Month: May 2022

Dunbarton and the Independent Sales Rep Partnership

Over the past seven years with Dunbarton as a Regional Sales Manager, I have continued to learn new things each day within our ever-changing industry. One of the most important lessons that I have learned in my current role is the extreme importance of our strategic alignment with our external independent sales agencies. The ISR partnership is paramount to our successes or failures. It has led me to truly appreciate the critical role our independent sales agencies play within our organization and our industry.
Dunbarton continues to work directly with the best independent sales agencies across the county. Each agency focuses on being a valuable resource and a solution provider to our customers. Many of our sales agencies represent a variety of integral components to our customers that assist in completing the door opening. These many opportunities provide many valuable options to our customers.
We recently had a sales agency retire from the industry. I was able to experience firsthand how much daily interaction and product support our sales teams provide to our customers. Dunbarton’s extensive product lines, collaboration, communication, and day-to-day interaction are vital in supporting our customers in distributing our products. The number of touches from the project bid to complete installation typically spans over many months. Our sales teams provide technical support, feedback, and assistance throughout this complex process.

Mark Haavisto, Dunbarton Regional Sales Director, with ISR Scott Schelp, accepting the 2021 Commercial Vendor of the Year award from our customer, D&M Industries.

I am very proud to work with our incredible sales teams across the country. They do an outstanding job supporting Dunbarton and working directly with our customers and end-users. If you need a project quoted or a general product application question, I trust our teams will take care of any of your needs.

Best Regards,
Mark Haavisto
Dunbarton Regional Sales Director

We heart color!

Dunbarton has a long history of custom color projects. Our Dunbarton Partner, El & El Wood Supply, is working with a client whose project’s design team requires a durable factory finish with unlimited custom color options. Dunbarton’s Pre-Finish Hollow Metal and RediFrame® solutions were selected and continue to meet the challenge of this multi-phase project. The UC Davis Student Housing project in Sacramento, California, is unique due to several factors. We began working with the architect group in 2019, so the Dunbarton products could be used for this project in the specified prefinished custom color. RediFrame® is finished in a state-of-the-art paint assembly line with electrostatically applied, baked-on enamel. Dunbarton paint finish meets or exceeds the 200-hour salt spray test per ASTM–B117-97 and finished a 700-hour humidity test per ASTM–D1735-87. Dunbarton’s paint standards more than met the architects’ benchmarks, so the project was approved. We provided a mock sample of the RediFrame with their UC Davis Smokey Blue custom color in mid-2020, and once approved, production began on the project. Shipping started at the end of 2020, and Dunbarton awarded Phase 2 of the project in 2020. There was a color change for Phase 2 as this is for a different dorm on campus to a light green and tan. Like many businesses worldwide, Covid threw a kink in the production and installation during this time. We found that during Phase 1, our customer and ourselves could not over-commutate details on the size of the project. Therefore, we worked with El and El to set up a process to expedite the flow of Phase 2, ensuring their customer’s deadlines were met and didn’t fall behind schedule.

While we say no project is too large or too small, we should also add no color is too common or unique; this week, we are painting Show Stopper Red for a different client! Working with your local sales representative, like in this project EL and EL, is the best method to ensure your custom color matches up perfectly with your project spec. Additionally, having a knowledgeable, hands-on, Independent Sales Rep Agent like Jeff Halverson at Unified Solutions and Jeff’s Dunbarton Regional Sales Director, James Decker, are all tools available to ensure the standard and special projects get completed without a hitch.

Visit El and El Wood Supply’s website for more information on their full offerings!

For more information on RediFrame® or adjustable RediFlex® frames, visit our website. You may also order samples of Dunbarton’s standard colors via our website here.

Stay tuned for completed project pictures, but here is a sneak peak of the UC Davis project from Phase 2!

UC Davis Dorm Phase 2
UC Davis Dorm Phase 2
UC Davis Dorm