Alside’s formal executive dining room has served its last hot meal.
Now it’s where people get food for thought.
The Cuyahoga Falls vinyl siding, window and door manufacturer, part of $1.2 billion Associated Materials Inc., on Thursday unveiled the “AMI Legacy Center” in the former dining room, complete with an extensive, colorful timeline and shadow boxes holding memorabilia. The legacy center is part of Alside’s 65th anniversary from its founding in 1947 as a maker of aluminum siding. It is AMI’s longest-standing brand.
The repurposed room at AMI’s distinctive corporate headquarters off State Road provided a fond trip down memory lane for Donald Kaufman, one of Alside’s founding family members and its chief executive officer from 1983 through 2001. At age 81, he stays active in part by teaching business classes at the University of Akron.
Kaufman recalled he was just 16 years old when Alside broke ground on the Akron-Barberton border for a building. At that age, almost all he thought about were sports, girls and cars, he said.
But he was soon brought into the business by his brother, Jerome, who started Alside, he said.
“I learned the business from the ground up,” Kaufman said. He canvassed neighborhoods to sell siding door-to-door, worked in the factory and eventually moved into the corporate offices, he said.
“For 54 consecutive years, this company was managed by Kaufmans. My brother and I,” he said. “That was terribly important to me.”
Alside over the years proved to be “the most resilient company imaginable,” he said.
The company survived such things as a devastating plant fire and a consumer preference away from aluminum siding to vinyl, Kaufman said.
It started as a privately owned company, became publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange in 1961 and was sold to U.S. Steel in 1968. U.S. Steel sold it in 1984 to a group that eventually became Associated Materials Inc., which is now owned by a private equity firm.
“There are challenges after challenges after challenges,” Kaufman said. “So, the word for this company is resilient. This is a stable company. Flexible. We never looked behind. We looked ahead. ... We knew when to change. We knew change was inevitable.”
And business now is good, said Jerry Burris, AMI’s president and CEO. Burris joined AMI about a year ago.
“Our legacy center captures how this company stood the test of time,” he said.
AMI has 11 manufacturing plants and about 3,500 employees — about 1,000 in Northeast Ohio, Burris said. (About 850 are at the Cuyahoga Falls headquarters and manufacturing plant.)
About 70 percent of AMI’s business is in the repair and remodel industries, he said.
While home sales remain well below their peak of just a few years ago, they are “on an uptick,” Burris said. “Any growth is good growth. I think consumer confidence is beginning to build.”
Coming full circle
Burris noted that Alside opened its first Alside Supply Center in 1952 in Pittsburgh and earlier this year opened its 100th U.S.-based supply center, also in Pittsburgh. Alside and other AMI brands also sell their products to 250 independent supply centers as well, Burris said. The company introduced three new products earlier this year as well, he said.
“We’re proud to be able to celebrate our past and so much about our future,” Burris said. “We continue to invest in this company.”
The day’s events included walk-throughs of the legacy center and an outdoor catered lunch of pulled pork, hot dogs and coleslaw for employees and guests.
Jennifer Petruzzi, director of product management who joined AMI in March, sat with colleagues as part of the festivities.
“One of the things that brought me to the company was its history and innovation,” she said.
Cuyahoga Falls Mayor Don Robart noted that Alside/AMI is one of the city’s five largest employers.
“The industrial base is critical to the success of any city,” Robart said. “When I am out here to thank Alside, believe me, it is sincere. They are just a wonderful, wonderful company.”
Terri Sefcik invested a lot of her time designing and overseeing the construction of the legacy center.
The 36-year-old graphic designer and 11-year Alside veteran said her initial design work on the room, its timeline and shadow boxes started about five weeks ago. Work, with the help of contractors and others, moved quickly, she said.
Early on, emails went out asking former and current employees for any memorabilia that they wanted to share, she said. (Sefcik said she is still looking for additional memorabilia for more shadow boxes; anyone willing to donate items may contact Alside’s marketing department.)
Donald Kaufman supplied much of the material that went into the shadow boxes, including a piece of “really cool” ticker tape commemorating Alside’s first trade on the New York Stock Exchange back in 1961, Sefcik said.
“Everything was done in-house,” Sefcik said. “I worked somewhat as a general contractor, artist and demolition. We broke ground about 3½ weeks ago; a lot of sweat equity in the room. It was all worth it.”
Jim Mackinnon can be reached at 330-996-3544 or jmackinnon@thebeaconjournal.com.