Leadership comes in many different forms, as seen in this year’s Top Guns Awards honorees and the long list of Top Guns Awards honorees the North American Hardware and Paint Association (NHPA) has recognized since 2007. Meet the 2025 honorees in the May 2025 issue of Paint & Decorating Retailer and below, hear from several former honorees on what leadership looks like in their lives and operations.
Boyden Moore
President and CEO, Orgill
2007 Top Guns Honoree
Paint & Decorating Retailer (PDR): What does leadership mean to you?
Boyden Moore (BM): To me, leadership is the ability to inspire, align and guide people to achieve a common goal, or series of goals, working together. Leadership is not always tied to authority, titles or experience. In fact, to me it is most powerful to watch someone without any formal authority lead others just by their good ideas, commitment, enthusiasm and drive.
PDR: How do you ensure that the company’s core values are reflected in the decisions you make as a leader?
BM: At Orgill, our mission “to make our customers successful” is the framework for all of our decisions and our values of customer centered, integrity, teamwork and excellence is the “how” we work to drive that mission. If you think of the mission as the goal, you can think of the values as the boundaries. Keeping your mission and values central and in focus to decisions day-to-day, providing feedback when something may fall out of alignment and acknowledging when decisions and initiatives are perfectly aligned drives them deeper and deeper into the company’s culture. In fact, done well it becomes self-correcting as the organization itself will reject things that don’t align well.
PDR: What strategies do you use to develop future leaders within your organization? How do you empower those around you to embrace leadership?
BM: We’ve been working to support our leaders throughout their journeys in leadership through a “Lead to Succeed” program that we developed and started a few years ago. The program has four levels in which we provide candid and comprehensive feedback and offer new challenges and cross functional assignments to grow in experience and skill. As leaders progress on their leadership journeys, they are challenged with opportunities to mentor younger or less experienced leaders a few steps behind them in their journey, aligning our leaders even tighter. This program continues to evolve and grow. Developing exceptional leaders is one of our key strategic initiatives at Orgill, and we believe critical for our success.
Gina Schaefer
Founder, A Few Cool Hardware Stores
2011 Top Guns Honoree
PDR: What does leadership mean to you?
Gina Schaefer (GS): To me, leadership is empowering others to reach their full potential—to do what needs to be done while growing and not being micromanaged by an untrusting leader.
GS: When we created our core values, we planned them into to our operating procedures. For example, we ask interview questions that use our values. We train and counsel using core values. And we terminate using them as well. I believe that any leader in our business, myself included, must live and breathe those values. For example, if a manager can’t communicate respectfully, which is one of our core values, then she or he will be replaced. They essentially became non-negotiables in order to stop me from playing favorites.
GS: We play to each persons strengths. I think everyone is a leader in their own position but they often lack the confidence to share those qualities with the world. And just because you’re a leader, doesn’t mean you’ll eventually be a boss. We trust our team tremendously which is usually very empowering. We have documented policies and procedures that when followed should make tasks go smoothly and allow growing leaders time and space to demonstrate their skills.
Amanda FancyOwner, Gow’s Home Hardware and Furniture
2018 Top Guns Honoree
PDR: What does leadership mean to you?
Amanda Fancy (AF): To me, leadership is about setting the tone and leading by example—showing up every day with integrity, accountability and a strong work ethic. It’s about being approachable and supportive, while also holding myself and others to high standards. I believe a good leader listens, adapts and genuinely cares about their team, their customers and the bigger picture. Leadership isn’t about being the loudest voice in the room—it’s about creating a space where others feel heard, valued and motivated to do their best.
PDR: How do you ensure that the company’s core values are reflected in the decisions you make as a leader?
AF: Our core values—customer service, community, teamwork and trust—guide everything we do at Gow’s. Whether it’s hiring a new staff member, resolving a customer issue or introducing a new product line, I always ask: does this decision align with who we are and what we stand for? I try to lead with transparency and fairness, and I communicate regularly with my team to make sure we’re all aligned. Even tough decisions are easier when I stay rooted in those values—they help keep us grounded and consistent.
PDR: What strategies do you use to develop future leaders within your organization? How do you empower those around you to embrace leadership?
AF: I really believe in giving people opportunities to grow. That might mean cross-training, giving someone a project outside their usual responsibilities or encouraging them to take the lead in a department initiative. I make a point to recognize potential and have one-on-one conversations about career goals. Leadership doesn’t always mean a title—it’s about taking ownership, solving problems and supporting others. I encourage my team to speak up, take initiative and not be afraid to make mistakes. Empowering others means trusting them and giving them the tools and support they need to thrive.
Patrick Goebel
President, Star Lumber & Supply
2020 Top Guns Honoree
PDR: What does leadership mean to you?
Patrick Goebel (PG): People have to be following you in order to be a leader! If you look back and no one is following you, you are not leading.
PDR: How do you ensure that the company’s core values are reflected in the decisions you make as a leader?
PG: The first step is to define them. It’s hard to use core values if you don’t have an agreed upon set of them. The second step is to make sure everyone knows what they mean and to talk about them as a team. When you bring new people on the team, you should only hire people that fit your core values. Lastly, it’s important to keep your values alive and refresh everyone on them. Each of our divisions create their own set of values and use them in their quarterly and annual planning EOS meetings.
PDR: What strategies do you use to develop future leaders within your organization? How do you empower those around you to embrace leadership?
PG: We started the University of Star (US), where we pick 10 to 12 people a year to do a bi-monthly program led by our HR Director, helping guide our employees as a team through a journey of learning. We also started an Emerging Leaders program. Employees apply and we pick 8-10 a year to go through a more beginner level. After 5 years we will have 50-60 through each program, which is a pretty good percentage of our 433 teammates! We just started leveraging the University of Star graduates to mentor emerging leaders. All of this is 100% dedicated to leadership training and not product or processes. We do a lot of that, but noticed we didn’t have much specifically coaching people how to lead at Star in our culture.”
Kevin Hancock
Managing Owner and Chairman, Hancock Lumber
2020 Top Guns Honoree
PDR: What does leadership mean to you?
Kevin Hancock (KH): Leadership to me is about giving other people a stronger voice. It’s about dispersing power, not collecting it.
PDR: How do you ensure that the company’s core values are reflected in the decisions you make as a leader?
KH: This is a critical question as it references ‘the decisions I make’ – which means I need to live the values of the organization. In other words, the decisions I make as a leader will ultimately define our core values in real life, regardless of what is written on paper. Leadership is a verb. It’s about what we do more than what we say.
PDR: What strategies do you use to develop future leaders within your organization? How do you empower those around you to embrace leadership?
KH: These two questions go together. We prioritize dispersing power and letting our leaders in the field truly lead. Because they have the space and trust to lead, they are developing as leaders. The boss gets first dibs on all the work, so it’s up to the top executives to show restraint and let everyone else do their job.
Scott Sommers
President, Hartville Hardware and Lumber
2023 Top Guns Honoree
PDR: What does leadership mean to you?
Scott Sommers (SS): I have come to think about leadership as looking out for the needs of all stakeholders of the organization. Making decisions that are good for everyone and not just what I want.
PDR: How do you ensure that the company’s core values are reflected in the decisions you make as a leader?
SS: One of our core values is long-term sustainable results. When we are making decisions we try to make the decision that will have the biggest impact over the long term instead of what may be better in the short term.
PDR: What strategies do you use to develop future leaders within your organization? How do you empower those around you to embrace leadership?
SS: We would like decisions to be made as close to the situation as possible. For example, we encourage our team to do whatever it takes to satisfy the customer without seeking permission—purpose over policy. We believe this allows people at every level of the organization to start to make some leadership type of decisions.
Eric HassettPresident, Hassett Hardware
2023 Top Guns Honoree
Eric Hassett (EH): For me, leadership is the responsibility of defining and communicating the direction of the organization, ensuring that core values are clear, our mission is understood and that I am there to support their success in achieving our goals.
PDR: How do you ensure that the company’s core values are reflected in the decisions you make as a leader?
EH: As a leader, every action, every conversation and every decision needs to be taken with the organization’s core values and culture in mind. When evaluated through the lens of those core values, most decisions become easy to make, even if they feel hard to execute. Oftentimes people decide the difficult decisions shape the core values, therefore devaluing them.
PDR: What strategies do you use to develop future leaders within your organization? How do you empower those around you to embrace leadership?
EH: We start talking about leaders on Day 1 of orientation, and we emphasize that leadership is not a seniority decision but a skills decision. The relief that comes for most associates to know that they won’t be moved into a role because of tenure that they do not want becomes obvious, while at the same time those with natural leadership inclinations are given the opportunity to join our future leaders program almost immediately. We don’t make the fish climb trees, and we encourage the squirrels to climb the tree.
