Every family, every person, every home has a centerpiece, that one place where everything and everyone comes together. For some, it’s a playroom filled with kids’ laughter. For others, it’s the backyard where memories are grilled into every summer day. And for many, it’s the kitchen – where stories are shared, meals are created, and memories are built.

At The RTA Store, our people are that centerpiece. As a family-owned and operated company, the team behind the scenes is what truly builds the heart of the home for every customer we serve. And really, what’s more important than that?

In this month’s The Heart of Our Home spotlight, we’re featuring Tyler Ackerman & Samantha Rougeaux, our co-CEOs, so you can get to know the heart of The RTA Store.

Melissa: Alright so we have our fearless co-CEOs here today so let’s just jump right in. Knowing it’s a family company, how did you both get started in the business?

Tyler: I think that was kind of not forced upon us, but definitely ingrained in us. Our parents owned furniture stores in the Hudson Valley, NY so growing up, that’s all we knew, right? The good and the bad of owning your own business. Our father had said on multiple occasions that it doesn’t matter to him whether or not we go into his business, but he highly recommended us to be in business for ourselves. It just gives you, in his words, a bit more of an opportunity and, you know, I think we all took that to heart.

So I think we all knew growing up we’d end up kind of going in that direction, whether it’s going into their furniture stores, which ended up folding after the recession in 2008, or doing something on our own. I think we got super fortunate to launch The RTA Store when we did.

I was a business major in college, not because it was the field I was always going to choose no matter what, but it’s what interested me because it’s what I knew growing up. So I think it was a lot of influence from our parents and just the lifestyle that we all had growing up and what we knew – good, bad, and ugly, right? We knew so much about it already – we knew the hard times, and we knew the good times. And I think that’s just, when you have something that’s all you know growing up, I feel like you tend to go in that direction when you’re an adult.

Samantha: Yeah, and to add to it, like Tyler said, from when we were growing up, it was really the only option and not forced upon by any means, but just like that’s all we knew. We were homegrown entrepreneurs from the very start.

I also vividly remember our parents saying, be your own boss. It doesn’t matter what you do, what field you want to go into, but work for yourselves. Growing up, our parents were the hardest working people that I saw. And still, like to this day, I remember growing up, it wasn’t just about work, work, work. We had really, really busy lives growing up, you know, five of us kids, so there were a lot of sports and a lot of activities that were going on… and our parents were at every single one of them. But I also remember my father never taking off any day except for Sunday. Sunday was his day. But Monday through Saturday, you know, up in the morning early and then home in the evening. And then my mom was the same way.

So it’s just we grew up that way. I couldn’t see myself going into anything else other than working for myself. I did venture off into other fields, looking at event planning, for example, but it was always my own business. So it was almost like a predetermined destination for us.

Melissa: So it sounds like even though it was what you knew, you also fell in love with it.

Tyler: We did.

Samantha: And we learned a lot from our parents, too, in a retail environment. Like Tyler said, our parents had retail furniture stores. So it was more, they always treated their people right. They always said, your people are the most important part of your business, regardless of what you’re selling. Whether it’s a service or a product – it’s your people. So treat your people right. They’ll want to come to work, they’ll want to work for you, they’ll want to work for your business. And with happier employees, it’s a happier business in general.

So we learned a lot from them and also the service aspect. That’s where we get it from, why we preach customer service, customer service, customer service. And it can seem overused, like a cliche, like “the customer’s always right” type of thing. And it’s not even about the customer always being right – it’s about just communicating with the customer. It’s not hard to give a customer what they want, and that doesn’t mean delivering a perfect product. That just means delivering a perfect experience. And that can go a lot of different ways. So we learned all of that from growing up in our parents’ business.

Melissa: That’s a really great way to put it, actually. It’s not about, you know, having the perfect product, but the perfect experience. And what is it about cabinets that you love?

Tyler: Nothing. (laughs) I grew up in furniture since our parents owned furniture stores, so furniture was the product we knew. When we first launched The RTA Store, cabinetry was added on in addition to tons of furniture. The only thing that ended up selling, and so we pivoted within a year, was cabinets. Then as the years kind of went along, we realized, not to toot our own horns here, but we excel in the service business. We just happen to be selling cabinetry, right? Which helps us because cabinets are complex. We realize that we’re really good at taking complex products and making them very accessible when you’re not face to face.

We don’t have a home without our family, period.

So I think that was a big thing, and don’t get me wrong, I love cabinets. And in general, I think it took us a while to realize the power that cabinets have, right? It seems like a harder thing to see and realize until you’ve been in it for so long, but the transformations cabinets can make to people’s homes, and their lives and all these little things that most people don’t even think about, is immense. We’ve heard so many stories, so many positive things about new spaces and what it does to families. And it’s usually, you know, those spaces that you gather. And whether or not it’s the cabinetry, they are always the backdrop. And it’s usually in the kitchen.

So I think we’ve grown to love cabinetry. When we first started out, it was just another product. Then we took everything else out, focused on cabinets and excelled. And the service industry and cabinets, they kind of dovetail really well together.

Samantha: Yeah, no pun intended. (All laugh) Yeah, the cabinetry again, it just kind of fell into our laps and we said, okay, you know, let’s see how this does. We threw it up on the website and it did well amongst a lot of other products on the site. You know, this for some reason stood out more. We knew zero about cabinetry when we started selling it. I mean, it’s crazy. I remember when we had our first manufacturer, our first collection that we were going through, and I wanted to make sure they had a good understanding, because when customers started emailing, we didn’t have a team – it was just the two of us. I needed to make sure we knew what we were talking about.

So I remember looking through the specs and looking at a blind cabinet, and I could not for the life of me figure out how the hell this thing worked. What was a blind about, why was it even called a blind, why doesn’t it have a door on the other side? So confused. And like, what is a pull? What do you mean pull it from the corner? And I remember getting on the phone with the manufacturer and she walked me through it. And then once I saw it and I could visualize it, it’s like, it clicked. I was like, oh, that makes so much more sense. And it really helped me.

Cabinetry touches people in a different way than anything else does in your home.

And I did that with every single SKU. I went SKU to SKU to figure out exactly what each thing meant. What was a filler? What was scribe? What was outside corner molding? What were these things? And then I got such a good understanding just from going through that SKU list in the first few days that we were doing it. And then it just kind of grew from there.

So it definitely didn’t start out as a love. It was just there. But yeah, I agree with Tyler that I think we’ve grown to love it and just what it means in peoples’ homes and what emotions it can evoke just by pieces of furniture, essentially. So cabinetry touches people in a different way than anything else does in your home, really.

Melissa: I 100% agree with you both. And it’s interesting, too, especially being a consumer. We’re all consumers at the end of the day, too, anyway. Is it really what that room entails that makes it the heart of the home? Is it because you cook food there, or because the kids are playing there? Or is it what you feel when you go into the room? And a part of what gives that feeling, that emotion when you’re in the room, is if you feel happy and comfortable in that space – because of the way it looks, whether it’s neat and tidy, whether you like different colors and things mismatching and putting things together. And as Tyler said, the backdrop in a kitchen really is the cabinets, and it makes you want to be in that room. That’s where you end up then creating the memories, not, oh, I remember opening this cabinet door and pulling out the… No, it’s that you remember being in the kitchen, and that is what makes the heart of a home.

Tyler: It’s a place where, when done right, and that’s where remodeling comes in, it makes you want to be in that space, like exactly what you’re saying. And I think that’s pretty powerful, right? You want the effect where, when you’re done remodeling your kitchen or your bathroom, you go in and it’s like the same effect as taking a deep breath. It’s hard to explain, but it just feels good to be in there. You’re proud of it. You’re happy with it. And you want to be in there more.

Melissa: And that’s where memories are created. I 100% agree. And what is your favorite part about working specifically at The RTA Store?

Tyler: So I think if you were to ask this, let’s say six years ago, pre-COVID, it would have probably been a different response. But since COVID and that opportunity to grow our internal teams so much, it’s without a doubt the people.

Samantha and I always had a vision of what ultimately the business looks like. So prior, my daily job was so much working with third party companies, a lot of yeses, do this, do this. And then when there’s fires, you know, it’s just… a lot. Being able to bring everything in house and speak with teams and individuals one-on-one – it’s so clear they care about the business, the customers, and the success. It just means a lot. And it’s so nice to be able to work with people that you truly trust to, you know, kind of fulfill what the ultimate vision is. And it’s exciting to kind of see that take shape.

Your people are the most important part of your business, regardless of what you’re selling. So treat your people right.

Over the past, really, five years, I think that’s accelerated quite a bit. And, you know, it’s what we’ve always wanted but again, it’s just accelerated so much faster where we’re actually here now. It’s fun. And it’s almost, it’s funny, I’ve said this a couple of times. I don’t know how long it took for it to feel like, oh, we actually have a real business, right? And that’s kind of weird to say, because this business has always been a “real business”, but it didn’t start feeling like it until we knew what we were doing! We have great people who are advising and giving suggestions for long-term growth, and it feels like in the past five, maybe six years, it’s truly the business we always wanted. And that’s only because of the people that we’re fortunate enough to work with. Samantha, I know we’ll have the same answer here!

Samantha: It is! It’s really been an honor, honestly, to witness a lot of the growth within. It’s not just the people we’ve brought on since COVID, like Tyler said, because we have brought a lot of things in-house, but just we have so many people here who’ve been tenured and been here for years before COVID. And just the growth and watching it, it’s like chess pieces moving around. Someone starts in an entry-level position in one department and then, before you know it, a couple years go by and they’re managing another department, or getting to director level in these past few years, which is really exciting to watch because it’s building a family. It’s like, yes, we have a business here, but it’s really building a family.

And it’s just really cool how we’ll have meetings and people will say “we” not “you”, as in, it’s not your business, it’s our business. And they’ll say, we have a customer or we have something. And even when we hire somebody, you know, the first day, I notice that they’ll start saying “we”. And it’s just really cool because, for me, I’m thinking if I’m coming into a company as an outsider, and maybe the company’s been around for 15 years or so, it’s kind of intimidating to try and own that and say, you know, “we” and I’m part of this, but so many people that come on do that. They talk in a “we” mentality.

So I have to attribute that to just the way everybody communicates with each other and just the culture that we’ve built here is a “we” culture. Everybody is part of the business, which is really great. Everyone takes ownership. And I really, it’s like some of the times I’m like, I’m in awe of how much ownership somebody will take of something that they didn’t even start to begin with. It’s just now they’re a part of it, and it’s organic. It’s like they were here from the very beginning.

Tyler: That’s really cool and exciting to be a part of. The weird thing is, I notice more so when people don’t use that “we” when they’re part of the organization. So it’s almost to a point where I want to be like, when will you become part of this family? When are you going to start taking ownership, start using the “we” and “ours” instead of “you” or, you know, more of those singular type language directed at us or the Company, which isn’t often, but it stands out so much when I hear that type of talk. I think it just takes a little time for some people, but the “we” thing, I love hearing that. I love hearing “we”, “our”, it means they’re all in. They’re taking ownership. They want to see the success of the organization. And that definitely is awesome to see.

Melissa: I can even just tell you from when I started, you know, meeting everybody, they absolutely feel the same way about the company!

So, now rapid fire. Ok Samantha, if you had a non-obvious choice for cabinets in a room, like a book nook in the living room, baker corner in the pantry, or toe kick drawer in the bathroom, what would it be?

Samantha: Baker corner all day long. Yes!

Melissa: Same for me! (laughs) And desert island food of choice?

Samantha: Sushi. All day.

Melissa: The freshest on the island, obviously! And if you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?

Samantha: This answer will probably change daily, but today it’s Paris. I just love the history of the city, I think it’s beautiful walking around and just having these monuments just in front of you, like Arc de Triomphe or the Eiffel Tower. It’s just so cool being in a city with that history and walking down streets that look like they came out of a fairy tale! And you can just go an hour and get out of the main part of the city and get into more rural areas, or go into the city and kind of get lost in the streets… and tons of cafes and food, obviously. So it’s just, I think it’s one of the most beautiful cities I’ve been in.

Melissa: Those are the reasons why I want to retire to Italy when the time comes! (laughs) And Tyler, what about you?

Tyler: Non-obvious choice for cabinets… I would like a hidden cabinet, right? Like one of the ones that you kind of push open and it opens up to something. I have a pretty big whiskey collection and I always thought it’d be cool to be able to showcase it somehow, like an art, I don’t know, make it more secretive or hidden.

Melissa: I can totally see you hosting everyone and be like, oh, would anyone like a drink? Push a button and the entire background behind you, the walls, opens up.

Samantha: Oh, yeah, exactly. Music plays with it, right? (all laugh) We have to pull the one bottle and then the secret cabinet wall opens up!

Tyler: This is where it happens!

Melissa: So are we going to add this as a new collection?? That is the question.

Samantha: That would be pretty awesome!

Melissa: And desert island food of choice?

Tyler: I think it’s going to have to go with just New York pizza all day long. I don’t eat pizza enough. I used to eat a lot more, but I love pizza. It’s just my favorite food in the world. I’m a pepperoni guy, I can eat pepperoni for life, but I do like variety. So yeah, if I could choose what my pizza was for the day, that’d be great.

Melissa: And if you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?

Tyler: Yeah, as of let’s say the past two years, that location would be probably Kauai, in Hawaii. My family and I went a couple of years ago, and I’ve never woken up every day feeling the way I did there. It was something very special that I’ve never experienced before, something you always remember, and we desperately want to get back. It’s an incredible place. I think it’s one of the more unique places in the world.

Melissa: That sounds amazing! And whoever wants to answer the last question first – what or who is the heart of your home?

Tyler: I assume we have the same answer here, right? We don’t have a home without a family, period. The kids, Pat, Samantha’s husband, Kara, my wife. If you take a piece out of that, the home feels broken. Now, yes, of course, the kitchen is where we gather all the time. But you take one of those pieces out, everything seems like it would crumble. So I wouldn’t trade anything in the world for what we have with our family.

Samantha: Yeah, I mean, that was a given, we know that we have the same answer for that also! It wouldn’t really matter where we were or what we were surrounded with if we didn’t have the people around us, our kids, obviously our spouses, and each other and our families. We come from a big family, we’re two of five, plus all of us have multiple children, and we’re used to getting together on a regular basis. It’s really all about family. Ingrained from when we grew up about going into business for yourself, it was also always about family. Family comes first, period. Everything else is secondary.

Melissa: I feel like most people would probably have that answer, but it does speak to the person, that that is what is their heart. It’s something you could potentially live in many places throughout your life and, you know, things could change in a heartbeat that you have to move or something happens to your physical home, but where you end up will always feel like home because of the people you’re there with.

Tyler: Oh, exactly right. And you can, right to your point, right? You can transplant us anywhere in the world.

Melissa: Like Hawaii or Paris!

Tyler: (laughs) Even places not as amazing as those! But it would always feel like home if I’m surrounded by the people that I have in the house now. And honestly, that’s another thing about The RTA Store that’s so amazing, that we’ve been so fortunate. We’ve been working remotely since 2010, literally being able to be there for most moments in our kids’ lives, and we don’t take that for granted at all. Our dad was out, you know, 7, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., every day, six days a week. Now, he would be there, he would coach all of us in all of our sports, do as much as he could. But this business has allowed us to become just so much closer with our families, and it’s always amazing events that I feel like a lot of parents, unfortunately, don’t get to witness. I think more so now, because work from home is becoming more of a normalized thing. But that’s super special. And I wouldn’t trade that for the world.

Melissa: I agree. And being remote, you can even share the little things like just taking a lunch break and having lunch with your kids, you know, versus just being there for the bigger moments. And I do think that, you know, we of course always remember the bigger moment is that as adults, we remember our parents also not being able to be there all the time. So in turn, going remote, our kids will remember that we were there for the little things.

Samantha: Yeah, for better or for worse! (all laugh)

Melissa: Well thank you both very, very much, not only for doing this, but for your candor and for putting your emotion behind it and speaking how you feel. This was truly a great way to get to know you both!