Little things add up to help Fasse Paint Company grow

When one looks back on the growth of Fasse Paint Company in Sheboygan Falls, this past year commemorating its 25th year in business, none of the above patterns seems to apply.

In 1964, Harvey Fasse opened up a retail paint store on Pine Street in Sheboygan Falls to complement his work as a painting contractor. Today, Fasse Paint encompasses not just retail paint, but also a full-line decorating center, an automotive division servicing both wholesale and retail clients, a wholesale division providing industrial coatings and finishes, and an aerosol paint packaging plant.

Jim Fasse, Harvey’s son and current corporate vice president, says the reason for the company growth has been its ability to provide small clients—primarily from local industry—with products and services that meet their needs. “Be being small, we have been able to work with budding manufacturers and developers of new products that are otherwise unable to acquire from large paint manufacturers the paints and coatings they need,” Jim says.

While large suppliers often require minimum orders too expensive or unwieldy for new or small industries, Fasse Paint is able to economically deal in much smaller quantities. Plus, the company can provide the one-to-one expertise often needed to refine and develop just the right product for their customers’ special needs.

The younger Fasse feels his father’s willingness to try new things also was a factor in the company’s growth. “He would spend long hours working and reworking product formulas for clients, often long after the client had given up hope of obtaining a workable solution,” Jim says. As a result, the client usually ended up with a successful product, instead of what would otherwise have been a dead one.

The most recent development in the Fasse operation is the expansion of the company’s aerosol packaging plant. Previously used primarily for preparing automotive touch-up paints, the plant is now concentrating on developing touch-up paints for industry.

With the recent addition of Ralph Worm as the Industrial Division’s director of new product development, Fasse is now able to service clients needing custom-matched touch-up paints for the products they manufacture, or converting their existing liquid paints into aerosols. Here again, Fasse’s strength has been its ability to work with and service clients on a small scale.

Fasse Paint’s growth has also come in its retail division. Fasse Decorating Center is probably the most visible sign of growth to the general public. As with the industrial division, growth in decorating products arose not from a sudden shift in the company’s focus, but, rather, from gradually adding products and services as customer needs demanded.

Over the years, the space constraints of the old store became too limiting to adequately display and stock the ever-expanding range of products. So, in late 1985,Fasse Paint purchased the land to the east of the existing store, all the way to the corner of Pine and Buffalo Streets. By late 1986, Fasse had remodeled the old building and built a 4,000-square-foot addition to house the Decorating Center. The old building now houses the Automotive Division and corporate office.

If there’s one other thing that Fasse Paint Company has going for it besides the knack of being able to deliver just what its customers need, and grow with them, it’s the commitment of Fasse’s employees. But then, there’s a very good reason for it, because it’s nearly impossible to stop by or call the store without encountering at least one employee that’s not a member of the Fasse extended family. All in all, nine of Fasse’s 32 employees are related. This starts with Harvey and Ruth Fasse, still very active in the operation, and extends across every department and division of the corporation.