SOUTH SIOUX CITY — Exploring new opportunities for growth is something executives at Gerkin Windows and Doors have always been open to.
That’s one reason why the 85-year-old South Sioux City manufacturer of residential vinyl and aluminum window and door products has been able to not only stay afloat, but prosper over decades of operations.
One catalyst for the company’s recent growth has been the increasing demand for commercial-style aluminum windows in residential construction inside of the company's customer demographic area, which is considered to be about a 500 mile radius around its corporate headquarters.
Scott Gerkin, vice president of sales for Gerkin, noted this style of window, which typically features floor to ceiling glass that allow more light into the home, has been popular on the coasts and waterfront properties for a while, but has caught on in the Midwest.
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“Until we kind of came across that opportunity, we had only been using aluminum windows for commercial use, and now we found a really nice niche for that on the residential use,” he said.
Besides a willingness to innovate, Scott Gerkin, a company employee of more than 30 years, also credited the manufacturer’s strict quality standards for its success.
“The reason that I think we have done very well is that our mission has been to build the highest-quality product with a great value and not wavering from that mentality,” he said.
The grandson of Virgil Gerkin, who founded the company in 1932, Scott Gerkin knows the company’s culture and reputation.
He noted that even after his father and uncle sold the company to Midwest Energy — a predecessor to Mid-American Energy Co. — in 1985 or when the Schneider family took ownership in 1991, the original Gerkin quality standards remained intact.
“Sometimes there’s a push on the market to build cheaper, but that’s not anything we’ve ever wanted to do,” Scott Gerkin said. “The culture here is to offer the best quality, the best value and to have very good service to go with that.”
Innovative and quality products coupled with steady growth has served the commercial and residential vinyl and aluminum window and door products manufacturer well since it relocated from Sioux City to South Sioux City in 1991.
In 2004, just 13 years after the move across the river, Gerkin built a new 170,000-square-foot plant/headquarters at 5000 Rhino Road, which is named after the company’s Rhino commercial aluminum window and door series.
Only a few years into the new facility, Gerkin needed another expansion so that it could increase the production of insulated glass, and that 30,000-square-foot plant opened up across the street at 3405 Daniels Lane in 2013.
“That allowed for us more room to bring in new equipment for existing product lines and expand our capabilities of production,” Scott Gerkin said.
Even with the extra room from moving insulated glass production across the street, Scott Gerkin said space was still tight at the main facility, which prompted the company to break ground on a 73,000-square-foot addition to its Rhino Drive campus late last year.
“We are just going to expand everything that we have now in this existing plant,” he said. “It gives us more room to increase our capacity for production, more room for additional material and more room for finished goods and processing the shipping.”
The new addition is expected to be complete sometime in 2018, but Gerkin was not sure if it would lead to additional jobs. At the end of 2016, Gerkin Windows and Doors had just over 200 employees company-wide.
“We’ve had an increase in workforce this year and we’ll see where that goes — I can’t say for sure where that’s going to take us — but as the company continues to grow, we will certainly be hiring people as needed,” Scott Gerkin said.
While his family may no longer own the company, Scott Gerkin is proud of the legacy his grandfather started, and that his father and uncle carried on continues to be well represented nearly nine decades after it began.
“They’ve always been one to go after high-quality product lines, and to see the Schneiders take on the same mentality and expand the size of the company and the quality of the products with new products over the years has been extremely exciting to see and fun to be part of,” he said.
