Value Added: Thompson Creek carves niche as Washington home town window-maker

In the late 1990s, Rick Wuest was a 30-something member of his family window-manufacturing company forgettably named Mid-Lantic Corp. when he decided the business his father built needed to change course.

Revenues were flat. Profits were reliably in the black. The Wuests did fine, living comfortably and poking along selling the vinyl windows they manufactured on Kent Island to building contractors.

It was a lifestyle business, said Wuest, referring to the window company his father, Fred, had started on West Street in Annapolis in 1980. But there was little reinvestment in the family firm.

Wuests ability to change that, building what became Thompson Creek Window Company, is all the more impressive given the difficulties many family-owned companies big and small face in navigating a path for succeeding generations.

Wuest, now 47, is a liberal arts graduate of Penn State who worked nearly every job in the company. He ached to take his family business to the next level.

I knew there was an opportunity we hadnt really yet fully realized, he said recently. I didnt know what that was.

He couldnt help but notice that the window business, long a sleepy niche in the home improvement and building ecosystem, was exploding with the entrance of vinyl replacement windows. Replacement windows are often the more affordable alternative to ripping out an entire window frame.

Some very well capitalized businesses came into the marketplace, said Wuest, referring to big names like Andersen and Pella, which were aggressively pursuing the vinyl window market. Competition was growing. The channels for windows in the marketplace were growing. Competition was coming and the prices were falling.

Wuest knew that if the company were to survive, it needed to grow. And to grow, Mid-Lantic would have to begin reinvesting profits back into the company and expand sales.

We werent very well capitalized, Wuest said.

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Value Added: Thompson Creek carves niche as Washington home town window-maker