The Indispensable Man

BURTON A. BURTON RECOGNIZED only a handful of the 260 people crowded into the lunchroom to hear him speak. But he didn't need to know them to see that they were nervous about what he might say.

After all, Burton hadn't been around much in the past few years -- a time when the company he started and sold, Casablanca Fan Co., had taken a tumble. When he sold it in 1981, Casablanca boasted sales of nearly $50 million and a robust aftertax profit margin of around 21%. Now, less than four years later, the company has suffered a stunning reversal: it was facing losses of about $2.5 million. Employment had dropped by around 20%. Burton wasn't surprised when one of the owners called him that very morning. Would he consider taking over again? I'll give it a try, Burton replied.

Now he had to tell the employees, many of whom had never worked for him before. They all certainly knew his name. Not just because Burton Burton is a hard name to forget. So too was the man himself. His flair for marketing was company legend. He had spent more than $1 million to refurbish two old railroad cars and had toured around the country promoting the company; had built floats for the annual Rose Bowl parade; had made a promotional film in which one of his ceiling fans appeared almost to decapitate him. He used to hand out T-shirts that read "Blow Your Wad, Cool Your Bod with Casablanca Fans."

Blow your wad was right. Casablanca's fans were positioned at the premium end of the market, at least 50% higher in price than the average fan. The higher price reflected an increase in quality and styling -- but not that much of an increase. Most of the pricing premium was the result of Burton's marketing pizzazz. Here was an executive of a manufacturing company who refused to be drawn into a price war with his rivals from Hong Kong and Taiwan who were flooding the market with cheap fans. Burton played by his own rules, and these rules had raised an otherwise dreary business to the level of entertainment. Could anyone compete at that level with Burton? Could a Taiwanese industrialist tell better jokes than Eddie Murphy? "If you are going to sell $500 fans in a $200 market, you had better have something else to sell," says Walt Kirby, the company's former transportation manager. "Casablanca sells a mystique -- and it is Burton's mystique."

Alas, there is only one supplier of the Casablanca mystique. He left the company once, and someday he'll leave it again. "The next time I walk out of here," says the 59-year-old Burton, "it's going to be for good."

Like any company founder, Burton started out with a unique vision. He tailored Casablanca to fit that dream. But did he go too far? Is it possible that he infused his company with so much of that vision that it can't survive without him?

Jean Clyde Mason, an independent designer, likes to describe Burton in terms of one of his most passionate obsessions. "Burton," she says, "is on his own railroad." Appropriately enough, his journey to Casablanca began next to a railroad station in Pasadena, Calif., where he rented 3,000 square feet back in 1973.

Before that, he had run a small machine shop for about 15 years and had come "just as close as you ever want to be to going toes up," he recalls. It was an experience that would later serve him well. But in 1969, with sales peaking at around $800,000, he sold out to his partner.

Soon after, Burton rented the railroad station -- he even installed train whistles so he could toot at passing railroad cars -- and buried himself in another of his passions, antiques. The station was wall-to-wall with nickelodeons, slot machines, roulette wheels, gum-ball machines, chandeliers, and other collectibles. Some he restored and sold; others he kept for himself.

At one auction, Burton saw 300 ceiling fans sell out in three hours. In the 1930s, the advent of central air-conditioning had sent a chill through the ceiling-fan industry, but the nostalgia craze was fueling a comeback. Ever the practical hobbyist, Burton soon started pulling apart some of those vintage fans. He managed to make and sell a few pulley-driven units, but they were heavy and expensive.

So he started making fans powered by individual "barbecue motors," the motors that turn a spit over a grill. At 25 revolutions per minute, the fans weren't strong enough to move much air around, and their plastic gears broke easily. Elaine Pondant, who signed on as a Dallas sales representative, called them "trash with class." The fans looked much better than anything else on the market -- not that there was much competition. In the mid-1970s, there were only about 10 companies making ceiling fans. As rising energy prices made air-conditioning expensive, that figure rose quickly. By 1980, about 150 companies had jumped in, including many Far East competitors. They were producing models that retailed for around $150; most of Casablanca's fans sold for some $300.

At the time Burton started Casablanca, Hunter Fan Co. had the only brand name in the business. In fact, Hunter had virtually owned the ceiling-fan market going back almost to the Company's launch in 1886. But 90 years later, it was still making functional fans that weighed 50 pounds and weighed heavily on the eye. Burton, though, fashioned his products out of his love for antiques, and it showed. They were plated with an antique brass finish and were incredibly lightweight. The technology improved year by year. Burton saw the fans more as furniture than as cooling machines. "I don't like the low end of the market," he says. "It's not a challenge to get out there and see how cheaply you can make it."

By 1975, Casablanca was selling around $1 million in fans. A year later, sales soared to $7 million, and Casablanca was a major player in the industry. Demand became so crushing that Burton had to build a 12,000-square-foot, 24-foot-high warehouse in 90 days. By 1980, with sales at nearly $42 million, Casablanca had spilled into 10 buildings in Pasadena. "We almost fell into the fan business," says Thomas Frampton. "Then sales wouldn't stop climbing."