Susan Marvin Sees Through the Recession

At the University of Minnesota, she majored in journalism, with no plans to return to Warroad. Instead, she got a job in marketing at the American Hoist & Derrick Company in St. Paul, producing product catalogs and press releases for backhoes, scrap grabbers, and trenchers. She’d been there two years when her dad called and offered her a job in advertising—at Marvin’s soon-to-open one-person advertising office in the Twin Cities.

In 1985, she became vice president of sales and marketing. She says she was surprised 10 years later when the board (primarily family members) asked her to be president of Marvin Windows and Doors.

“I just know that I was talking to my brother Jake one day about how I thought certain things should be done—like I did every day,” she recalls. “And he said, ‘Well, how would you like to do those things?’” Most of her five siblings also were working for the family business. Today, Jake is chairman and CEO of Marvin Companies, Frank is vice chairman, George is taking a new role overseeing manufacturing for all businesses, and Bob is recently retired as a vice president of transportation. Peg, a schoolteacher, also has worked on the company archives and museum.

Vice President of Marketing Tom Angelis came to Marvin around that time of transition 14 years ago. “I’ve known a lot of company presidents,” he says, “and Susan is refreshing—bright, a quick study, fun. She’s passionate about accountability, and she has an incredible passion for the business, mostly for the employees and the customers. She’ll walk through the factory at 10 o’clock at night, visiting with workers in the plant. She’s the first to arrive at a customer meeting . . . and the last to leave.”

Looking for “Adjacencies”

Marvin has seen her share of challenges during her tenure at the family business, including a $2 million fine from the State of Minnesota for illegal waste disposal in 1990 (six years later, the state would honor the company for its pollution prevention efforts), and an 11-year legal battle with supplier PPG Industries, whose wood preservative allowed Marvin products to rot prematurely. Marvin spent tens of millions of dollars to replace defective windows for customers before it ultimately won more than $145 million in a court judgement against PPG in 2005.

About today’s challenges she is calm: “Business is not easy. But having said that, I think because of experience, personally I’m finding my stress level is very low. You know, I guess you learn not to worry about what you can’t control.” She laughs. “Maybe it just comes with age. It’s like, ‘been there, done that.’”

She won’t quantify in any way the effect of today’s housing-industry downturn on her family’s business. She does say, however, that all management employees have taken a pay cut, plant workers are on a 32-hour workweek, and every expenditure is scrutinized.