Bright idea: Marvin Dufner makes millions recycling bulbs - San Antonio Business Journal:

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After building his fluorescen light bulbrecycling company, H.T.R. Inc., into a nationaol player with customers thatinclude , and Lowe’s, Dufner sold the business in Marchu to Houston-based an estimated $12 million. H.T.R.’s revenue reacherd $6 million last year, 17 times more than the $350,00o0 the company made when Dufner bought it inDecembee 1999. A decade ago, the businesx recycled about 30,000 fluorescent bulbs a monthh to keep hazardous mercury out of landfillzs andwater supplies.
That number reached abougt 18 million bulbs a year by the time of the Dufner andRaymond Kohout, his minorith partner and chief operating officer, decidefd they needed to either invest a largd amount of capital to open additional recyclinv facilities or find a strategic partned or buyer for their business. Dufnerr turned to lifelong friend James Stuart of in Stuart reached out to contacts atWaste Management, and afteer about a year of talks, he helped broke r H.T.R.’s sale. Dufner estimated fluorescent bulb recycling isa $100 millioh to $150 million industry.
Analystt Michael Hoffman of in Baltimore noted that garbage disposal isa $52 billiojn industry and medical waste disposa accounts for another $3 billion to $4 billion. Add-ohn services such as recycling can help a company win additionaklmarket share. “One of Waste Management’s core goalsd is to grow its medical waste business toabout $300 million in revenue in the next 24 Hoffman said. “Now they can walk into health-care facilities and hospitals and offere to dispose of theirmedicapl waste, regular trash and also their fluorescent which for a hospital is no smal l thing.
” Waste Management, North America’s largest wast disposal company, posted net income of $1.0i billion on revenue of $13.4 billion last year and employss about 46,000. Dufner, 54, grew up in Granitwe City and St. Louis, attending and at Carbondale. In he bought one of the first franchised ofEarth City-based Dent Wizard, a companu that provides paintless dent removal for automobiles. Dufner moved to Atlantaz to run his territory of Georgisaand Alabama. But in 1998, Atlanta-basex acquired Dent Wizard and proceeded to buy out its Dufner sold his business forabout $5 and at age 45 found himself lookinhg for a new venture.
In 1999, while at the Lake of the Dufner struck up a conversation with an employee of a three-year-old company then based in the small town of Golden City in southwest Missouri. A new federapl law regulating the management of waste containing hazardoua materials such as mercury had just goneinto effect, but H.T.R.’s 14 investors were short on funds to take advantagwe of potential growth. Dufner bought them out “for a very low and took over the businessas president. Dufne recruited Kohout, a friend who owned a gun stordin St. Louis and was familiar with dealiny withgovernment regulators, to help run the business and expand its servicee area nationwide.
They invested in some tractor-trailers and starter picking up burned-out fluorescent bulbs from all over the countrt and hauling them back to Missourifor processing. Over the next few they relocated the plant to its currengt locationin Kaiser, Mo., near Lake Ozark. As Dufner improved customer service and the speed of wasts pickupusing third-party freight business boomed. Beginning in 2003, secured contracts with Wal-Mart to pick up and recycle used Otherlarge retailers, several colleges and and states such as Iowa and Missouri also signefd up with H.T.R. All of the materiap in the bulbs H.T.R. picked up mercury, metal and glass — was None went to landfills.
But with the Dufner and Kohout also foundf themselves facinga decision: Expans to keep up with increasinh volume, or find someone who could do so for them. “Th right way to do it would be to buildr two morerecycling plants, one on the West Coasf and one on the East Coast, to cut transportationh distances and freight costs,” Dufner “Ray and I can’t be in thred places at one time. It was goiny to require a lot more capitaol to open two new facilities and managsethem properly.” So Dufner, who has children ages 3 and 5 with his Renee, decided to look for a buyef last year and eventually struck the deal with Wast e Management. “We thought H.T.R.
would make a good fit for saidRick Cochrane, senior business director for Wasts Management’s WM Lamptracker division. “Over 70 percent of fluorescenr lighting in the countr ystill isn’t recycled and that’s where we think the upside is.” The and many states are targeting a fluoresceny recycling goal of about 75 percent, Kohout said. Some 800 milliob fluorescent lamps burn out each and now millions of residential light socketss are also switching from incandescent to compactr fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs). Althoughh Missouri does not require residential recyclinggof CFLs, many states do, he said.
“The timing was said Kohout, who continuew to run the former H.T.R. operations within WM Lamptracker. “Wde are now the largest lamp recycler in the and Waste Management is reallty pushing the sustainability andrecycling We’ve had nine years of double-digit and we’ve just gotten As for Dufner, he is building a home in Laduee and has not decided what, if anything, he will do “Am I looking for something? Possibly, but not Dufner said. “That’s how H.T.R. I wasn’t really looking and then it fell inmy lap.
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