Schier Cabinet

If anyone ever needed a prime example of a rural and regional business success story they need look no further than Schier Cabinet Makers.

The business is the quintessential rags-to-riches story involving an evolution from simple and humble beginnings to successful and ever-growing enterprise.

The firm, with a factory at Murtoa and arguably the biggest kitchen showroom between Melbourne and Adelaide, in Horsham, provides kitchen and commercial cabinetry services across Victoria and beyond.

With a staff of 23, it is responsible for fitting out nursing homes, schools, aged-care centres and offices with everything from kitchens, wardrobes, bathrooms, laundries – ‘the whole kit and kaboodle’ – and is only getting busier.

Business owner Malcom Schier, 54, said the success and growth of Schier Cabinet Makers was due to the dedication and commitment of fantastic staff members and success of a relatively new showroom came down to his ‘right-hand man’ Barrie Lanyon.

Schier Cabinet Makers is fast approaching a 30-year milestone.

It started in 1990 when Mr Schier, a Murtoa cabinet maker who had learnt his trade at Horsham Kitchen Centre, found himself needing to ‘get organised’ after being inundated by people asking him to do odd jobs.

“I didn’t intentionally go out to start a business, but people kept knocking on the door wanting things such as tv cabinets and the odd kitchen,” he said.

“After a while I thought I had better get something sorted, get a business name and so on.” “I didn’t intentionally go out to start a business, but people kept knocking on the door wanting things such as television cabinets and the odd kitchen. After a while I thought I had better get something sorted, get a business name and so on”

– Malcom Schier

The business gained momentum, Mr Schier’s brother Brendan or ‘Jack’, also a cabinet maker, became involved and work continued to increase.

“Early on we were basically working in the back shed of mum and dad’s place at Murtoa. After a year or two the shire council came along and told us to move onto the industrial estate,” Mr Schier said.

“They put a proposal to us that involved a shed, but I told them I wanted a ‘big’ shed, which they said we would never need.”

One of Murtoa’s landmark buildings, the former Inland Freezing Works, not far from the town’s historic Stick Shed and dormant for many years, became available in the mid-1990s and was soon the new headquarters of a humming cabinetry business.

“It was being used to store straw and was quite big, but we filled it within six months,” Mr Schier said.

“The place was suddenly back to life with the sound of construction, and it remains our factory base.”