Anyone who visits us in Oklahoma quickly discovers a consistent fact of life in our great state: it is windy. Combine this wind with a few dry years and the result is a nice dust storm. This was the situation in the 1920s when L.A. Macklanburg built his first form of weatherstrip in order to keep the dust from coming under his front door. He then built a brass-folding hand-crank weatherstrip machine and took his product to the Oklahoma State Fair in early July, 1920 and thus a new entity was born.
With his lead salesman, H.M. Duncan, L.A. incorporated Macklanburg-Duncan on July 4, 1920. Located on 211 West First Street in Oklahoma City, Macklanburg sold his 'NuMetal Weatherstrip' to small hardware stores throughout the country and world, eventually relocating his one hundred employees to 123 West 23rd Street in 1930. About fifteen years later, Macklanburg-Duncan began a relationship that has grown over sixty years, becoming one of the first vendors to partner with a small company from North Carolina: Lowe's. After more than twenty years at their second location, Macklanburg-Duncan moved to the outskirts of the city on 40th Street and Santa Fe, our current location. Along with the new building came two Lake Erie aluminum extrusion presses, one in 1953 and the other in 1955. These presses gave Macklanburg-Duncan the ability to make many different types of aluminum profiles and enter many different markets.
Over the next few decades, Macklanburg-Duncan served its customers throughout the country with many different products: our original weatherstrips, thresholds, caulks and sealants, flooring metals and even mailboxes and post toppers! We continued to innovate during this period, becoming the first company to put caulk in a tube for consumer use and perfecting the wood "American Level". We also began another very important relationship in 1979 with The Home Depot, one that remains strong to this day. In 1992, Macklanburg-Duncan acquired SmartTool in California as a supplement to our strong vial level business. With the leadership of Bill Hulsey, Dick Gaugler and Mike Samis Macklanburg-Duncan became a strong leader in the home improvement industry and a stalwart of home sealing and decor.
In 2000, Macklanburg-Duncan divested its caulk and sealant business to GE and was re-named M-D Building Products. With this divestiture, M-D became better able to manage itself as the leader in non-chemical home sealing and floor products. SmartTool was moved to Oklahoma City and our Georgia Facility was transformed into a job shop-type operation. Over the next few years management refocused the company and made significant operations investments. These investments included aligning our operations with those of our customers, installing rigid vinyl extrusion lines in M-D's Gainesville plant, bringing in sublimation capabilities and growing our extrusion capabilities with the installation of a 2250 ton UBE press.
In 2007, the current management team bought out the Macklanburg Family after three generations of leadership and involvement in the company. Led by majority share-holder Loren Plotkin's staff, the M-D team has continued to forge forward with a renewed vigor as the leader in energy efficiency products, floor trims, floor installation tools, digital level technology and quality standards for our OEM customers.
Learn more about our Management Team here
Learn more about our sustainability initiatives here
