KLAMATH FALLS, Ore (AP) — Although the administrative headquarters of Jeld-Wen moved to Charlotte, N.C., the company’s CEO and President Kirk Hachigian said Klamath Falls remains the “nucleus” of the $3.5 billion company.
The window and door manufacturer, initially owned and operated by the late Richard “Dick” Wendt and later purchased by Canadian investment firm Onex sells products worldwide in 20 countries.
Despite the company’s reach, Hachigian expressed a deep commitment to the company’s roots in Klamath Falls.
“We’re not leaving Klamath Falls,” Hachigian declared.
In a wide-ranging interview with Herald and News on Hachigian made clear the company’s intentions to keep much of the operations in Klamath County and Oregon.
Hachigian took the helm of the company in March 2014, succeeding former CEO Philip Orsino.
He spoke about the company’s history and strategic goals, as well as the company’s launch of an expanded customer support center in Klamath Falls.
The expanded customer support center will handle questions such as warranties or purchasing decisions, Hachigian said, and is representative of the company’s continuing commitment to the Klamath Basin.
Also, Jeld-Wen has added 20 engineers to its research and development laboratory in Klamath Falls. The company employs roughly 1,000 employees in the city.
“We still have the bulk of our production, manufacturing, engineering, customer service, customer care, accounts receivable, accounts payable, most of those functions are still all out of Klamath Falls,” Hachigian said.
Jeld-Wen purchases Ponderosa pine from surrounding forests to manufacture its doors here. Hachigian noted the company is highly efficient in its process.
“One-hundred percent of the log is used for construction purposes,” he said. “Nothing is wasted.”
Jeld-Wen facilities are also located in Chiloquin, Bend, Stayton and Portland, with 2,000 employees total in Oregon; 10,000 in North America and 20,000 worldwide.
“They have different operations in each of those facilities,” Hachigian said. “Some of them are windows, some of them are doors, some of them are mills.”
A need for efficiency and struggles during the recession led the company to relocate its administrative headquarters to Charlotte in 2013, which houses approximately 100 to 150 staff.
He noted the company fell on hard times during the recent recession.
“They took on a lot of investments and ancillary businesses,” Hachigian said. “They invested in timber lands, they invested in some different resorts and golf courses.
“We all know what happened in the banking crisis of 2007, 2008, 2009, and so the business had too much debt. It wasn’t able to survive the downturn. There were a lot of financial stresses on the organization.”
Onex, a Canadian private investment firm, bought the company in 2011, and invested about $800 million in Jeld-Wen.
“The business has made a remarkable turnaround over the last five years,” Hachigian said.
“Our sales today are about where they were pre-crisis. Our profitability today has been restored to about where it was pre-crisis.”
Hachigian emphasized the shift in headquarters to North Carolina doesn’t mean a loss of commitment to Klamath Falls.
“It’s still the epicenter of all the innovation globally for Jeld-Wen and it’s still a very, very important cultural and functional part of the organization,” he said.
Hachigian said the East Coast location puts the headquarters close to key Jeld-Wen operations as well as a much larger airport.
“Klamath Falls is a difficult location to service a global enterprise,” Hachigian said. “In Klamath Falls, it’s just difficult to get to most of the country. You have to have private transportation.”
Hachigian said many of Jeld-Wen’s major customers are located approximately within 500 or 1,000 miles of Charlotte, providing efficiencies in company travel. Jeld-Wen owns one aircraft compared to five since moving the administrative headquarters to Charlotte.
During the last nine months, Jeld-Wen has acquired four companies globally — two of them located in the United States, one in Australia and one in Europe.
Hachigian said recent acquisitions by the company, which are some of the first in at least five years, are a sign of the company’s prosperity and return to profitability.
“You can’t make those acquisitions if you’re not healthy yourself,” he said. “It’s a sign of confidence from the investors in our company that they’re willing to give us that kind of cash to go spend on acquisitions, and I think it’s a sign that we have an optimistic view of the economy as we go forward.”
Moving forward, Hachigian sees the possibility of Jeld-Wen becoming a publicly traded company. No timeline has been set for an initial public offering on the stock market, however.
“The company is doing better than it has ever done historically,” Hachigian said.