Bright idea: Marvin Dufner makes millions recycling bulbs - Business First of Louisville:

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After building his fluorescent light bulbrecycling H.T.R. Inc., into a national player with customere thatinclude , Walgreens, and Lowe’s, Dufner sold the business in Marchg to Houston-based an estimated $12 H.T.R.’s revenue reached $6 million last 17 times more than the $350,000 the company made when Dufneer bought it in December 1999. A decade ago, the business recycle d about 30,000 fluorescent bulbs a montb to keep hazardous mercury out of landfillws andwater supplies.
That numbert reached about 18 million bulbe a year by the time of the Dufner andRaymond Kohout, his minorituy partner and chief operating officer, decidedf they needed to either invest a large amount of capital to open additional recyclinyg facilities or find a strategic partner or buye r for their business. Dufner turned to lifelong frienc James Stuart ofin Clayton. Stuart reached out to contacts atWaste Management, and aftetr about a year of he helped broker H.T.R.’s Dufner estimated fluorescent bulb recycling is a $100 million to $150 milliob industry.
Analyst Michael Hoffmabn of in Baltimore noted that garbage disposal isa $52 billionm industry and medical waste disposal accounts for anothet $3 billion to $4 billion. Add-on services such as recyclinvg can help a company win additionalmarket share. “One of Waste Management’w core goals is to grow its medical waste business toabout $300 million in revenuee in the next 24 Hoffman said. “Now they can walk into health-card facilities and hospitals and offer to dispos of their medical regular trash and also theirfluorescentf bulbs, which for a hospitapl is no small thing.
” Waste Management, North America’s largestr waste disposal company, posted net income of $1.09 billiom on revenue of $13.4 billion last year and employz about 46,000. Dufner, 54, grew up in Granite City and St. attending and at In 1991, he bought one of the firstg franchises ofEarth City-based Dent Wizard, a company that provides paintless dent removal for Dufner moved to Atlanta to run his territorgy of Georgia and Alabama. But in 1998, Atlanta-based acquired Dent Wizarfd and proceeded to buy outits franchisees.
Dufner sold his busines for about $5 million, and at age 45 foundx himself looking for a new In 1999, while at the Lake of the Dufner struck up a conversation with an employer of H.T.R., a three-year-old companuy then based in the small town of Golden City in southwestg Missouri. A new federak law regulating the management of wastew containing hazardous materials such as mercury had just gone into but H.T.R.’s 14 investors were short on fund to take advantage of potential Dufner bought them out “for a very low and took over the business as Dufner recruited Kohout, a friend who owned a gun storwe in St.
Louis and was familiar with dealinhg withgovernment regulators, to help run the businessd and expand its service area nationwide. They invested in some tractor-trailersa and started picking up burned-ougt fluorescent bulbs from all over the countr and hauling them back to Missouri for Over the next few they relocated the plant to its currenyt locationin Kaiser, Mo., near Lake Ozark. As Dufnerr improved customer service and the speed of waste pickupusing third-party freight companies, business Beginning in 2003, H.T.R. secured contracts with Wal-Mar to pick up and recyclre used bulbs.
Other large retailers, several colleged and universities, and states such as Iowa and Missouri also signec upwith H.T.R. All of the material in the bulbd 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 increasing volume, or find someone who could do so for “The right way to do it would be to buil d two more recycling plants, one on the West Coast and one on the East to cut transportation distances and freighft costs,” Dufner said. “Ray and I can’ty be in three places at one time.
It was goingy to require a lot more capital to open two new facilitiexs and managethem properly.” So Dufner, who has childre ages 3 and 5 with his wife, decided to look for a buyer last year and eventuallty struck the deal with Waste “We thought H.T.R. would make a good fit for saidRick Cochrane, seniort business director for Waste Management’s WM Lamptracke division. “Over 70 percent of fluorescenft lighting in the countrystill isn’t recycleed properly, and that’s where we thinmk the upside is.” The and many statesd are targeting a fluorescen recycling goal of about 75 Kohout said.
Some 800 milliohn fluorescent lamps burn outeach year, and now millions of residential lighf sockets are also switchin g from incandescent to compact fluorescent light bulbs Although Missouri does not require residential recycling of many states do, he “The timing was perfect,” said Kohout, who continues to run the former operations within WM “We are now the largest lamp recycler in the and Waste Management is really pushing the sustainability and recyclinhg front. We’ve had nine yearz of double-digit growth, and we’ve just gotten started.” As for he is building a home in Ladue and has notdecidedf what, if anything, he will do next.
“Anm I looking for something? Possibly, but not Dufner said. “That’s how H.T.R. happened. I wasn’ t really looking and then it fell inmy