When Bowen Chapman ’04 launched a building supply company five years ago, he considered the culture he hoped to develop among his employees. In that moment, he leaned on the values that he learned during his time at Woodberry.
“At Four Corners, we’ve built a great team, and a lot of the values that we have as a company come from what I took away from my Woodberry education,” Bowen said. “We want all of our employees to feel valued, respected, and heard.
Everyone is respected, and everyone has a voice — from the president of the company to the guy who operates the forklift. Even though I graduated from Woodberry twenty years ago, that’s just one example of the ways Woodberry continues to give back to me long after I was a student there. And it’s a big reason why I continue to support the school. Woodberry emphasized doing the right thing, and we are committed to this at Four Corners.”
Growing up in Kentucky, Bowen had known about Woodberry Forest almost since the day he was born. His father spent three years on the Woodberry faculty. (“In fact,” said Bowen, “my dad proposed to my mom on the Serpentine Wall.”) Two cousins were Woodberry students, and he and his older brother, Will, spent several summers attending Woodberry Forest Sports Camp. “My brother and I both had a wonderful time at the camp,” said Bowen, “and getting that exposure to Woodberry at such a young age led my brother and me down very different paths. He realized he wanted to go to a high school that was in a more urban setting and ended up at Episcopal. I, on the other hand, loved everything about Woodberry’s rural campus.”
Bowen came to Woodberry as a third former and was one of several freshmen to join English teacher Ben Hale’s advisory that year. “I was very fortunate to have Mr. Hale as my advisor,” said Bowen. “We had a really good advisee group, and Mr. Hale was a constant part of my Woodberry life, although I certainly didn’t make it easy for him. If he’d had any hair when I got there, I’d be the reason he lost it. But we grew really close during my time at Woodberry, and we’ve remained close ever since.”
Sports have played an important role in Bowen’s life — he played varsity football, basketball, and lacrosse at Woodberry. Coming off a rough junior year on the football team, his senior fall stands out for what the team was able to accomplish. “That was a really fun year, when you have all your best friends on your team with you,” said Bowen. “We only lost one game, and we beat Episcopal. Coach Richard Wright ’96 had a big influence on all of us, and we formed an incredible bond.”
Bowen would continue playing football at the University of North Carolina, where he was a member of the Tar Heel team. After earning a bachelor’s degree in management and society in 2008, Bowen moved to Charleston, South Carolina. He intended to get a job in the brick industry, something his family had been involved in for four generations. His graduation coincided with the worldwide financial crisis, however, that affected the building and real estate industries. Undeterred, Bowen took a job in the management training program at 84 Lumber, where he focused on sales.
As the real estate market began to rebound, Bowen moved to Buck Lumber and continued to gain experience while also becoming increasingly certain he wanted to own his own business. He took the leap to ownership with Four Corners Building Supply — right before the world shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic. The resilience and work ethic he learned at Woodberry served him well; his new company went from teetering on the edge of shutting down in 2020 to explosive growth. Bowen predicts that by the end of next year, Four Corners will employ 130 people on the retail side and another 50 on the wholesale side. He and his family recently chose to merge his business with the family’s brick business in Kentucky and Florida, bringing his career full circle.
“I think ultimately this is what my parents had hoped would happen, with me joining the family business,” said Bowen. “It just came about differently than expected and in a very positive way, where I gained valuable experience forging ahead on my own and picking up knowledge that will have a positive impact on the entire business.”
In addition to his family and his business, Bowen prioritizes Woodberry. “Staying involved with Woodberry makes my time there even more meaningful to me,” he said. “My kids have joined me at Father-Son Weekend, my brother and I have competed against each other in the Alumni Cup, and I feel like every time I participate in OneWoodberry, I meet someone new. I was raised to give back and stay involved, and that’s easy to do with Woodberry.”