Mike and Amy Locke, background center, owners of Whetstone Home Center, a United Hardware (Hardware Hank) dealer, and their paint department team, celebrate as two-time Valspar Paint Race winners.

Mike and Amy Locke made a brilliant business decision when they bought Whetstone Home Center in Milbank, South Dakota in 2016. They enlarged their hardware and paint departments to the business which was mainly a lumberyard in the northeastern part of the state. Since then they have become prolific Valspar paint dealers.

Whetstone, a Hardware Hank store supplied by United Hardware, has won the Valspar Paint Race, a competition for the highest amount of annual paint sales, two years in a row. An amazing accomplishment for such a rural store. Milbank is a town of under 4,000 hardy souls in eastern South Dakota. However, Whetstone serves residents in a roughly 60-mile radius.

Another wise decision was choosing Paladin as their store’s point-of-sale provider not long after buying the business. Read more

Paladin CEO Featured in Orgill Tech Panel

Paladin CEO Mike Williamson, center, was part of a POS technology panel discussion at the Orgill Spring Dealer Market in New Orleans.

Paladin CEO Mike Williamson was one of three industry experts included in the POS Technology panel at Orgill’s Spring Dealer Market in New Orleans earlier this month.

Orgill’s Grant Morrow moderated the panel which included Mike, Epicor’s Tim Gallo, and ECI’s John Maiuri. They discussed the present and future of POS technology in the hardware industry. The panel discussion can be viewed in the Training Video Library.

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