WPL celebrates 70 years
Weatherization Partners, Ltd. (WPL), the distributor of specialty exterior building products, is celebrating its 70th year as a family-owned business.
With the encouragement of friends in the East Texas lumber industry, Aubrey Faulkner created a business in Lubbock, Texas, in August of 1949 to distribute building supplies. Originally called Frontier Wholesale, Faulkner began with a warehouse and a truck fleet to distribute doors, windows, molding, hardware, millwork, and plywood to lumberyards across West Texas and Eastern New Mexico.
Beginning in 1968, the company was led by Faulkner’s son, Aubrey Jr., who brought in Marvin Windows in 1974.The success of this agreement led to a Dallas sales office and onto a distributor agreement with DuPont in the late seventies to distribute what was then a little-known product called DuPont Tyvek.
By 2000, Marvin Windows distribution was sold to BMC and Weatherization Partners began to focus on the DuPont Tyvek weatherization system.
After selling off Marvin Windows, Aubrey’s son David Faulkner took over the company. David attributes the company’s growth and success to maintaining a single-line focus with DuPont Tyvek.
With the encouragement of friends in the East Texas lumber industry, Aubrey Faulkner created a business in Lubbock, Texas, in August of 1949 to distribute building supplies. Originally called Frontier Wholesale, Faulkner began with a warehouse and a truck fleet to distribute doors, windows, molding, hardware, millwork, and plywood to lumberyards across West Texas and Eastern New Mexico.
Beginning in 1968, the company was led by Faulkner’s son, Aubrey Jr., who brought in Marvin Windows in 1974.The success of this agreement led to a Dallas sales office and onto a distributor agreement with DuPont in the late seventies to distribute what was then a little-known product called DuPont Tyvek.
By 2000, Marvin Windows distribution was sold to BMC and Weatherization Partners began to focus on the DuPont Tyvek weatherization system.
After selling off Marvin Windows, Aubrey’s son David Faulkner took over the company. David attributes the company’s growth and success to maintaining a single-line focus with DuPont Tyvek.
“Most building distributors are multi-line. They may carry hundreds of different products and their sale team will need to know about every product they carry. We focus on one product line, plus we’re also able to know every part of the building enclosure that DuPont Tyvek encounters. This enables our team to sell a solutions approach to weather protection.”
Today, WPL operates from its distribution center in Dallas and covers 12 states. This year the company won the National Distributor of the Year Award by DuPont for its outstanding service, demand creation, and market growth.