outgrew Simpson’s expectations. He planned the first event for about 30 people; 70 showed up. Attendance kept climbing, eventually approaching 400, with a line stretching outside the store.
“So loud that you can’t hear for days,” Simpson says. “Such a good time.”
The response gave Simpson another idea: Turn the gathering into a fundraiser. More recent events have used ticket sales to support local causes.
The annual April customer appreciation day operates on an even larger scale. Vendors join local fire and police departments for an event that takes on the feel of a community block party. Simpson says 11 grills might be cooking at once, with preparation beginning the night before. By noon, the store may have served a couple thousand people.
For Simpson, the event reflects something that extends beyond a single day. He wants customers to feel a sense of connection to Beaufort Hardware & Paint—that this is their hardware store. And he wants employees to feel much the same way.
“It’s not my hardware store,” Simpson says. “It’s their hardware store. My employees feel like it’s their hardware store.”
Independence With Plenty of Company
Going independent has given Simpson more control over what happens inside Beaufort Hardware & Paint. He still actively seeks outside ideas.
Orgill entered the picture years ago as a secondary supplier after one of Simpson’s employees suggested adding another source.
“Orgill is one of the best decisions I have ever made,” Simpson says.
The relationship grew gradually. Orgill representatives visited the store, helped adjust assortments and offered suggestions. During the pandemic, when product availability became especially difficult, Simpson recalls an Orgill representative being in the store every week, working on assortments and shelves almost as though he were another employee.
That regular presence has continued throughout Beaufort Hardware & Paint’s transition to independence. Simpson says Orgill representative James Michael spends so much time at the store that he eventually decided just to make room for him.
“I have an office for him,” Simpson says. “He’s here so much, I had to find him a place to work.”
Such close collaboration shapes how Simpson approaches his relationships throughout the independent hardware industry. Speaking from the Beacon Awards stage, he looked around the room and talked about what he gains from conversations with others who have built careers in the industry.
“We enjoy what we’re doing. We’re always thinking better,” he says. “It’s wonderful to have partners and people in the industry to share your concerns, share what you do.”
Then he heads home, those conversations front of mind.
“And then I take it back and I share that with my employees,” he says.
