One of Cain Millwork, Inc.’s most visually stunning projects is the woodwork its craftsmen designed, produced and installed for the Writers Theatre, located in Glencoe, Illinois.

Members of Cain Millwork, Inc.’s leadership team pose for a group photo at the company’s annual Christmas party. Pictured (left to right) are Mike Coticchio, Vice President of Operations; Steve Messer, director of operations; Roger Cain, founder; Chuck Skow, Vice President; Jim Letourneau, shop foreman; Jerry Varner, Vice President of Production; Joe Garvy, CFO; Joe Sebek, Vice President of Sales; Daniel Levin, CEO; and Dr. Jay Levin, chairman.

According to Daniel Levin, Cain Millwork, Inc.’s CEO, the “10,000-square-foot cabinet shop” that Roger Cain founded in 1978 has steadily grown to become a much larger, diversified company since his family purchased this business in 1996.

Cain Millwork, now certified through the Architectural Woodwork Institute’s Quality Certification Program, is a full-service woodwork firm with 100 employees, a national reach, and the ability to simultaneously complete projects of varying scale and complexity at its 190,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art production facility in Rochelle, Illinois.

The company specializes in designing, engineering, building and installing custom wood products, such as cabinets, moldings, wall panels, doors and frames, as well as related architectural features made of solid surface materials, glass and metal.

Customer Before Owner

The Levin family was a customer of Cain Millwork before becoming its owner. “My family is in real estate,” Daniel says. “Cain Millwork had done some cabinets for one of our offices. We decided to buy the company so we could do our own millwork.” Given the Levins’ desire to control the quality of the millwork they were purchasing, it comes as no surprise that the company’s mission is to “deliver predictable results.”

“Most often, people want to work with trades that have served them well,” Daniel continues, “the ones that have provided great quality and made sure projects are completed at or under budget, on time and with a simple close-out process. This is especially important for millwork, which is the most visible of all the trades. For us, ‘predictable’ means ‘certainty of outcome’—that our millwork will be built to the specifications, installed correctly and without hassle. If we communicate well and remove any guesswork from the process, everyone will be happy with the results.”

In fact, the company’s leadership developed “3Ps” as their values to optimize the customer experience and guide the business’ strategic growth—through people, partnerships and performance. “Everything we do passes through these lenses,” Daniel says.

People First

Cain Millwork’s top priorities are to thoughtfully recruit and hire new employees, invest in training and cross-training staff, and provide a safe workplace.

“Everything we do can only be done with great people,” Daniel says. “This takes a combination of skill, personality, training and willingness to learn. When someone comes to us, it’s not really about what they’ve done. It’s about a good fit. Is that person going to be a team player? We don’t have showboating here. It’s not even my name on the door.”

He continues: “We work with the union’s apprenticeship school to train new carpenters so that we have the workforce of the future. Our apprentices spend time in each department. After three years of going through our program, they should be able to do any function on the production floor.”

Cain Millwork also has a larger engineering staff than most millwork companies and has a summer internship program for young people who are interested in this profession.

“We employ nine engineers,” Daniel says. “Most millwork companies have one engineer; larger ones may have three or four. We invest in engineering because if the project is designed well—with the proper feedback from the end users, general contractor and architect—we can create meticulously accurate drawings. We build what the approved drawings show. So, the more detailed we can be during the planning process, the better the execution during production and installation.”

In addition, the company prides itself on providing a safe work environment. “We have a safety committee and coordinator,” Daniel says. “We do voluntary audits, have regular meetings and have won numerous safety awards.”

Equipping a Top-Notch Team

Daniel says that in the early years Cain Millwork “grew organically by providing good service and consistent quality.” Then, the company’s move to its current facility enabled it to dramatically increase its capacity. Cain Millwork has also made substantial investments in leading-edge technology. This assures that its team is top-notch and well-equipped to promptly respond to the increasingly more complex, expanding needs of clients.

“All our projects are run through a robust enterprise resource planning (ERP) system,” Daniel says. “We also use some new technologies that enhance what programs like AutoCAD can do. This all allows us to be super accurate with our estimates. So, for example, when we are looking at value engineering options, we can propose great alternatives—simple material changes or different design elements—and articulate how much that’s going to save the customer.”

He pauses to elaborate. “Value engineering doesn’t mean you are getting less of something,” he says. “For us, it means meeting the design intent and functional requirements within the budget and schedule. Our clients should be able to rely on us to be the millwork experts. We always need to be up to speed on each wood species, how it works and its durability. We need to know how it performs indoors and outdoors, with different humidity levels and temperatures. We are constantly giving suggestions—even when this reduces the job price. We’d rather have the customer spend less and like the product than to spend more for something that was unnecessary.”

Prized Partnerships

Over the years, Cain Millwork has developed what Daniel calls a “tight network of subcontractors.” The company not only strives to be a “reliable partner rather than just another trade” for general contractors and other clients, he says the team expects this level of dependability from its subcontractors.

“Everyone we work with is a partner with us and has the same set of values,” he explains. “If you aren’t all aligned with the same end goal, someone is going to be unhappy. We always make sure our subcontractors are companies we know or have worked with. Otherwise, we’ll send our own people. If you have great millwork and it’s installed poorly, then it will look bad. It’s critical to have a combination of superbly produced product and highly skilled install.”

Peak Performance

As Cain Millwork has grown, Daniel says it has increased its ability to handle multiple jobs with optimal efficiency. Its leaders’ decision to build redundancy into its production line now allows it to “ramp up for the busiest months” while avoiding downtime. “We are always open,” he points out. “If one of our main routers goes out, we still have to get the work done. That’s why we have three of them. We have three edgebanders, too. If one goes down, we use the others.”

Cain Millwork’s combination of skilled staff, dedicated partners, rigorous planning and precise execution is especially crucial for projects located in mission-critical facilities.

“We do a lot of hospital work—especially in surgical suites and emergency rooms,” Daniels says. “Hospitals don’t close, and the environment can change very fast. Our teams are trained and our process is honed so we can accomplish what we need to do without interrupting the workflow. For example, even if there are no surgeries scheduled at night, we have to come in the minute the surgeons are done for the day, set up, get everything installed and then break it down, clean up, and close out so they can go back to using the room.”

Synchronized and Aligned

The ability to rapidly assemble an expert, synchronized team is especially important when Cain Millwork has to perform quickly and expertly to meet extraordinary demands. For example, Daniel says, when Clune Construction Company (Clune), a long-standing, valued client and project partner, contacted his company about custom work for Wintrust Bank - Wrigleyville in Chicago, “there were only six weeks between when the call came in and when the bank had to be open.”

“Clune told us ‘here is the date the bank has to be open. The construction has to be done three days before that and the deadlines have to be hit,’ “ he explains. “We had to do more than accomplish high quality in a short timeframe; the work was very intricate. It had woodwork, metal and glass. So, we mapped out a plan with the owner’s rep and Clune. We worked backward from the date our work had to be completed and identified the critical dates for when we needed approved drawings. We made templates for the entire area so we could show the framer exactly where to put the walls and eliminate the need to get field dimensions. We got it done on time, and it looks great.”

Cain Millwork also does national rollout projects with its general contractor partners, completing multiple projects simultaneously for locations across the U.S. “Clients in different markets often want the same successful team from the general contractor to execute with the same quality and at the same level of service that they have gotten in the past. The contractor wants this certainty of outcome, too. Our whole team is aligned in making this happen. With the technology we employ and the capacity we can provide, we are equipped to design, build, ship and install across the country.”

Company and Community Pride

While Cain Millwork has strategically expanded and strengthened its production and project delivery capabilities, its leaders take the most pride in creating a safe, energizing workplace where employees can choose to spend their careers.

“I always talk about the Cain Millwork family and I take this very seriously,” Daniel says. “So, if someone is having family problems at home, we take care of them. We celebrate everyone’s birthdays and recognize work anniversaries. When our employees reach five years, we give them a varsity jacket with the Cain logo on it. Then, everyone who has these jackets wears them to our annual holiday party. We recognize 10-, 15- and 20-year milestone anniversaries, too.”

The company also hosts an annual employee golf outing and supports community organizations. “During the last one, we raised money for an organization called Village of Progress, which provides vocational training for people with developmental disabilities. We sold raffle tickets and people could pay a dollar to enter different competitions.”

Onward and Upward

As he looks toward the future, Daniel sees Cain Millwork continuing to move “onward and upward.”

“Yes, we are a custom architectural millwork producer,” he says. “However, in some ways, we operate more like a tech company. We constantly look for new vertical integration opportunities. We have lead times that are superior to the average in the industry because we can adjust and modify our processes to accommodate jobs that are running at a certain pace. That agility is not easy to attain. When you have it, though, you can do a lot of things people think are impossible just because your team is wired for success.”