Glennaire Construction and Supply was formed in 1959 by Glen Turner, a local builder. Glen built about 60 houses in and around Mena Arkansas along with a few commercial projects. In 1971 Glen and Imogene Turner bought Morrow Lumber Co. from Landers and Pauline Morrow and renamed it Glennaire Supply. It was a full service building material businesses offering plumbing supplies, electrical supplies, paint, lumber, plywood, concrete blocks, drywall, roofing and everything else required to build a house.
His son James Turner joined in the operation of the business while still in high school and worked in the building material business both in Mena and at a branch north of Hatfield. The Hatfield branch was closed in 1976 and in 1977 James resumed building spec houses bulding 5 over the next 4 years.
In 1981 Glen decided it was time for him to retire and James was ready to get away from retail so with the help of a company that specialized in liquidation of businesses, Glennaire Supply closed its doors in June of 1981.
James did remodeling and repairs for the next couple of years and in 1983 he worked on his first big commercial construction project as a foreman which gave him a wish to continue in commercial work. In 1984 he began working for a large commercial contractor based in Little Rock, AR as a superintendent and continued with that company until 1982 when he started work for another commercial contractor as a superintendent. He worked for them until the end of 1996 when he and his wife moved to Texarkana, AR.
During the years as a superintendent for these companies, he built several churches, built or remodeled several banks, made additions to and remodeled a hospital and the last project was an estimated five million dollar project for Southwestern Bell Telephone Company in Little Rock.
During his time working on SWBT projects he began to learn how to use Autocad. After moving to Texarkana he spent about 6 years working as a project manager for a company that subcontracted the cad drafting from Architects all across the country, working with other cad drafters from all over the country and Canada.
In 2004 James moved back home to Mena, got his real estate license and worked in real estate sales for about 5 years. In 2009 Mena was hit by an EF3 tornado that caused a great deal of damage to the north side of town and the loss of 3 lives. James and his son Eric had been working for a local commercial contractor and after the tornado they decided to form their own company and revived the Glennaire Construction name but dropped the "Supply" and incorporated the company.
Now 16 years later Glennaire Construction is still in business and concentrating on smaller projects such as Tornado Place storm shelters, patio covers, and remodels.