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August 25, 2025 24 mins
Jeff Franks is the president of JBF Distribution, which is based in Wooster, Ohio. The company was started by his father back in 2011 and distributes plastic products for the agriculture industry, mainly for hay and straw production. JBF Distribution sends products across Ohio and into Pennsylvania, along with West Virginia.  Learn more about Jeff and his company on the podcast.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
CEOs you should know here from local leaders in the community.
Made possible by Witcom and hess CPAs and financial Advisors.
And we're excited this morning as we're going to feature
Jeff Franks this morning. He is president of JBF Distribution
and people maybe for the first time hearing about his business,

(00:22):
so we're very, very excited to welcome him into the studio. Jeff,
good morning, Thanks for coming in today.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Thanks Eric, it's good to be here.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
Yeah. What's funny is and I say this almost every
time I crack the microphone on this program. Love learning
about businesses in the region and kind of the stories
about them. So somebody hears JBF Distribution, they may be wondering,
what do you guys do? Could you share with us
a little bit about that?

Speaker 2 (00:48):
Sure, So we do distribution. It's agricultural plastic. It's primarily
products related to hay and straw production. We also sell
salt products. So someone listening is an agriculture they're going
to know what I'm talking about. Twine, net wrap, silos, wrap,
those products. If they are not in agriculture, they've probably

(01:12):
seen the giant marshmallows as they're driving through the country
and those are heybales most likely that are wrapped in plastic.
Everything that goes into that is what we sell. So
we're right in the distribution piece in the middle.

Speaker 1 (01:27):
Of that, all right. So basically you sell that to
a supplier and they would sell that like to a
farmer or something like that.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
Yeah, So most of our customers are retailers, and so
it may be a John Deere dealer, a case dealer,
it could be a local farm store, a grain elevator,
those kinds of places. That's most of who we sell to.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
All right. Again, learning the story this morning of Jeff Franks,
who is president of JBF Distribution. Where are you guys
located at? And I know you're here in kind of
North Center, a little high Where are you guys at.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
Just outside of Worcester. We're on two fifty If you're
coming out of Worcester going to Ashland on two fifty,
we're a couple miles outside of there, just right on
two fifty.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
All right. So let's get a little bit of how
long you've been in operation. I know this has family tie,
so tell us a little bit about how long you
guys have been in business and a bit of the
story there.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
Yeah, well, my brother and I grew up with a
dad that was highly involved in agriculture, and my dad
loved agriculture. He pretty much grew up on his grandparents farm,
and so he ended up in He worked in feed
for a while, and then he ended up getting into distribution,

(02:43):
which is you know where he ended up. Most of
his career was in distribution. He was with one business
and then he and the other owner went different directions
and then he started JBF Distribution, which the JBF is
based on my parents and names Joe and Betsy Franks,
and we've chosen to keep that because they were, you know,

(03:05):
the ones that started that. But for probably over forty years,
his career revolved around agriculture in different aspects of it.
But he just he loved agriculture. He just that was
his his favorite thing and brought him a lot of
joy in the years that he was. He passed away

(03:26):
a couple of years ago and got to spend his
life doing what he loved. Loved sales. He loved sales
and he loved agriculture.

Speaker 1 (03:34):
Now, as we talk about the business, how long were
we talking in operation?

Speaker 2 (03:39):
He started in twenty eleven. Before that, it was a
different business that he was. It was still distribution, still agriculture,
but this specific business, JBF, he started in twenty eleven.

Speaker 1 (03:51):
All right, learning the story of a local company again,
JBF Distribution. Their president, Jeff Franks, is WI thus in studio.
So how about you. I was called the coverage area.

Speaker 2 (04:04):
You know.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
You mentioned you're located just outside of Worcester Head and
toward Ashland. But do you cover most of all of
Ohio other states? What's kind of your your your coverage
area where you guys send products?

Speaker 2 (04:16):
Yeah, outside of our region. A lot of the distributors
will have regions in this outside of our region. We
do have a couple of customers, but we primarily go
from you could say like State College Pennsylvania, through Indiana,
Michigan down to Kentucky and West Virginia. That would be

(04:37):
ninety five percent of our sales would be in that region.
Probably the biggest portion would be western Pennsylvania and Ohio.
That's where most of our customers are.

Speaker 1 (04:46):
And that's a pretty big farming area, you know. I
think about it, and that's a pretty good I would
call it a swath of.

Speaker 2 (04:53):
You know, the of those states, right, Yeah, where you
traditionally see a lot of dairy is where you where
we're going to have a larger presence in those areas
and Wayne County, where we're located is you know, it
has traditionally been a huge amount of the industry there
was dairy production and still is. So yeah, that's where

(05:15):
you'll find our greatest concentration of customers.

Speaker 1 (05:19):
Question just pops into my mind again. You're hearing from
the president of JBF Distribution, Jeff Franks today in terms
of a time of the year, are you busier than others,
because I just think about summerfall, winter, spring. Is there
any time where you're busier than others?

Speaker 2 (05:38):
Well, it used to be that all of this centered
around a calendar where it started. You would start you
would get pricing around the first year, and you would
start selling February, you know, and then you'd be delivering
so customers. So the retailers had it in their location
by April May. But you know, it's kind of like Christmas,

(05:59):
how Christmas starts earlier every year. It seems like this
is the same way because the manufacturers are struggling to
get you know, they just want to you know, kind
of scraping to get every sale they can. And so
now the season starts in October, if you can believe it,
and we start delivering in November, and then you know,

(06:20):
we deliver through Our busiest time would be typically December
through March into the beginning of April, and then it
gets steady through the summer. Now, this year, because we've
had so much rain, the weather has been so favorable
for all crops. There's been so much rain that we
haven't had a slow time. But normally this time of year,

(06:41):
we're really slowing down. You know, I've got more time
on my hands as we're getting into fall, and but
it's been a great year. I often tell people if
the weather is doing something you don't like, I like it,
and that's the way. You know, we love rain because
plants grow a lot better with rain. So we've seen

(07:01):
a lot of that this year.

Speaker 1 (07:03):
All right, So your business, as you just mentioned, very
dependent on the weather, right, So yeah, if it's raining
a lot things are growing. You mentioned that that's a
good thing for you guys.

Speaker 2 (07:12):
Yeah. Yeah, we've had a great year this year because
we've had a great year for weather. I wish I
could take the credit for it, but it's the weather.
Last year was tough because we had that drought through
the summer and so last year was not as good.
And you know, always trying to do things to grow
the business and improve the business. But until I can
control the weather, I'm mad AT's mercy.

Speaker 1 (07:33):
All right. Well, it's been a great chance this morning
with Jeff Franks again president of JBF Distribution. Many more
questions to get to him before we let him go.
This morning. You talked about different seasons. Yeah, I think
it was in July. I got back from vacation and
I already saw things in the store for Halloween, and
you mentioned Christmas and all that comes a little bit earlier.

(07:53):
So in terms of products for you, they come you
and I were talking off the year they come from
in the US, outside of the US, US, different ones.
How does it work in terms of you guys getting
that in.

Speaker 2 (08:03):
We buy probably a little more than a third of
our product from American manufacturers. Agricultural technology typically starts in
Europe and it makes its way here, So I would
say maybe sixty sixty five percent of what we buy
comes from Europe. So we import it. We'll bring containers direct,

(08:23):
some of them will flow through there's a warehouse in
Virginia that we work with a manufacturer on and they'll
ship it by truck here. But yeah, a lot of
a lot of importing right now.

Speaker 1 (08:35):
Now for you guys in terms of you know, you
get the product in from other places you mentioned, and
you guys distribute that when you send it out. Is
it always in a you know, a large quantity? Depending?
I mean, how small do you send? How big d
you send that kind of thing?

Speaker 2 (08:51):
Yeah? Probably half of what we we ship goes direct,
and so it's don't we don't touch it, and then
the rest of it will come into our warehouse and
we you know, break it into smaller quantities and take
it out from there.

Speaker 1 (09:08):
In terms of the products you mentioned that you guys
have that somebody might see, give them a bit of
you started with us a bit of an example. Is
it always the you know, really really big amounts of hay?
Can it be smaller?

Speaker 2 (09:20):
What?

Speaker 1 (09:20):
What all do you guys use to wrap that?

Speaker 2 (09:22):
Well? You know, it can be a small hobby farmer
that they can be doing their own bailing. That's all
going to flow through a retailer, you know. But we
do have you know, there's a lot of the smaller
grain elevator kind of place that is going to buy.
You know, they might buy two palettes of product from
us in a year, all the way through customers that

(09:42):
will buy you know, twelve fourteen loads of product in
a year. It just it's it's all different. It is.
It's interesting because it is all different. It requires a
lot of creativity because freight is so expensive and so
we've got to we've got to be creative on it.
So that is that's kind of a fun part that
it is some variety in that.

Speaker 1 (10:04):
Yeah, I've never interviewed somebody kind of in your industry.
So it's great this morning to learn about what you
guys do at JBF Distribution. You're hearing from their president
this morning, Jeff Franks. He's this week's featured CEO. You
should know, all right, So let's step away from work
and find out a little bit more about you. So

(10:24):
people I'm sure wondering, where's he from. Where do you
go to high school? College? You know, we'll get how
you got into the family business, but let's kind of
start at the top. Tell us where you're from.

Speaker 2 (10:34):
Jeff Well, I was born in Worcester and we lived
in Worcester up until I was in second grade, and
then we moved to Iowa because you know, there's a
lot of agriculture in Iowa, and we were there until
I was in junior high moved back here a graduate
of Northwestern High School, still a Husky here at heart,

(10:54):
and then I went to I went to college actually
for sports broadcasting. Was my plan in life. God had
a different plan, and I ended up becoming a youth
pastor and a pastor. I was a pastor and a
counselor for about twenty years, and I love that. I
had no intention of leaving that. Anytime my dad brought up,

(11:18):
you know what, I have interest in taking over the
family business, I would respectfully say no as respectfully as
I could, and so I had no intention of this
doing this. But I love being a counselor. Was one
of my favorite parts of my career and still enjoy,
you know, being an encourager and even at work being
you know, because you know people, you run into all

(11:40):
kinds of situations. You can be a counselor in any
job you have at times. But it was at about
the twenty year point and I was sensing it's like
it's time to do something different. And I love what
I did, but for some reason, I just sensed it
was time to do something different, and so I launched
out and I thought, well, I'll do some counseling on
my own. And one day I was talking to my

(12:04):
mom and ended up I said, well, why don't I
help you with the books a little bit. She seemed
overwhelmed and didn't really know what to do. She did
the books for the business, and so I said, I'll
tell you what, while I'm figuring out what I'm going
to do, I'll work for maybe ten fifteen hours a
week and we'll just we'll do that for a while,
maybe six months, and then when I need to shift

(12:25):
and do what I'm going to do, then i'll do that. Well,
the end of the first week, i'd worked fifty five hours.
By then the second week, we'd figured out that my
dad had dementia, that he was hiding, and that everything
was just a mess. The payables were a mess, or
receivables were a mess. They had no idea what the

(12:46):
inventory was. It was in a couple different locations. And
I sat down with my brother and I said, one
of us has got to take this over. Because it's
they're going to lose everything. And so I drew the
short straw in that, and I was, you know, I
didn't have something I was going to do. And the
plan was, let's, you know, take six months and maybe

(13:08):
we can kind of get this straightened out at least
get them out of it. But it took a lot
longer than that. It was it was months of trying
to go through and figure out who did they owe
money to, who owed money to them, And in the meantime,
my dad was getting worse. His dementia was getting worse.

(13:30):
And I get it, and I'm not being critical my dad.
My dad was a very independent person and anyone, you know,
walking into dementia that's got to be terrifying. And so
it was a struggle. I started that process in twenty eighteen,
and then in twenty nineteen was the beginning of the
second quarter. In twenty nineteen, it was when I actually
acquired the business. But it went from some days where

(13:53):
he was completely cooperating with me to some days it
was like, I mean, it was a tugg of war
and I had to go to him a couple of
times and say, look, it's yours. I'm not doing this
because I'm not going to fight you on this, and
then he would kind of come back around. But we
had to, you know, we had to go through the process.
It was hard. It was really hard. And then I

(14:16):
ended up in twenty nineteen with a business. I have
no business background, and I have a business that's a mess,
and I went through a real hard time. The first
three years were brutal because I didn't understand how business worked.
I had, you know, one thing, I kind of joke
about the guy that we lease or the family that
we lease our warehouse from. He came to me, this

(14:38):
would have been in February of twenty nineteen, and he said,
you know, you're going to start shipping product. And I
hadn't even done the math that I brought all this
product in and I had their orders, but I had
ever even done the math that you have to ship
this to them, and so it was those kinds of things.

(14:58):
I knew nothing about it. There was one day by
in May. We so I acquired the business in April.
In May, my mom brought me this payables report and
it ended up it was like it was a lot
of stuff is doing May and we had the bills
that we had coming up. It was it was about
three hundred and thirty thousand they had to pay. Well,

(15:21):
I didn't understand that, Okay, you deliver it, they pay.
You know that there's a cycle and that all gets
paid for. It all works out as long as you're
doing the things you're supposed to do. But I fell
apart and had an incredibly hard time with that, and
you know, for probably three months, just I would you know,

(15:42):
I wake up at two three in the morning, drenched
with sweat, full panic, and I started to gather some
folks around me, but really just started practicing. I don't
know if you kind of going off here a little bit,
but if you're familiar with what relinquishment is, there's this
ancient spiritual practice called relinquishment, and you know, it's practiced
in the Christian Church, but it's also practiced in a

(16:03):
lot of different religions, I'm sure. But it just became
every morning, I have to practice relinquishment every morning. And
over the next three years, I kept the business and
we kept trying to get this to a better place,
and eventually, you know, I started to pull out of that,

(16:23):
and then you know, some light at the end of
the tunnel appeared and we started to have some successes,
and then we started to grow, and then we you know,
acquired a section of business from a distributor that had
gone out of business. That gave us a real big
presence in western Pennsylvania. But it was rough. It was
it was really rough.

Speaker 1 (16:44):
You're hearing the story this morning of Jeff Franks again,
who was president of JBF Distributions. We talk about the business.
You mentioned, you know, growing up, you mentioned you you know,
we're maybe going to go into sports broadcasting. You mentioned,
you know, life took a couple of different terms, but
it looks like right now you mentioned in one of
the best years you've had right now, and you know,

(17:04):
helping the family business, you know that legacy. I'm sure
that that all brings a smile to your face now
right when you went to.

Speaker 2 (17:09):
Yeah, it feels great. And I don't know that there's
somebody in the next generation of my brother's kids or
my kids that would take it over. But the blessing
in it is regardless of whether this business continues for
another year. Because we were able to I guess right,
the ship. We're able to get my dad in a

(17:29):
nursing home. We saved my mom's finances. And I say
we because my brother was helpful in this. I had
mentors that came alongside me. It was a team. Like
the whole takes a neighborhoods or whatever they say, it
takes a village to whatever it is. I mean, there
was a village that gathered around me. But it saved
my parents' finances and my mom, you know, was able
to hang on to my dad's life insurance policies and

(17:52):
it all worked out. So I mean that's the part.
Because I do look back and like, what was this
all about? This doesn't make sense. I had no intention
of doing this, But like, even if that's all it was,
that was worth it because my mom is you know,
she's going to be taken care of. And to get
to do that for your parents. You know, I have
great parents and they did so much for us and

(18:15):
you get to return that is kind of a cool thing.

Speaker 1 (18:18):
Jeff, I heard you mentioned kids. So if you would
tell us a little bit more about the family.

Speaker 2 (18:24):
Sure, yeah, I could go on. I've been married. In November,
I will have been married twenty five years to my wife, Kelly,
who has put up with me. I've given her so
much to put up with over the years, way more
than she has given me to put up with, because
she's ridden all these roller coasters in ministry and all
of this and is just amazing. I can't talk too much.

(18:45):
I'll start crying. Just very thankful for her. We have
three daughters, my oldest, so we're an interesting time because
my oldest daughter, Nadia, is going to be going to
Akron University in the nursing program. She leaves next week.
We're hanging in there, We're gonna make it, but we're
taking her to school next week. My middle daughter, her

(19:07):
name is Lucy, and she goes to Worcester and she
plays volleyball and is hugely artistic. Her plan is to
do cosmetology when she gets done with high school. And
then our youngest, her name's Vivian, and she's a freshman,
goes to Smithville and you know, kind of figuring it out.
She talks about, you may want to be an orthodonist,

(19:29):
or she does ballet. But both my oldest and youngest
daughters have done ballet pretty much since they were three,
and so yeah, great, you know, huge blessings to us.

Speaker 1 (19:41):
Now, how about spare time when you are not working.
What kind of whether it's personal hobbies, family hobbies, what
do you like to do when you're not working.

Speaker 2 (19:50):
Well, my hobby for a long time has been going
to volleyball games. And you know, anyone who has a
child that is involved in something like volleyball or any
of these travel sports, that's been a hobby. I guess
the things that all of our girls have been involved
in are you know, there's a lot, a lot of
time invested in that, which has been great. And I

(20:13):
love to read. I love to go for walks. My
favorite thing is to go for walks. And there's a
Worcester's got a great arboretum our warehouses right by Worcester
Memorial Park, which is like this amazing slice of Wayne County.
But that's that's it just and it's it's kind of
a decompression time. But walking, hiking, those kind of things

(20:35):
probably about all I have time for. I used to golf,
but that went away maybe someday, but those are primary hobbies.

Speaker 1 (20:44):
I'd say, well, it's been great to learn your story.
A couple things quickly before we let him go. President
Jeff Franks of JBF Distribution are featured CEO you should
know this week. I don't know if you shared. You
mentioned when you went off to college you were interested
did in sports broadcasting? Where did you go to college?

Speaker 2 (21:03):
I went to Mount Vernon Nazarene College which is now university.
But it got to be the voice of the Cougars
for for a couple of years there at the basketball,
basketball games and baseball games. They didn't have football. I
don't think they think they still don't have football. But
did that. I loved it. That was fun. You know
you do that, it is it's so much fun doing that.

(21:27):
But uh and then ended up getting a call to go,
you know, sensing a call in my life to go
a different direction and and uh so, so I didn't
didn't do that vocationally.

Speaker 1 (21:38):
Yeah, I was thinking, well, if I ever need somebody
to fill in, I'll we'll give.

Speaker 2 (21:41):
You a while long time.

Speaker 1 (21:45):
Yeah, like riding bike. I told you well, Jeff, before
I let you go, it's been a great conversation learning
about your business. If somebody wants more information about JBF Distribution,
could you give us your website and I'm sure you
have phone, email stuff like that on there. They can
if they want to reach out. Maybe they want to find,
you know, a supplier that you guys send things to

(22:06):
where they could buy a product, or they just want
more information. How can they reach out to?

Speaker 2 (22:10):
Yeah, well, uh, the website is simply JBF and it's
b As and Boy JBF, Joe, Betsy Franks, JBF distribution
dot com. My email is Jeff j E. F F
at JBF Distribution dot com and all the information the
address is on their phone numbers on there. Yeah. I

(22:30):
love meeting folks and you know, going and checking out
different options if we can supply people. We don't do
a lot of retail, and so you know, we always
try to direct folks to our our retailers because it's
hard to do both distribution and retail, so we try
to stick with We're a small there's three people plus

(22:52):
myself that gets a lot of work done. If I
can say their names, just to give them a couple
of wife Kelly, Yeah, she and I you know run
the play and Melissa Chupp is our bookkeeper and she
kind of like does a lot of everything else that
requires someone sitting at a computer for and then Tim
Fickus is our main driver. He's got his CDL and

(23:14):
is driving force driving for us right now as a
matter of fact. But they're a great team, you know.
I feel so blessed to have them, thankful for them certainly.

Speaker 1 (23:24):
All Right, Well, I'm glad to learn your story. Shine
a spotlight. Jeff Franks, President JBF Distribution talking about their
business agriculture, and I think a lot of people, you know,
very excited to learn your story and what you guys do. Jeff,
thank you so much for coming in. We've appreciated it,
enjoyed the time, and we wish you continued success.

Speaker 2 (23:43):
All right, thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 (23:45):
The CEO you should know shares the background invision of
area leaders.

Speaker 2 (23:50):
Hi, I'm Aaron Bates, CEO of wickhaman Hess CPAs and
Financial Advisors, helping you plan, grow and thrive in your
business and in life. We are excited to highlight dynamic
CEOs from midd Ohio. Visit us at Whitcomb dot com.
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