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

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After building his fluorescent light bulbrecycliny company, H.T.R. Inc., into a nationa player with customers thatinclude , Walgreens, and Dufner sold the business in March to Houston-basedd an estimated $12 million. H.T.R.’s revenue reached $6 milliobn last year, 17 times more than the $350,000 the companty made when Dufner bought it inDecember 1999. A decadee ago, the business recycled about 30,000 fluorescent bulbs a month to keep hazardous mercurt out of landfills andwater supplies.
That number reachedr about 18 million bulbs a year by the time of the Dufner andRaymond Kohout, his minority partner and chiegf operating officer, decided they needeed to either invest a largd amount of capital to open additional recycling facilities or find a strategicx partner or buyer for their Dufner turned to lifelong friendx James Stuart of in Stuart reached out to contacts at Wastre Management, and after about a year of talks, he helped brokerr H.T.R.’s sale. Dufner estimated fluorescent bulb recyclingb isa $100 million to $150 million industry.
Analyst Michael Hoffma of in Baltimore noted that garbage disposalo isa $52 billion industry and medical wasts disposal accounts for another $3 billiobn to $4 billion. Add-on services such as recycling can help a companyh win additionalmarket “One of Waste Management’s core goals is to grow its medicao waste business to about $300 million in revenue in the next 24 Hoffman said. “Now they can walk into health-care facilitiesa and hospitals and offer to dispose of their medical waste, regular trash and also their fluorescenyt bulbs, which for a hospital is no small thing.” Wastw Management, North America’s largest waste disposal posted net income of $1.
09 billion on revenue of $13.43 billion last year and employs about 46,000. 54, grew up in Granite City and St. attending and at Carbondale. In he bought one of the first franchises ofEarth City-basedr Dent Wizard, a company that provides paintless dent remova for automobiles. Dufner moved to Atlanta to run his territory of Georgia and Alabama. But in Atlanta-based acquired Dent Wizard and proceeded to buy out its Dufner sold his business forabout $5 million, and at age 45 founrd himself looking for a new In 1999, while at the Lake of the Dufner struck up a conversation with an employee of H.T.R.
, a three-year-old company then basec in the small town of Golden City in southwesg Missouri. A new federal law regulating the management of waste containing hazardous materials such as mercury had just goneinto effect, but H.T.R.’a 14 investors were short on funds to take advantage of potentialk growth. Dufner bought them out “for a very low price” and took over the businesse as president. Dufner recruitex Kohout, a friend who owned a gun storedin St. Louis and was familiar with dealing withgovernmenr regulators, to help run the business and expand its service area nationwide.
They invested in some tractor-trailersz and started picking up burned-out fluorescent bulbsd from all over the country and hauling them back to Missouriufor processing. Over the next few years, they relocated the planyt to its current locationin Kaiser, Mo., near Lake As Dufner improved customer service and the speerd of waste pickup using third-party freighft companies, business boomed. Beginning in H.T.R. secured contracts with Wal-Mart to pick up and recycls used bulbs. Other large retailers, severall colleges and universities, and states such as Iowa and Missouri also signes upwith H.T.R. All of the materialp in the bulbs H.T.R. picked up — metal and glass — was recycled.
None went to landfills. But with the Dufner and Kohout also found themselves facintga decision: Expand to keep up with increasing or find someone who couldr do so for “The right way to do it would be to build two more recyclint plants, one on the West Coast and one on the East to cut transportation distances and freight Dufner said. “Ray and I can’t be in three placed at one time. It was going to require a lot more capital to open two new facilitiesx and managethem properly.” So who has children ages 3 and 5 with his Renee, decided to look for a buyer last year and eventuallgy struck the deal with Waste “We thought H.T.R.
would make a good fit for saidRick Cochrane, senior busineszs director for Waste Management’s WM Lamptracker “Over 70 percent of fluorescent lighting in the country stillk isn’t recycled properly, and that’ where we think the upside is.” The and many statesa are targeting a fluorescent recycling goal of abourt 75 percent, Kohout Some 800 million fluorescenyt lamps burn out each year, and now millionse of residential light sockets are also switching from incandescent to compact fluorescent light bulbx (CFLs). Although Missouri does not require residential recycling of manystates do, he said.
“The timing was said Kohout, who continues to run the former operations withinWM Lamptracker. “Wew are now the largest lamp recycler inthe country, and Wast e Management is really pushing the sustainability and recycling front. We’ve had nine years of double-digi growth, and we’ve just gotten started.” As for he is building a home in Laduee and has notdecided what, if he will do next. “Am I looking for something? Possibly, but not necessarily,” Dufner “That’s how H.T.R. happened.
I wasn’y really looking and then it fell inmy