CEO Mike Evans recently retired from eSolutions Furniture, formerly Bush Industries, after overseeing the company’s merger with Bestar and growth in the ecommerce sector. Submitted photo

After 24 years of working with Bush Industries, now known as eSolutions, former CEO Mike Evans is looking forward to enjoying his retirement.

After years of working with Bush Industries, Evans became the CEO after Bestar and Bush Industries merged to create eSolutions.

Following the merger, Evans said the business experienced significant growth.

“Things started really take off for us in the business,” he said. “We’re focused on ecommerce and had really strong tailwinds from the market, and the business really took off at that point in time.”

Evans said the success of the business was exciting to witness, after years of helping the company navigate different challenges.

“It was really fulfilling to see all of our hard work for many years during the turnaround there pay off,” he said. “To see it really take off again and the company really grow again was really satisfying.”

Bush Industries experienced a challenging time from the mid-2000s until about 2016. Evans said the market was not good and furniture retail sales shrank rapidly.

“The whole team, I think, just remained pretty vigilant and it took a lot of persistence to overcome some of the challenges we had,” he said. “It was a real struggle for us for about 10 years.”

Bush Industries struggled to adapt to the changing landscape of the furniture market. Evans said it took the company a considerable amount of time to transition from producing furniture sold in retail stores to selling furniture directly to consumers.

“The struggles were really when we were still heavily reliant on retail, and the retail side of our business was shrinking,” he said. “We had to go through a lot of restructuring and downsizing before I came. Once the company really focused on ecommerce, we started to have some growth but we had to really rethink everything.”

Evans said the year following the merger with Bestar resulted in a “super strong” year for the business. However, he acknowledged that due to challenges with the pandemic and supply chain issues, the company has experienced additional struggles over the past couple years. Nevertheless, Evans said the company is continuing to expand, with hopes for a bright future.

“We continue to expand our product portfolio, and we have a tremendous number of new products,” he said. “As soon as the economy starts to turn around again, I’m very confident the business will be growing again.”

As a company specializing in ecommerce, Evans believes eSolutions has a unique opportunity to capitalize on the furniture market both commercially and residentially.

In the ecommerce market, Evans said eSolutions is responsible for all the content creation. The company provides digital renderings for all the furniture, copy content for the company’s websites and specifications for each piece of furniture.

“What we’ve been working on is building the fundamental capabilities to be very good at ecommerce,” he said. “During my time you know, we’ve been focused on expanding the product portfolio and becoming better and better at digital marketing.”

Evans said that despite the challenges, he has enjoyed his time with Bush Industries and eSolutions. One of his favorite parts about the job has been interacting with the company’s employees. He explained eSolutions has worked hard to provide “team building” experiences, which has led to a successful merger between Bush and Bestar.

Evans said the company has also been able to give back to the community by engaging in local charitable endeavors.

“We’ve done a lot off small charities here and there,” he said. “Our company is pretty active with United Way, and we have a lot of employees that donate time and do things in the community.”

While Evans has enjoyed his career with Bush Industries and eSolutions, he said it was time for him to retire so he could pursue other activities.

“I had been planning on it for a while when we did the transaction to merge with Bestar,” he said. “I told them at the time that I wanted to stay for a few more years. I’ve been here for 24 years. I think I’ve kind of served my dues. It’s a tremendous amount of hours, and a lot of hard work is involved. It’s just time for time for me to do some other things.”

In his retirement, Evans plans on spending time with his family and enjoying his grandchildren. He is looking forward to being able to travel more, visit friends he has not seen in a long time and enjoy the opportunity for relaxation. Evans also said he might start playing golf again in his spare time in his retirement.

“For a little while, I’m going to do pretty much nothing but take a breath,” he said.

Regarding the future of the company, Evans expressed his excitement and confidence in Luc Mongeau as the new president and CEO of eSolutions. While Evans said the company currently faces a challenging time with low demand and a large inventory, he believes the company will continue to be successful and will be ready when demand increases in the future.

“Luc and the team will be focused on marketing and sales to drive additional growth as well as continue to diversify the product portfolio and build innovative new product,” he said.

Evans said the company’s employees have been “really resilient” in the face of various challenges over his 24 years with Bush Industries and eSolutions.

“I would just like to thank the employees,” he said. “It’s been a major struggle and the people have really stuck with the company. I’m really pleased and really proud of all their hard work. It’s a great group of people.”