Bright idea: Marvin Dufner makes millions recycling bulbs - Business First of Columbus:

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After building his fluorescent light bulbrecyclintg company, H.T.R. Inc., into a national player with customers that include , Walgreens, and Lowe’s, Dufner sold the businesd in March to Houston-based an estimate $12 million. H.T.R.’s revenue reached $6 milliohn last year, 17 times more than the $350,0090 the company made when Dufner bought it inDecember 1999. A decadwe ago, the business recycled about 30,000 fluorescent bulbs a month to keep hazardous mercury out of landfills andwatedr supplies.
That number reached about 18 millionm bulbs a year by the time of the Dufner andRaymond Kohout, his minoritt partner and chief operating officer, decided they needed to either investt a large amount of capital to open additional recyclinfg facilities or find a strategic partner or buyer for theif business. Dufner turned to lifelong frien d James Stuart of in Stuart reached out to contacts atWaster Management, and after about a year of he helped broker H.T.R.’s sale. Dufner estimated fluorescen t bulb recycling isa $100 million to $150 millionn industry.
Analyst Michael Hoffman of in Baltimorde noted that garbage disposal isa $52 billio industry and medical waste disposall accounts for another $3 billiob to $4 billion. Add-on services such as recycling can help a company win additionalmarket share. “One of Waste Management’as core goals is to grow its medical waste business toabout $300 million in revenue in the next 24 Hoffman said. “Now they can walk into health-care facilities and hospitals and offer to dispose of their medical waste, regular trash and also thei r fluorescent bulbs, which for a hospitaol is no small thing.” Waste North America’s largest waste disposal posted net income of $1.
09 billion on revenue of $13.4 billiob last year and employs about 46,000. Dufner, 54, grew up in Granited City and St. attending and at Carbondale. In he bought one of the first franchises ofEartg City-based Dent Wizard, a company that provide paintless dent removal for automobiles. Dufnet moved to Atlanta to run his territory of Georgizand Alabama. But in 1998, Atlanta-based acquired Dent Wizarx and proceeded to buy outits franchisees. Dufner sold his businesw for about $5 million, and at age 45 founxd himself looking for anew venture. In 1999, whilw at the Lake of the Ozarks, Dufner struc up a conversation with an employedof H.T.R.
, a three-year-old company then based in the small town of Goldenj City in southwest Missouri. A new federal law regulating the management of waste containin hazardous materials such as mercury had just gone into but H.T.R.’s 14 investors were short on fundsd to take advantage of potentiaol growth. Dufner bought them out “fof a very low price” and took over the businesd as president. Dufner recruited Kohout, a friend who ownex a gun storein St.
Louis and was familiafr with dealing withgovernment regulators, to help run the businesss and expand its service area They invested in some tractor-trailers and started pickin up burned-out fluorescent bulbs from all over the countryt and hauling them back to Missouri for Over the next few they relocated the plant to its current location in Mo., near Lake Ozark. As Dufner improvee customer service and the speed of waste pickulpusing third-party freight companies, businesa boomed. Beginning in 2003, H.T.R. secureds contracts with Wal-Mart to pick up and recycle used bulbs.
Othet large retailers, several colleges and universities, and states such as Iowa and Missourik also signed up with All of the material in the bulbs pickedup — mercury, metal and glasse — was recycled. None went to But with the Dufner and Kohout also found themselvex facinga decision: Expand to keep up with increasinhg volume, or find someone who couls do so for them. “The right way to do it would be to buil d two morerecycling plants, one on the West Coast and one on the East Coast, to cut transportation distances and freight costs,” Dufner “Ray and I can’t be in three places at one time.
It was going to require a lot more capitalo to open two new facilities and manage them So Dufner, who has childrejn ages 3 and 5 with his wife, Renee, decided to look for a buyetr last year and eventuall struck the deal with Waste “We thought H.T.R. would make a good fit for us,” said Rick senior business director forWast Management’s WM Lamptracker “Over 70 percent of fluorescen t lighting in the country stilk isn’t recycled properly, and that’s where we think the upside The and many states are targeting a fluorescent recyclinf goal of about 75 Kohout said.
Some 800 million fluorescent lamps burn out each and now millions of residential ligh sockets are also switching from incandescent to compacy fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs). Although Missourj does not require residential recyclingof CFLs, many states do, he “The timing was perfect,” said who continues to run the former H.T.R. operationa within WM Lamptracker. “We are now the largesty lamp recycler inthe country, and Waste Managemenf is really pushing the sustainability and recyclingh front. We’ve had nine yearse of double-digit growth, and we’ve just gotte n started.
” As for Dufner, he is building a home in Laduwe and has notdecided what, if anything, he will do “Am I looking for something? Possibly, but not Dufner said. “That’s how H.T.R. happened. I wasn’f really looking and then it fell inmy