NORTHWEST OHIO
Poly-Foam International: Hitched to Mobile Homes
It all started over a couple of beers in a college town bar. Thomas L. Kern and a friend cooked up an idea for fiberglass steps for mobile homes. He parlayed the simple idea and his strong entrepreneurial instincts into today's Poly-Foam International, with 550 employees at plants in Ohio and Florida and six distribution centers across the country. Today he is a key player in the fast-growing mobile home market. He chalks up revenue gains of 15 percent a year and ships $100 million worth of products.
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| Production of vinyl skirting for mobile homes is a high-tech business today, and Style Crest keeps its employees current through continuing training. |
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Poly-Foam is the umbrella over six operating companies that manufacture, warehouse and distribute metal, fiberglass and vinyl products. Kern conducts his nationwide operations from Fremont in rural Sandusky County, just 40 minutes from downtown Toledo.
From simple fiberglass steps, Kern graduated to sophisticated technologies about 15 years ago when he entered the vinyl products business. Style Crest, a Poly-Foam unit, manufactures finishing accessories (fiberglass steps, vinyl skirting and other products) for the mobile home industry. It is the biggest producer of vinyl skirting in the U.S. and was recognized last year as the nation's #1 supplier by the Manufactured Housing Institute.
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That same technology led to the creation of another subsidiary, Resource Materials, which makes vinyl siding for use primarily on stick-built housing.
Style Crest also makes anchors and tie-downs for mobile homes, as well as distributing over 5,000 items for manufactured housing.
Kern has hooked himself to a growth industry: In 1996 380,000 mobile homes were sold in the U.S., a 61 percent increase over four years ago. But he is also a master marketer and ever alert to what his customers want.
"In the 21st century, there will be companies that provide specialized services on a packaged basis, such as heating and air conditioning, awnings, skirting and tie downs," says Kern. "The retailer wants the myriad things required to set up a mobile home from one company on one invoice. We're evolving into that kind of company at our locations around the country. We're going to take that a step further and own the trucks and the personnel to do that work in some markets where there is the appropriate concentration of business."
All three materials -- fiberglass, metal, vinyl -- are used in Fremont, and each requires very different skill levels.
Kern is a strong supporter of continuing training. "The rapid growth of the industry has put pressure on training employees to keep up with the latest technology," he says. One program Kern finds particularly beneficial is the color matching program at Terra Community College. Initially serving automotive plastics, the program has been expanded to plastics used in building products, since both face weathering issues.
Kern likes his rural location and his Northwest Ohio work force. "My attitude has always been that rural values are important," he says "and we see those values in our work force. People are always the critical ingredient in a company."
Kern also develops industrial parks and spec buildings, an enterprise that grew out of his own need for warehousing. Today he provides space for several companies, including Heinz, where he warehouses about 40 percent of the nation's stock of ketchup.
Sandusky County has a reputation for growing big plants -- it has three "world's largest" -- Whirlpool's world's largest washing machine plant, producing 17,000 units a day with 3,200 non-union employees; Heinz's world's largest ketchup manufacturing plant; and Fremont Co.'s world's largest sauerkraut manufacturing plant.