by Jeremy Nulik
If being green is sexy, then EPC (Executive Personal Computers) is one of our country’s sexiest companies. Last year, the St. Charles-based electronics de-manufacturer and reseller was honored as one of the St. Louis Business Journal’s Heroes of the Planet. And this year the city of St. Charles recognized EPC as the Employer of the Year in the category of Energy Efficiency.
These awards have not come without merit. EPC has a no-landfill policy for all electronics it processes, so all used equipment and packaging is resold or recycled. The company also has membership in the National Recycling Coalition, the National Association for Information Destruction and other watchdog organizations.
However, according to Dan Fuller, founder and president of EPC, the company has not made these efforts to be sexy. For him, the success of the company has much more to do with taking a gamble on new opportunities than making feel-good attempts to be environmentally friendly.
“I did not have an environmental background or environmental goals,” says Fuller. “I am a capitalist. I will offer a green solution as long as there is a good business reason for doing it, and in the technology industry there is a valid business need. And it made sense from a business perspective to offer that solution.”
The green solution Fuller speaks of offers clients peace of mind about where their old electronics go. When corporations or individuals are changing out their technology, they can drop their old PCs, monitors, keyboards, laptops, computer bags and even lobby ATMs with EPC. Then EPC painstakingly picks apart every component; cleans it up; and, if possible, resells the item in its 8,000-square-foot retail space in St. Charles or posts it on eBay. If the item cannot be resold, then it will head to an e-scrap processing facility. All of the components, packaging, plastic, steel and even foam are disassembled and recycled.
Fuller has traveled a long road to make EPC what it is today—with 205 employees in four locations nationwide and $30 million in revenue last year. While Fuller has created a business that sustains both the environment and the bottom line, it has been a 25-year journey of constant challenges.
Picking Up The Pieces
On Oct. 4, 1984—back when “being green” wasn’t part of the lexicon—Fuller, an insurance broker at the time, and a business partner decided to start selling items called “portable computers” to executives. These computers, called Senior Partners, each weighed 45 pounds and had a built-in printer and a small, creamed-spinach-colored monitor. Fuller and his partner stored materials in an oversized closet and printed business cards, and EPC was born.
Things went well for several months, but after a year, Fuller’s business partner suddenly left after creating more than $150,000 in business debt. It easily could have been the end of EPC. But Fuller saw the fledging young company as having enough potential to continue.
“I was not going to go bankrupt,” says Fuller. “I picked up the business and ran it with no knowledge of computers. My wife, Robin, became my business partner. We just had a small classified ad that read ‘Computers for Sale.’ I hired a 16-year-old kid as my technician. I worked a lot of hours and got lucky.”
Turning (Almost Unknowingly) Green
Fuller’s apparent luck helped EPC steadily grow through the 80s. But computers were becoming a much more common business item, and by the mid-90s more retail competition had shown up. Fuller could sell a new computer for $2,000 and make only $100 of profit. And since Best Buy, CompUSA, Dell and other retailers were also available to consumers, EPC was averaging only one computer sale a day.
Again, Fuller found himself at a crossroads. How could he compete with the volume and prices of larger retailers? That was when he made a risky decision that would drastically change the direction of his business.
“We took a wild pitch on selling some used stuff by taking parts we acquired in trade-ins and built used computers,” says Fuller. “We could sell a $400 used computer and make $300 in profit. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure this out. For 20% the cost of a new computer, I could make three times as much money. At that time there was only one company in St. Louis that was selling used computers. So we got heavy into it almost right away.”
Taking Green To Corporate America
Suddenly, Fuller shifted his business into the oldest form of green technology: reusing equipment. He developed a contract with an equipment leasing company that supplied EPC with a steady stream of used computers. Until Sept. 11, that is.
“After Sept. 11, leasing returns dried up because companies panicked about what to do with their technology,” says Fuller. “So I had guys standing at the dock and waiting for trucks.”
How could EPC survive if people were not leasing new computers or equipment? Fuller was confident in EPC’s solution and decided to offer it directly to corporate America and expand his source of used equipment. By this time, more large companies wanted to be seen as environmentally friendly, and EPC’s solution was just what some of them had been looking for.
“We secured an account with GE Commercial Finance,” says Fuller. “They were closing a data center in St. Louis, and they instructed us on how they needed the life cycle of the equipment to be completed in terms of recycling and disposal. We built our de-manufacturing and recycling program that we still use to this day from their requirements.”
Continuing To Take Risks On Green Technology
Originally, EPC partnered with other contractors to complete the life cycle of equipment. However, after discovering that the other companies were shipping crates of material to developing countries, Fuller brought all de-manufacturing in-house. EPC now offers clients the opportunity to see exactly what happens to their equipment after it leaves their docks, which Fuller says has been a huge selling point to corporate clients and a key to the success of EPC.
“We don’t hide anything,” says Fuller. “We operate with full disclosure that is very transparent. We have created a technology for the customer that is better than our competition.”
After working with larger clients for several years, Fuller started noticing a common complaint. Out of fear of litigation or a data breach, clients were pulling the hard drives out of all their equipment before sending it to EPC. They ended up with storage rooms full of hard drives, which is not very secure. After hearing enough complaints, Fuller decided to make his E-Scrap Processing Center mobile. “We realized that we had a shredder and trucks, so why not combine them?” he says. “We used the mobile paper-shredding model and gave our clients secured bins to put hard drives into. I purchased two trucks and equipped them with the technology to do a complete processing. After only two years, they have more than paid for themselves.”
The addition of the Data Destruction & Recycling Vehicle (DDRV) trucks and other technical support has helped EPC weather the current recession. Since the price of new computers has dropped drastically and the volume of equipment processing is increasing, Fuller is excited at the possibilities that enhanced services could offer his business.
One thing is certain: Whatever economic meltdown or industry shift may happen next, Fuller and his team at EPC will find new ways to navigate the tectonic plates of business. The company has a knack for finding new opportunities, a trait that Fuller sees as instrumental to entrepreneurial success.
“You hear all time that there are not any new opportunities, and I think there are a world of new opportunities,” says Fuller. “I think you just need to keep your eyes open and pay attention. We would not have these DDRV trucks on the road unless the customer had suggested that they had a need. We came up with the solution as a result of customer need—paying attention and being creative.”
He says that benefiting from a new opportunity requires a willingness to stick your neck out and make it happen.
“I’m a gambler,” he says. “The bottom line is that in addition to being lucky and working hard, I have taken a lot of risks. Ninety percent of them worked out well and 10% haven’t. You have to be able to risk. It is just money, so you can make more of that. If you are afraid to take risk, you are never going to go anywhere.”