Home Team
Clockwise from left: Window World of Western Massachusetts team members Grace Drost, Nick Drost, Lanéa Bushey, Anna Drost, and Tim Drost.
Growing a company from within is a philosophy Tim Drost has lived out for a long time. So is the value of a family business.
That much was evident as Drost, CEO of Window World of Western Massachusetts, sat down recently to talk with BusinessWest at his Belchertown headquarters alongside four key members of his team: wife Anna Drost, son Nick Drost, daughter Grace Drost, and Lanéa Bushey, the daughter of Tim’s former business partner.
“I grew up in the business; I had a lot of family in the home improvement and construction business — everybody was in that space,” he said, explaining that he and Bob Bushey worked for many years at a large home improvement company.
“We had a crew of guys that we worked with, and we developed installation standards across the country and Canada for them,” he noted, before Bob left in 2010 to launch Window World of Western Massachusetts. “Then, as Lanéa’s dad was getting older, looking toward retirement, I came on in 2018 — I took my whole install team with me — and continued to grow this company.”
Grow is an understatement. From about $2 million eight years ago, the enterprise now records between $40 million and $50 million in annual sales through what are actually four companies under one umbrella — Window World of Western Massachusetts, Go Green Home Performance, Hometown Exteriors, and the Kitchen & Bath Co. — with more expansion planned in the near future.
Those moves have come about in different ways. The Kitchen & Bath Co. arose from the acqusition of the Kitchen Squad, a company that had been in business for 40 years.
“We had a great relationship with them, and their father was looking to retire. So we brought their team here. And we just built a new, almost 70,000-square-foot warehouse down the street. We renovated that whole property.”
One of the buildings on that site is a fabrication shop, the equipment for which was purchased from a millwork and fabrication company that had gone out of business. “So we put those two together and expanded that service in-house, and the kitchen business has been phenomenal for us,” Drost said.
“We want to be having an intelligent conversation with our customers when they’re replacing things, to not just look at fixing the thing that’s broken, but also improving the spaces where they live.”
Go Green, on the other hand — which specializes in insulation and the performance of a building’s envelope — was built from the ground up.
“We brought in some experienced guys that we’d been working with for years and years at a local company, brought their team in, and developed that,” he said. “You need to be looking at the building, not just from a carpentry standpoint, but also from a building performance. Obviously, with all the ice dams and things like that, people really can see it this year. But we want to be having an intelligent conversation with our customers when they’re replacing things, to not just look at fixing the thing that’s broken, but also improving the spaces where they live.”
All these companies — and Window World is also looking to purchase another local company in the HVAC and solar realm — essentially work together to give clients, which include builders, developers, and homeowners alike — a one-stop shop for anything they may need.
“I understand the service portion of the business and how companies need to evolve to meet customers’ needs today,” Drost added. “Also, I realized that there’s a massive gap in the way that home improvement businesses are managing the field today, compared to years ago, with a lot of the work being done by subcontractors and poor-quality labor. You don’t have an unbelievable labor pool today like you did when I was a kid, 30, 40 years ago, where people were passionate about being in the trades.
“I mean, if you look at the roofing business today, probably 90% of it is done by subcontractors or inferior labor. That’s a weakness in the marketplace, and it’s become accepted because everybody’s doing it,” Drost went on. “So we’re very focused on developing labor.”
He said he works closely with manufacturers in developing in-house apprenticeship programs.
“Then we break it down by trade. So window guys just do windows, door guys just do doors. We feel it’s been the rocket fuel of our growth — because it’s not normal to deal with subcontractors and unskilled labor. Customers want things done right,” he said. “So as we bring these other trades in to the family business, we can offer a complete service for the customer, and take the complexity out of doing home improvement. We’re very focused on that, and we will continue to be.”
From the Ground Up
Window World’s leadership, however, often wear many hats, Lanéa Bushey said.
“We have our hands in everything. But primarily, what I’m focused on is working directly with our customers, talking about energy efficiency, making sure their installation is perfect,” she explained. “I go to customer homes and do assessments; I love to work directly with our customer base and be able to be in the field, seeing what’s going on.
“And we all are heavily involved in our marketing and making sure that all of our businesses align and present a clear representation of who we are,” she added.
Grace Drost said she handles more of the back end in the office, speaking with customers at the start of the process and ensuring that the process goes smoothly on projects.
“With both Grace and Lanéa, we think that the brick and mortar is a massive piece,” Tim said of the company’s showrooms in Belchertown, Westfield, and one soon to open in Adams. “A lot of times, planning for home improvement is done on people’s kitchen tables, and you can’t get a real feel for what that actual building material is. With our showrooms, you can actually touch and feel and see those pieces installed. It helps customers make educated decisions.”
“Our family’s been in the trades for generations, so we’re passionate about that, and the apprentice program has been fuel for our growth for sure. People love working for a company that’s passionate about what they do.”
Nick Drost, meanwhile, is more focused on installations and spends most of his time in the field handling everything from the design phase and assembling a material list to seeing the job through to completion.
“I’m at pretty much every job, or at least I try to be. And if not me, one of our other project managers is,” he explained. “We decide how we’re going to handle a job, and we make sure that we’re there with the customer at the beginning, throughout the job, and at the end — that there’s always someone there for the customer to talk to and make sure that they have the exact experience that we promised them at the sale.”
That requires plenty of continuing education and staying up to date with changing codes and new technology, meaning training at the company goes far beyond its apprenticeship programs.
“We need to be able to look at the whole building envelope and the science behind it and understand the effects of what we’re doing on the house,” Nick said. “We’re doing training for energy and to understand even things like HVAC systems, things we don’t install ourselves, so we can understand what’s going on in the building, why is this happening, how we can help the customer on every front, not just saying, ‘OK, we can put this window in, and that’s the only thing we’re worried about.’ We want to help the customer in every aspect of it.”
Meanwhile, Anna Drost runs the kitchen business and also focuses on internal processes to ensure a better experience for customers, as well as technology initiatives, worker safety, and training.
The emphasis on apprenticeship and training programs helps ensure that this company — now 120 employees strong — can continue to grow from within, at a time when recruitment and retention are challenges across all building trades.
“There’s zero turnover,” Tim said. “Our family’s been in the trades for generations, so we’re passionate about that, and the apprentice program has been fuel for our growth for sure. People love working for a company that’s passionate about what they do.”
Nick agreed. “One reason why I feel like our retention is so good is, at the end of the day, people want to work somewhere they can grow and get better and have something new to learn, and continue evolving,” he said, adding that manufacturers often come out to participate in trainings on codes, technology, and the like, and the company partners with Milwaukee to make sure teams are using the latest tools.
And the passion of the workforce gets relayed to customers through constant communication, Tim added. “There’s not different companies converging on one project. It’s our employees. We have the same messaging, the same communication, and everybody’s on the same page.
“That’s why most of us live in the field — because that’s where our business is. We’re not a sales organization; we’re an installation organization. So how we communicate and how we develop our teams is part of that communication piece for our customers.”
View to the Future
Another priority at Window World of Western Massachusetts is constant growth from within, Tim explained.
“I’ve been working with some of our project managers for 30-plus years, but everybody in this company has started in the field,” he told BusinessWest. “The apprentices are working with skilled guys who have been there and worked their way up. All our foremen started off at the bottom and were very focused on constant education. We work both locally, where we see opportunities to develop our guys, and then with national programs to bring all those pieces in.”
And, as noted earlier, Drost and his team aren’t done evolving.
“We think building performance and that envelope piece are huge for our customers, and that is the future, whether it’s in remodeling or home building. So we’ll continue to add pieces,” he said.
“We really want to be a great service for our customers,” he added. “And the great thing for me is, even though I’m an old guy, the next generation is already in the business. So I think the businesses are in good hands, and our customers are in good hands.”
