A.B.E. Windows celebrates four decades, and other company news

A.B.E. Doors & Windows marks its fourth decade

Forty years after founder Jim Lett started A.B.E. Doors & Windows, the former one-man business now employs 23 people and may soon be hiring at least two more.

The company celebrates four decades of operation this month and Lett says its future is promising.

"Today about 75 percent of our business is residential and the rest is commercial and industrial work," Lett said. "We sell and install windows; residential entry doors, storm doors, patio doors, garage doors and openers and we still do basement doors. A lot of today's newer homes are built to be cost-effective but after people are in a while, we find they often want to upgrade to improve the look and energy efficiency."

Lett is training his son, Jim Jr., as the heir to the business and takes pride in the approximately 17-year longevity rate for the majority of his employees. The key, he says, is to take pride in the work and give the customer an excellent product at a fair price.

Lett began his business less than a week after graduating from Bloomsburg University while he was still living with his parents. He had a separate phone line installed in his bedroom, his mother would take messages during the day and his father guided him with pricing and training.

"I had wanted to start a business but I didn't have anything in mind," he recalls. "My dad worked for Wolf Distributors and met the people from Gordon Cellar Doors at a trade show and that was the start of the whole thing. I went down to the newspaper office, took out an ad and I was up and running."

Lett would install basement doors during the day and return phone calls or do estimates at night.

One year after starting, he learned that Frantz Garage Doors on Race Street in Hanover Township, Lehigh County, was looking for someone to install garage doors, so he added that to his offerings and within a few more years, he had signed PermaDoor, one of the pioneers in the steel entry door market.

"Those first three products were really just a matter of taking advantage of opportunities that presented themselves," he said. "That was pretty much my business plan at that time."

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A.B.E. Windows celebrates four decades, and other company news