EFCO founder reflects on his career

by Melissa Wilson

SBJ Staff

The man who opened windows, not doors, of opportunity for hundreds in Monett is stepping out of the light.

Terry Fuldner, founder of EFCO Corp., a Monett-based manufacturer of windows, curtain walls, entrances and storefronts, announced his retirement Sept. 30. His son, Chris Fuldner, is the new president, chief executive officer and chairman of the board.

EFCO, which employs 1,400 in Monett and reported sales of $175 million in fiscal year 1999, got its start in 1952 after Fuldner was fired from a job selling steel windows in St. Louis.

"It was during the Korean War, and they had a wage freeze. I was teed off at that anyway ... they started hiring new people and paying them more than me. I had two martinis too many at a cocktail party and unloaded on the president of the company. He fired me the next morning. It was the best thing that had ever happened to me, really," Fuldner said.

It was 1952. Fuldner needed a job, and jobs were scarce. His oldest son, Chris, had just been born. Two more children would follow.

A college buddy of Fuldner's, George Eberle, was representing an aluminum window company in Florida and proposed forming a company to represent several window manufacturers in a 10-state area in the Midwest. The two formed EFCO using the initials of their last names and began operating from the basement of an old laundry facility in St. Louis.

"We thought that the product could stand a lot of improvement, and the industry looked like it was taking off. We started making screens for the windows and selling them to the manufacturers, then we branched out and began making porch enclosures in a plant in Crestwood," Fuldner said.

By 1955, EFCO was producing aluminum porch enclosures exclusively. Labor pressure and the decision to begin manufacturing residential windows facilitated EFCO's move to Monett in 1958.

Fuldner and Eberle sent letters to chambers of commerce in southwest Missouri in 1957, when I-44 was being built. "With the new highway, we thought we could get some good transportation access to the southwest, which we thought was the big up-and-comer as far as demographics go because the residential market was booming down there," Fuldner said.

City officials in Monett were eager to get industry in the area because it was losing a division point on the Frisco Railroad line. Monett was deemed a depressed labor area, and Fuldner said the U.S. Small Business Administration offered to lend EFCO money to build a plant in Monett to create jobs.

"Sure enough, about six or seven guys from Monett showed up on my doorstep early one morning in St. Louis, and said 'we want you, boy.' We visited several towns in the area, and the guys from Monett made us the best deal. They offered to raise the money and build us a plant," Fuldner said.

The merchants of Monett raised $75,000 to build an 18,000-square-foot plant. The plant cost $60,000 to build, and EFCO moved to Monett.

Four years later, in 1962, Eberle withdrew from the company and returned to St. Louis.

"The industry was cheap to get into, and consequently, we had wads of competition. In the '50s and even into the '60s, it was so competitive, we were tying a dollar bill to every damn window that we shipped out of here," Fuldner said.

EFCO began manufacturing heavy aluminum commercial windows in 1964. The decision was made to withdraw from the residential market entirely in 1968.

"Where we had a hundred competitors before (in the residential market) we now had maybe two in the commercial market," Fuldner said.

In 1973, energy conservation became a national priority when the oil embargo of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) caused petroleum prices to skyrocket.

"No one wanted to burn coal because of pollution. The government was giving tax breaks to businesses and residences if they would install insulation. We were interested in building a thermally improved primary window," Fuldner said. "We were standing right under the tree when the plums ripened and fell," he said, of EFCO's development of its more energy-efficient window at the time of the oil crisis.

In 1973, EFCO had sales of $3 million. Five years later, that number had more than doubled. Under Fuldner's leadership in the '70s, EFCO expanded its product offerings to include storefronts, entrances and curtain walls for industrial, commercial and institutional buildings. By 1980, the company's sales had grown to $12 million.

In 1984, Fuldner was presented with the Small Businessperson of the Year award by President Ronald Reagan.

"It was a wonderful, wonderful time. I had a nice little chat with President Reagan for about 10 minutes," Fuldner said.

EFCO continued to grow and expand throughout the '80s and '90s. In 1985, EFCO's sales were $25 million. New service facilities were added in Virginia, Illinois and Texas. In 1997, a 220,000-square-foot manufacturing plant was built in South Carolina.

Fuldner is confident he is leaving EFCO well-prepared. A strong management team under the leadership of his son, Chris, has been in place for many years.

"I am very confident in that EFCO will be a half-billion-dollar sales operation within five years," Fuldner said.

"My ambition is to move to Springfield in the next year, then get a winter home in South Carolina or Arizona, or Palm Springs. And play a lot of golf," Fuldner said.