By Carole Hawkins, [email protected]
In 2005, when Jacksonville’s oldest and largest window manufacturer, Kinco Ltd., was taken over by a Dallas-based company, sales manager Jack Dunham struck out on his own, starting a business as a regional window supplier.
Two years later, the Dallas company pulled out of Florida.
Dunham’s business continued, but by 2013 he was frustrated with the manufacturers he represented.
“A lot of times the customer service was terrible,” Dunham said. “They were arrogant. There was just no relationship.”
So Dunham, in partnership with Paul Arsenault, launched Eagle View Windows in February 2014.
Arsenault was aware of the need for a new window manufacturing company.
His brother, builder Lee Arsenault of New Leaf Construction, had moved his business over to Dunham after the Kinco buyout.
Companies wanted a dependable window provider, Paul Arsenault said. Eagle View became the solution.
“We realized there was an opportunity to deliver windows locally and deal with service issues quickly,” he said.
In just over a year, Eagle View Windows has gone from five employees to 18. The company has already outgrown its Westside facility.
Clients include Adams Homes, Dostie Homes, ICI Homes, Seda Construction, D.S. Ware Homes and New Leaf Construction.
With other window companies, if a builder or customer changes a set of plans, it typically takes two or three weeks to get new windows, Dunham said.
“So now that house is sitting. They can’t move forward with anything else,” he said. “We have the capability that I can walk into production, build the window and get it to that job within a day.”
The windows are built with energy-saving vinyl, thicker glass, better insulating qualities and stronger parts.
Eagle View Windows draws its way of doing business from Fred King, the president and one of three owners of the former Kinco Window Co.
King started Kinco in the early 1970s. The company grew to 14 branches in Florida and captured 80 percent of the market statewide.
Dunham began his career there in the 1980s as a delivery driver and glass cutter and worked his way up.
Through King, he learned the trade. When other new companies entered the market, King would see it as an opportunity.
“Fred would say, ‘Let’s get a couple of the windows and tear them apart and see what our competition is doing,’” Dunham said. “You weren’t just a salesman. You learned the product.”
A man who would do “whatever it takes” for a customer, King’s reputation extended as far away as New York and Texas.
“You could walk into an office (of a builder) and everyone knew Fred King,” Dunham said. “Even today we still talk about who Fred King was.”
After Kinco sold and Dunham became an independent supplier, he learned that not all window manufacturers were like King.
Windows didn’t show up for weeks and customer reps brushed off errors without calling to explain there was a problem. Dunham was not their only account.
Dunham figured he’d open his own manufacturing facility.
He purchased a window company in Memphis that was selling out, took over the equipment and materials and upgraded the designs.
He picked up a financial partner in Arsenault and they launched Eagle View.
The key to great windows is control over both the manufacturing and the distribution service, the partners said.
For example, windows are made with removable “snap-in-place” glazing beads — vinyl strips that serve as trim around the edges of the glass.
That means if window is broken, the glass can be easily removed and replaced.
“I can have someone out the next day to replace it in the field in an hour,” Dunham said.
Local control also means the company can cater to the community. The company wants big accounts and has a few. But for the bulk of its relationships, it so far has targeted local companies.
“People want that hometown relationship,” Dunham said. “You build that with your hometown builders.”