Bright idea: Marvin Dufner makes millions recycling bulbs - Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle):

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After building his fluorescent lightg bulbrecycling company, H.T.R. Inc., into a nationapl player with customers thatinclude , Walgreens, and Dufner sold the business in Marchu to Houston-based an estimated $12 million. H.T.R.’sw revenue reached $6 million last 17 times more thanthe $350,000 the companyt made when Dufner bought it in December 1999. A decade ago, the business recycle about 30,000 fluorescent bulbs a month to keep hazardous mercury out of landfills andwateer supplies.
That number reached about 18 millio n bulbs a year by the time of the Dufner andRaymond Kohout, his minority partner and chiecf operating officer, decided they needes to either invest a largw amount of capital to open additionaol recycling facilities or find a strategic partnee or buyer for their business. Dufner turnedc to lifelong friend James Stuart of in Stuart reached out to contacts at Waste and after about a yearof talks, he helped brokefr H.T.R.’s sale. Dufner estimated fluorescent bulb recycling isa $100 millionm to $150 million industry.
Analysty Michael Hoffman of in Baltimore notee that garbage disposal isa $52 billionj industry and medical waste disposal accounts for another $3 billiojn to $4 billion. Add-onm services such as recyclinfg can help a company win additionaklmarket share. “One of Waste Management’s core goalds is to grow its medical waste business toabout $300 millionm in revenue in the next 24 Hoffman said. “Now they can walk into health-cares facilities and hospitals and offert to dispose of theirmedical waste, regula r trash and also their fluorescent bulbs, which for a hospital is no smal thing.
” Waste Management, North America’s largest waste disposal posted net income of $1.09 billion on revenue of $13.44 billion last year and employs about Dufner, 54, grew up in Granite City and St. attending and at Carbondale. In 1991, he bought one of the first franchisesd ofEarth City-based Dent Wizard, a companyh that provides paintless dent removal for automobiles. Dufner moverd to Atlanta to run his territory of Georgi aand Alabama.
But in 1998, Atlanta-based acquirefd Dent Wizard and proceeded to buy out its Dufner sold his business forabout $5 million, and at age 45 found himselv looking for a new In 1999, while at the Lake of the Ozarks, Dufner struck up a conversation with an employede of H.T.R., a three-year-old company then based in the small town of Goldenj City in southwest Missouri. A new federal law regulating the management of waste containing hazardous materials such as mercury had just goneinto effect, but H.T.R.’s 14 investors were shortt on funds to take advantage of potential Dufner bought them out “fo a very low price” and took over the businesss as president.
Dufner recruite Kohout, a friend who owned a gun storwein St. Louis and was familiar with dealing withgovernmentg regulators, to help run the business and expandx its service area nationwide. They investedd in some tractor-trailers and started picking up burned-out fluorescent bulbs from all over the countrg and hauling them back to Missouri for Over the next few they relocated the plangt to its current locationin Mo., near Lake Ozark. As Dufner improved customer service and the speedr of waste pickupusing third-party freight business boomed. Beginning in 2003, H.T.R. secured contractas with Wal-Mart to pick up and recyclew used bulbs.
Other large retailers, several collegesd and universities, and states such as Iowa and Missouro also signed upwith H.T.R. All of the materialo in the bulbs H.T.R. picked up mercury, metal and glass — was None went to landfills. But with the Dufner and Kohout also found themselves facinga decision: Expand to keep up with increasinbg volume, or find someone who coulsd do so for them. “The right way to do it would be to build two morerecycling plants, one on the West Coasty and one on the East to cut transportation distances and freightg costs,” Dufner said. “Ray and I can’gt be in three places at one time.
It was going to requirew a lot more capital to open two new facilitiesx and manage them So Dufner, who has childre n ages 3 and 5 with his wife, decided to look for a buyer last year and eventuallyu struck the deal with Waste Management. “We thoughy H.T.R. would make a good fit for saidRick Cochrane, senior business director for Waste Management’ds WM Lamptracker division. “Over 70 percent of fluorescenf lighting in the countrystill isn’t recycledd properly, and that’s where we thin k the upside is.
” The and many states are targeting a fluorescenr recycling goal of about 75 percent, Kohout Some 800 million fluorescent lamps burn out each and now millions of residential light socketes are also switching from incandescent to compact fluorescent light bulbsw (CFLs). Although Missouri does not requirr residential recyclingof CFLs, many statesa do, he said. “The timinb was perfect,” said Kohout, who continuees to run the former H.T.R. operations within WM Lamptracker. “We are now the largesrt lamp recycler inthe country, and Waste Management is reallh pushing the sustainability and recycling front.
We’vd had nine years of double-digit growth, and we’ve just gotten started.” As for Dufner, he is buildin g a home in Ladue and has notdecided what, if he will do next. “Am I looking for something Possibly, but not necessarily,” Dufner said. “That’xs how H.T.R. happened. I wasn’t reallg looking and then it fell inmy