Barry Shein Receives Lifetime Achievement Award

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Published April 25, 2022 10:30 am
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CLARION, Pa. (EYT) — Barry Shein, former President and CEO of the Commodore Corporation, received the Lifetime Achievement Award at Clarion Area Chamber’s annual award dinner on Saturday night.

(Photo by Dave Cyphert of ProPoint Media Photography)

Shein was born in Cincinnati and his family moved to Miami, Florida, while he was in grade school. He graduated from high school in Miami and went on to receive a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting from the University of Florida. He then received his CPA designation and went to work for the IRS as a business audit agent. His accounting career lasted through the 1960s and 70s as he was a controller for various Florida corporations.

Shein was eventually hired as the controller for real estate developer Crowe Pope and Land in Atlanta, Georgia. This experience helped mold his career as he learned the commercial real estate business and moved up to having senior finance and accounting responsibilities.

He was then hired by Sam Zell and was a senior executive in charge of the acquisition/development, financial and operations management of the Equity Office Properties office building and mobile home park (MHC) portfolios. He spent many years honing his leadership, business and accountability skills while at the Equity Group.

At the same time Shein was employed by Zell, Commodore Corporation, one of Mr. Zell’s holdings, was going through very difficult times. Shein was in charge of supervising the bankruptcy proceeding for the company on behalf of the creditors. While Commodore as a whole had its problems, the Pennsylvania plant in Clarion had more business than it could handle. In 1987, the company and a group of retail investors, broke ground for a second plant, Colony Homes, next door to the existing Commodore plant, where production began in 1988.

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After Shein married his wife Cari in 1989, life on the road was no longer the ideal situation. He arranged to consolidate his partnership holdings and used them to purchase one of the businesses offered to him by Zell. The clear choice after all of the years working with MHC was to purchase the Commodore Corporation that same year. He then began to work tirelessly to motivate his staff at the corporate office as well as at the plant levels, including the production workers, as he started the process of rebuilding the struggling company. His existing retailers/distributors were the key to growth and he became like a business partner to each of them. His favorite saying to his retailers was always “The key to OUR success is based solely on YOUR success.” He believed it and he lived by it.

In the early 1990s, the market changed as the state-approved modular product entered the scene. Commodore Homes of Pennsylvania reacted by moving into a small, antiquated facility in Tower City, PA in 1993 to get into the modular world with the all new Manorwood product line. They soon outgrew that facility and in 1996 moved to a more modern and larger facility in Pine Grove, Pennsylvania.

As the demand for the state-approved modular homes continued to grow, construction of another production facility begin in Emlenton in 2004. Production began on the Pennwest product line the following year.

Shein looked at every challenge as an opportunity. When the Pine Grove facility was devastated by a flood in 2011, Shein had his teams regroup and moved the Manorwood line to the Pennwest facility by increasing the production, which meant more employment for the Clarion County area.

Shein’s hard work, daily long hours, dedication to his employees and the retailer network paid off as he grew a failing company into the largest privately held manufactured/modular supplier in the country.

By the time of his retirement in 2021, the Commodore Corporation employed 1,200 employees in six production facilities with good paying jobs. Over half of those are employed within the three Clarion County plants. These six facilities produce more than 3,000 homes each year.

The Clarion area benefitted from his moves throughout the years. His contributions to the Clarion Hospital, the Clarion County YMCA, Route 66 Rail Trails, and the new upcoming Second Avenue park project in Clarion Borough, are just a few of his philanthropic efforts. He has also been a major contributor of the Chamber’s Autumn Leaf Festival.

Shein’s achievements are not all work-related — he and his wife Cari await the birth of their twin grand-babies and the upcoming marriage of their second daughter in the fall.

Other winners included Butler Health System – Clarion Hospital, Business of the Year for Community Service; Northwest Bank, Business Education Partner of the Year; and Jim Kriebel; Citizen of the Year.

The event was held at the Clarion Moose Lodge.

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