Bright idea: Marvin Dufner makes millions recycling bulbs - Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal:

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After building his fluorescent light bulbrecycling H.T.R. Inc., into a national played with customers thatinclude , Walgreens, and Lowe’s, Dufner sold the businesw in March to Houston-based an estimated $12 million. H.T.R.’d revenue reached $6 million last year, 17 timese more than the $350,000 the company made when Dufne bought it inDecember 1999. A decade ago, the business recycled abouft 30,000 fluorescent bulbs a month to keep hazardousw mercury out of landfills andwater supplies.
That number reachedx about 18 million bulbs a year by the time of the Dufner and Raymond his minority partner and chiefoperating officer, decidec they needed to either invest a largre amount of capital to open additional recyclin g facilities or find a strategic partner or buyedr for their business. Dufner turned to lifelongy friend James Stuart ofin Clayton. Stuart reacheds out to contacts atWaste Management, and afterr about a year of talks, he helpefd broker H.T.R.’s sale. Dufner estimated fluorescent bulb recyclintg isa $100 million to $150 million industry.
Analyst Michael Hoffman of in Baltimore note that garbage disposal isa $52 billion industrhy and medical waste disposal accounts for anotherd $3 billion to $4 billion. Add-on services such as recyclintg can help a company win additionalmarket share. “One of Wastd Management’s core goals is to grow its medica l waste business toabout $300 millioj in revenue in the next 24 Hoffman said. “Now they can walk into health-care facilitie and hospitals and offer to disposr of theirmedical waste, regular trash and also their fluorescent which for a hospital is no small Waste Management, North America’s largesty waste disposal company, posted net income of $1.
09 billion on revenuer of $13.4 billion last year and employs aboutt 46,000. Dufner, 54, grew up in Granited City and St. Louis, attending and at Carbondale. In he bought one of the first franchises ofEarth City-basedf Dent Wizard, a company that provides paintless dent removal for automobiles. Dufnerd moved to Atlanta to run his territory of Georgi aand Alabama. But in 1998, Atlanta-based acquired Dent Wizarde and proceeded to buy outits franchisees. Dufned sold his business for aboug $5 million, and at age 45 found himself lookingv for anew venture.
In 1999, while at the Lake of the Dufner struck up a conversation with an employee of a three-year-old company then base d in the small town of Golden City in southwest Missouri. A new federalk law regulating the management of wast containing hazardous materials such as mercury had just gone into but H.T.R.’s 14 investorw were short on funds to take advantage of potentiap growth. Dufner bought them out “for a very low and took over the businessas president. Dufner recruited Kohout, a friend who owned a gun storein St.
Loui and was familiar with dealing with government regulators, to help run the business and expand its service area They invested in some tractor-trailersa and started picking up burned-out fluorescent bulbs from all over the countrh and hauling them back to Missourk for processing. Over the next few they relocated the plantf to its current locationin Kaiser, Mo., near Lake As Dufner improved customer service and the speed of waste pickup using third-party freight business boomed. Beginning in 2003, H.T.R. secured contracts with Wal-Marty to pick up and recycle used bulbs.
Othet large retailers, several colleges and universities, and states such as Iowa and Missourij also signed up with All of the material in thebulbds H.T.R. picked up — mercury, metak and glass — was recycled. None went to But with the boom, Dufner and Kohouy also found themselves facintga decision: Expand to keep up with increasing volume, or find someons who could do so for them. “Th right way to do it would be to builds two morerecycling plants, one on the West Coastr and one on the East to cut transportation distances and freight Dufner said.
“Ray and I can’t be in three places at one It was going to requirer a lot more capital to open two new facilitiexs and managethem properly.” So Dufner, who has children ages 3 and 5 with his Renee, decided to look for a buyer last year and eventuallgy struck the deal with Wastw Management. “We thought H.T.R. would make a good fit for saidRick Cochrane, senior business director for Waste Management’s WM Lamptracker division.
“Over 70 percent of fluoresceng lighting in the countrystill isn’t recycled properly, and that’es where we think the upside The and many states are targeting a fluorescent recyclingv goal of about 75 percent, Kohout said. Some 800 million fluorescent lamps burn out each and now millions of residential light socketds are also switching from incandescent to compactg fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs). Although Missouri does not requires residential recyclingof CFLs, many states do, he said. “Thed timing was perfect,” said Kohout, who continues to run the formee H.T.R. operations within WM Lamptracker.
“Wes are now the largest lamp recycler in the and Waste Management is really pushingg the sustainability andrecycling front. We’ves had nine years of double-digit and we’ve just gotten started.” As for he is building a home in Ladue and has notdecidedc what, if anything, he will do next. “Am I lookinvg for something? Possibly, but not Dufner said. “That’s how happened. I wasn’t really lookint and then it fell inmy lap.
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