Entrepreneur Dan Rolfes puts his image on holiday
Business Courier of Cincinnati - by Dan Monk Senior Staff Reporter
Media
Holiday Homes founder Dan Rolfes, the man behind the wacky "Red Tag Man" mobile home commercials, is consolidating more than two dozen partnership stakes under a new holding company, with an eye toward moving his corporate image away from trailer parks and toward licensing ventures and a green-building initiative.
"I branded Holiday Homes so strongly that it's hard to be anything else," said Rolfes, a 65-year-old serial entrepreneur whose business interests include several trailer parks; a handful of commercial developments; a mortgage company; an insurance brokerage; an 8 percent stake in Milford's 8-year-old community bank, CenterBank; and a floor-cleaning company whose grout-cleaning system is close to a national distribution deal.
A whole new image
"Manufactured housing is now a minority of the business," said Rolfes. "It's hard to be the chairman of a bank in your red underwear. The market has a hard time accepting such things."
So, Rolfes is rebranding his companies under the MeridianMark Management LLC name. He hired Wordsworth Communications to develop a rollout strategy for the brand. And he's asked attorney Paul Muething to help him consolidate his companies under the same corporate umbrella.
It's no small assignment. The 33 companies in which Rolfes holds an ownership stake include only 16 that his family owns entirely and four in which they hold a majority stake. The others range from 8 percent to 50 percent ownership. Combined, they employ about 150 people and generate close to $100 million in annual revenue, Rolfes said.
The size of the empire was tough to predict in 1968, when the Midland Co. took a chance on financing. But the investment paid off, as Rolfes not only paid back the $100,000 loan but became a loyal seller of Midland's American Modern Insurance products.
"There are lots of folks who are great salesmen, but Dan had financial instincts and acumen to go along with it," said Midland Co. CEO John Hayden. "We've been good business partners."
The corporate realignment has an element of succession planning. Rolfes is hoping to turn things over to his daughter Carolyn in the next few years. The 33-year-old Rolfes has been preparing for stewardship by running Potterhill Homes LLC, an infill developer she co-founded with her father eight years ago. She's been active in the Clermont County Chamber of Commerce and the local home builders association, and last spring she completed Xavier University's executive MBA program.
"In the next couple of years, we'll figure out the succession plan," she said. "It was destined to be, even when I didn't know that's what I wanted to do."
The Rolfes companies endured a rough year in 2007, as the nation's housing slump and credit crunch caused demand for entry-level housing to evaporate. The four home-building companies owned by Rolfes sold fewer than 300 homes last year, about half of them manufactured homes. At its peak, Holiday Homes was selling 1,000 of those a year, Rolfes noted. The enterprises collectively had their first net loss since 1970.
"These are crazy times," Rolfes said. "But ... there are some opportunities that I don't think we've seen in a long time."
A chance to clean up
One of those is Complete Floor Solutions LLC, a cleaning company Rolfes co-owns with the Miller family, which owns locally based Jancoa Janitorial Services Inc. It developed a high-pressure cleaning system called the Grout Wizard for restrooms in commercial properties. For the last two years, it has been refining the process with the goal of licensing it to a Fortune 500 company that Rolfes declined to identify. He provided the name for verification; the firm confirmed it's working with Rolfes but said it's several months away from being ready to talk.
"There are 55,000 carpet cleaning companies in the U.S. None of them owns the commercial market," Rolfes said.
Another licensing venture involves a new production system that gives manufactured home sellers a cheaper alternative to factory-built products. Rolfes is seeking a patent on the process, which involves negotiating arrangements with vendors to deliver materials as they're needed for on-site assembly. Rolfes' home-building companies have been using the system in-house for months. Now, they are offering the service to clients and hoping to find a chain to license it.
"I think it can revolutionize the manufactured housing industry," Rolfes said.
Finally, MeridianMark is hoping to carve out a niche as a green home builder by selling homes built to energy-efficiency and sustainability standards defined by the U.S. EPA, the U.S. Green Building Council, the National Homebuilders Association and the American Lung Association. Four companies under the MeridianMark umbrella will offer homes built to any sustainability standards at price points as low as $130,000.
"All of our companies will have to adhere to these standards," Rolfes said. "That's what we want to be known for."
dmonk@bizjournals.com | (513) 337-9438
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