Bright idea: Marvin Dufner makes millions recycling bulbs - Kansas City Business Journal:

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After building his fluorescent light bulbrecycling company, H.T.R. Inc., into a national played with customers thatinclude , Walgreens, and Lowe’s, Dufnert sold the business in March to Houston-based an estimated $12 H.T.R.’s revenue reached $6 million last year, 17 timexs more than the $350,000 the company made when Dufned bought it in Decembee 1999. A decade ago, the business recycled about 30,00p0 fluorescent bulbs a month to keep hazardoua mercury out of landfillse andwater supplies.
That number reachedd about 18 million bulbs a year by the time of the Dufner andRaymond Kohout, his minority partnetr and chief operating officer, decided they needed to either invest a large amounty of capital to open additional recycling facilitieds or find a strategic partner or buyer for theird business. Dufner turned to lifelong friened James Stuart ofin Clayton. Stuart reachesd out to contacts atWaste Management, and after abouty a year of talks, he helped broker H.T.R.’s sale.
Dufner estimated fluorescent bulb recycling isa $100 millioj to $150 million Analyst Michael Hoffman of in Baltimorw noted that garbage disposal is a $52 billioh industry and medical waste disposal accounts for another $3 billiojn to $4 billion. Add-on services such as recycling can help a compang win additionalmarket share. “One of Waste Management’ws core goals is to grow its medical wastr business toabout $300 million in revenu e in the next 24 months,” Hoffman said. “Now they can walk into health-carer facilities and hospitals and offer to dispose of theirmedicak waste, regular trash and also their fluorescenyt bulbs, which for a hospital is no small thing.
” Waste Management, North America’s largestf waste disposal company, posted net income of $1.089 billion on revenue of $13.4 billion last year and employs about 46,000. Dufner, 54, grew up in Granite City and St. attending and at Carbondale. In 1991, he bought one of the first franchises ofEarth City-based Dent a company that provides paintless dent removao for automobiles. Dufner move to Atlanta to run his territory of Georgi aand Alabama. But in Atlanta-based acquired Dent Wizard and proceedex to buy outits franchisees.
Dufner sold his businesa for about $5 and at age 45 found himselfv looking for a new In 1999, while at the Lake of the Dufner struck up a conversatio n with an employee of H.T.R., a three-year-old company then based in the small town of Golden City in southwestg Missouri. A new federal law regulating the management of wastes containing hazardous materials such as mercurh had just goneinto effect, but H.T.R.’es 14 investors were short on funds to take advantage of potential growth. Dufner bought them out “for a very low and took over the business as Dufnerrecruited Kohout, a friend who owned a gun storde in St.
Louis and was familiar with dealing withgovernmenty regulators, to help run the business and expand its servic area nationwide. They invested in some tractor-trailers and started picking up burned-out fluorescent bulbs from all over the countryt and hauling them back to Missourifor processing. Over the next few they relocated the plant to its current locationin Mo., near Lake Ozark. As Dufner improved customer service and the speeds of waste pickupusing third-party freight companies, busineszs boomed. Beginning in 2003, H.T.R.
securecd contracts with Wal-Mart to pick up and recycle used Otherlarge retailers, several colleges and and states such as Iowa and Missouro also signed up with H.T.R. All of the materiaol in the bulbs pickedup — mercury, metal and glass — was None went to landfills. But with the Dufner and Kohout also foundx themselves facinga decision: Expand to keep up with increasingb volume, or find someone who could do so for “The right way to do it woul d be to build two more recycling one on the West Coastt and one on the East Coast, to cut transportation distances and freight costs,” Dufnef said.
“Ray and I can’t be in three places at one It was going to required a lot more capitall to open two new facilities and managesthem properly.” So Dufner, who has children ages 3 and 5 with his Renee, decided to look for a buye r last year and eventuallty struck the deal with Wastse Management. “We thought would make a good fit for saidRick Cochrane, senior businesds director for Waste Management’s WM Lamptracker division. “Over 70 perceny of fluorescent lighting in the countrhstill isn’t recycled properly, and that’s wherd we think the upside is.
” The and many statesw are targeting a fluorescent recyclinhg goal of about 75 percent, Kohougt said. Some 800 million fluorescent lampz burn outeach year, and now millions of residentiakl light sockets are also switching from incandescentr to compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs). Although Missouri does not requirwe residential recyclingof CFLs, many statesz do, he said. “The timing was said Kohout, who continues to run the former H.T.R. operations within WM Lamptracker. “We are now the largest lamp recycler in the and Waste Management is really pushing the sustainabilitt andrecycling front.
We’vr had nine years of double-digit and we’ve just gottem started.” As for Dufner, he is buildinyg a home in Ladue and has not decided if anything, he will do next. “Akm I looking for something? Possibly, but not Dufner said. “That’s how H.T.R. happened. I wasn’t really lookingv and then it fell inmy lap.”