Flooring, Family, and French Fries: The Source Company

Flooring, Family, and French Fries: Morgan Myers on Stepping into her Role and Stepping up The Source Company 

Landing on a start date for people who work for their family’s company is part memory exercise and part guesswork. No one knows that better than The Source Company Vice President Morgan Myers. 

Myers did odd jobs during summers off in high school around the original retail shop that sold flooring. While she attended Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business, she worked on learning the accounting and bookkeeping side of the business.  

Myers met the man who would ultimately become her husband during her freshman year while working toward her marketing degree. She warned him then that she was going to end up back in Mishawaka, Indiana, at the family business. Mishawaka is 200 miles north of Bloomington, Indiana, where the university is located, and just 11 miles west of the major trailer hub of Elkhart.  

The Source Company has always been a family affair. It was founded in 1983 by Myers’ dad and grandparents with her uncle joining in soon after.  Myers says she learned the dedication a family business takes from watching all of her family members, but her grandmother in particular. 

“When they first started, my grandpa and my dad were out selling, and my grandma would be here cutting carpet in the warehouse. Everyone just did whatever they needed to do  because it was just the three of them,” Myers said. “She’s a role model for me, because I saw her do all the jobs. She did the payroll, the HR, all the accounting, sales, warehouse work when she needed to. She never complained. She always just did it and so they were able to retire very happily in 2000 when they turned 60.” 

The company is now run by the second and third generations. Myers’ father Mike Caurro is the CEO. Her uncle Steve Caurro is president. The operation manager is her brother Nick Caurro, and her cousin Aylse Myers is the design specialist. That’s a lot of family in the building and navigating that takes a little finesse.  

"I love seeing my family every day and being that close with them. The challenges would be when things can get heated. You don't want somebody to take something super personally. You walk that line and say, ‘This is about work. This is not personal.' Honestly, there's not a whole lot of negatives to me, which is why I like it so much,” Myers said. 

Even the family members outside of the company help make it all work. Myers says their spouses help out where they can, like with the kids. They also help rein everyone in when the work follows them home. 

“We have a code word when we're at dinners, and we have to start talking about it. It's ‘French fry.’ That means ‘enough,’” Myers said. “If somebody's getting really worked up about something or it’s escalating a bit, then, Nick's wife or my husband or my mom or somebody will be like, ‘Okay, French fry.’” 

It’s not just the family that has a hand in the company’s success. The Source Company has 14 employees, 10 that are not technically family, but Myers says they are honorary members. 

"They all feel like family to us because we're all so close. A lot of them have been here a very long time. We don't have a high turnover, and everybody just feels like family and are really great to work with,” Myers said. "Everyone manages their own little business unit, if you will, like the warehouse, the truck driver, the controller, customer service. Everyone just knows what they're doing, so it's a really good atmosphere.” 

This year marks 10 years of Myers being full time at the company. She was named VP in 2022 but learned every facet of the business along the way.  

“I started with redoing the website. Then, I did outside sales for a bit. Our controller retired, so I did the controller function, and then, now as vice president, I kind of oversee the finance side of it,” Myers said. “I do payroll, HR, purchasing. You know how small businesses go - a little bit of everything.” 

She feels confident now, but says it was a process getting there in this industry. There’s the uniquely female stress of wanting to look professional, but if you dress too feminine in a male-dominated space, you aren’t taken seriously, and this was something Myers warred with when doing plant visits. She still faces instances where people assume she doesn’t know what she’s talking about.   

“People will call in to ask a question about the adhesive. I’ll answer, and they'll say, ‘Oh, I need to talk to somebody who knows about this adhesive,’ as soon as I answer,” Myers said. “Yeah, I can help you with that." 

Myers combats this with being as knowledgeable as she can. She says she read spec sheets front to back. When she didn’t know something, she said so and got back with them after she knew the correct answer. 

“Don't feed them BS. Don't fake it. This is not the place to fake it till you make it. Just be transparent and be knowledgeable,” Myer said. "And remember that not everyone is going to like you. I think that goes for all areas of the business - women or men. I think that's just an important thing for younger people to keep in mind.” 

While Myers grew more comfortable in her role, the company grew as well. They built a new building in the 90’s next to the original. It's now been expanded on three times with plans for a fourth for a new showroom. They’ve expanded beyond only selling local and now ship cross country.  

"When Nick and I came on board, we're like, well, we don't have to just sell to Elkhart. We can LTL ship these roles across the country," Myer said. “They're 8-foot-long rolls. They're huge. They're heavy. How do you do that? But we figured it out and that's all because of NATM, really.”

The Source Company doesn’t typically attend many trade shows due to their small size. Myers says attending the National Association of Trailer Manufacturers’ (NATM) Convention & Trade Show, however, allows them to catch up with existing customers, connect with new potential customers, as well as form lucrative partnerships – like with distributors.  

"I can't say, ‘This month we got X amount of new business from it.’ It's too soon to tell, but I felt like a lot of connections were made, and historically, over the last seven years, we figured out that we've come up with new business, almost half a million dollars a year,” Myers said. “It's definitely worth it, and it's a good investment. We've really enjoyed being a part of the organization, and we would encourage anyone that we come across really to join and to be there as well." 

The Source Company was especially excited to visit the Nashville Convention. They were able to drive in and therefore stepped up their booth presentation.  

"We had two pop-up banners. We were fancy and we took panels of our flooring on plywood board pieces. We don't typically do the whole shipping a pallet thing. Normally, we roll up with a suitcase full of samples and our poster,” Myers said. “We're a small business, and we just don't. We're not one of the big corporations. We can’t do that. So, this year had the flooring down on the floor. It was cool.” 

 Myers has attended six of the last seven NATM Conventions. She says the growth they’ve attained from the show is of course great, but getting to know the customers better also is a key part of the event.  

"In the day-to-day it's always so busy. You're just trying to get people answers and answer emails and process orders as fast as possible so there's not a lot of time for that personal connection,” Myers said. “That's honestly one of my favorite things about NATM is trying to make those connections and have the face-to-face time together.” 

The Source Company has been a member of NATM since 2017. To learn more about them, visit www.thesourcecompany.com.