Owner of Fedder brings same intensity to job as he does to car racing

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As a teen, Christopher Fox differed from other guys his age in one way.

“My first magazine when I was a kid in high school was not Sports Illustrated or something like that. It was Fortune Magazine,” says the 55-year-old new owner and president of R.P. Fedder Industrial LLC. “I’m still teased about that to this day by my family and my wife and those that know me. But I’ve always just been fascinated by the operations of business and management. I always knew it would be this path, in some way, shape or form. That’s just the way I was wired.”

So it likely was little surprise to those who know him when early in his career Fox left a high-paying job to build an advisory business with no guarantees, or when last August he acquired Fedder, a Rochester-based supplier and manufacturer of custom filter solutions.

The company has a staff of 42, primarily at its west-side location, with a handful of people in a Buffalo facility and at a sales office in Syracuse. Annual revenues sit comfortably in the 8-digit range, Fox says, adding that Fedder is a business that can “easily grow 10 to 20 percent a year.”

“It was a successful company before I came,” he says. “We’re on the Rochester Top 100; that wasn’t because of anything I did.”

60 years in the making

Fedder was founded in 1959 by Bob Fedder, an engineer who had worked at one of Rochester’s Big Three manufacturers. The company designs, manufactures and supplies custom filters as one of its four core competencies.

“We’re basically a manufacturer for filters that go into industrial and medical products,” Fox explains. Examples include filters that go into dust collectors to reduce harmful particulates created by a grinding process. “Another product family that we do a lot in is laboratory test cages, where the air going into and coming out of the cages needs to be scrubbed and super-clean. They’re called HEPA filters.”

A second line of business is selling and distributing third-party filters that go into buildings. Those include filters you might see in your home filtration system.

“If it goes into a widget, we will make it,” Fox says. “If it goes into a building, we stock and distribute it. These are high-volume manufactured products that range from $1.25 to $10 or $12 or $20, but they’re not hundreds of dollars.”

Fedder also participates in the capital equipment arena, supplying clean room and work station air filtration equipment.

“This company was doing clean rooms before clean rooms were a thing,” Fox says. “We’ve been doing clean manufacturing environments for decades. And in Rochester, I can honestly say any company in the Rochester area that’s got clean room environments, Fedder’s had a big place in bringing those about.”

Fedder’s fourth line of business is in boilers.

“It doesn’t fit into anything in the filtration space, but it’s the same buyers: hospitals and schools,” Fox says. “That’s all distribution. That’s a side gig that’s turned into a fairly decent sized business for the company over the years.”

When Fox arrived last year, he found a company that was doing many things right.

“One of the most significant things it did is it had landed a really large manufacturing customer that for (Fedder) was an order magnitude larger than any other customer they’ve ever had,” Fox noted.

Fedder also had a strong team, he says.

“This is a business of 40 people; many of them have been here for decades. We had one person who just retired who was here for 50 years,” Fox says. “So a lot of experience, a lot of people here knew Bob Fedder back in the day and they’ve been with this company through thick and thin. There’s a lot of institutional knowledge here, a lot of commitment.”

A diverse background

Fox came to Fedder last August following a diverse career that saw him in design engineering for Texas Instruments, as head of global marketing for Xerox Corp. and running the services business of G.E.’s healthcare group, among other things.

“A lot of the tools that I learned early on as an engineer, problem-solving tools, I still use today,” Fox says. “I’m using them right now to help us find some ways to cut costs out and reduce scrap on our line. It’s amazing how I can look across all stages of my career and I can point to lessons learned or experiences gains that are relevant today.”

That first job at Texas Instruments taught Fox how to work with people that are at the ground level making things happen, and it taught him about teamwork, he says.

Fox says it wasn’t the lure of the filtration industry that made him excited about acquiring Fedder. Rather, it was the company’s long history in the industry, the possibility for growth and the skills he brought to buoy that growth.

“I’m a general manager. I’m a person that has a wide array of business experience. I’ve had corporate executive roles and management advisory roles. I have come up through the technical ranks,” he says. “I’ve had sales roles, marketing roles, strategy roles, GM roles, operations roles. And I’ve advised companies on big issues related to where to grow, how to turn things around, where to prioritize resources. Most all of my work is on what I call growing the topline, as opposed to cost-cutting and things like that.”

M&T Bank financed Fox’s acquisition of the company.

“Over the last 60 years, R.P. Fedder has built a reputation for helping customers solve challenges by delivering customized solutions to meet their individual needs,” said M&T Bank Regional President Dan Burns. “At M&T Bank, we take a similar approach to serving our customers—which made us a great fit to help R.P. Fedder open this next chapter in its history. We share Christopher Fox’s belief in this business and we’re excited to see it continue to grow in the years ahead.”

Fox has made growth his first goal at Fedder.

“In the business world, growth is the food that keeps the body alive. You have to grow,” he says. “If you’re not growing and the markets are growing around you, that means you’re losing share. And that’s not sustainable.”

To that end, Fedder has begun beefing up its Buffalo branch, hiring individuals for customer account management and in its warehouse. The company also is purchasing new equipment that will allow the firm to make custom-sized filters in Buffalo for next-day and same-day delivery in the market.

Fox acknowledges that when Fedder won its large client, several smaller clients may have felt neglected, and new business development fell by the wayside. He aims to change that.

“So initiative No. 1 is to revitalize the business development engine for our manufacturing side. And we’ve started by just reconnecting with our existing customers and recent past customers,” Fox says. “We’re blowing on the embers.”

Fedder’s other big opportunity is a longer term investment that will take advantage of the company’s insight in certain markets.

“There’s two applications in particular that we’re poking at where we might have some novel opportunities to build a more integrated business. Integrated meaning we design, assemble all the componentry, work with partners to build and implement,” Fox hints. “One’s in the hospital OR (operating room) space, or more specifically, in the ancillary surgical centers, where we’ve got some intellectual property on how to bring about ultra-clean operating theaters.”

The situational leader

Fox describes his management style as situational.

“My role as a leader here is first and foremost to set the vision: where are we going, how are we going to get there, what are our priorities and then allocate the resources, move the chess pieces around to help make those possible,” he explains. “So I’m definitely a visionary leader in that regard, and a strategist.”

He describes himself as at times a coach or a mentor and at other times as a side-by-side leader.

“For execution, I’m much more of ‘what can I do to help the various parties achieve whatever their particular missions are?’” Fox says. “In some cases that’s about just getting the hell out of the way, making sure they have the resources—financial and human—they need to get it done. I’m not going to get in their way.”

Megan Eaton, Fedder’s marketing communications manager, has known Fox for about a decade. She served as his executive assistant when he was a senior partner at McMann & Ransford, a Houston-based management consulting firm. She describes Fox as the smartest person she has ever worked with.

“Within a couple of minutes of hearing a problem he’s unraveled it, he’s started developing solutions, and I think that’s the underpinning of what makes him a success, as well as a good leader,” Eaton says. “His brain is constantly looking for ways to improve things, monetize things. He’s really good at monetizing things.”

And he’s good at finding efficiencies, she adds, and he is loyal.

“He’s a guy who makes waves in the world and brings folks along with him to enjoy the ride,” Eaton says.

When Fox arrived at Fedder, he made no bones about his lack of knowledge of the filtration industry, says company purchasing manager Michele Ludeke, who has been with Fedder for 37 years.

“He’s very open, very big on communication,” Ludeke says, agreeing with Eaton’s assessment of Fox’s loyalty. “He’s honest and open and tells it like it is. He’s taken a great role as far as keeping it family oriented.”

And while Fedder’s atmosphere is that of a family-owned business that takes pride in its employees—a trait Fox isn’t looking to change—Ludeke says her new boss also brings “good, new things” to the plant and office.

The company’s success, Ludeke says, is a result of its people, many of whom have been there for decades.

“If you didn’t have that core team you’d see some problems in the growth of the company,” she explains. “Leadership is another big factor. The owners are always looking out for our families and making sure the changes they make are talked about and reviewed. They don’t just come in and say this is how it’s being done.”

Adds Eaton: “I would describe the atmosphere as solid. People have been at the company for 35 years, so the company is doing something really right when people want to stay. When I see this company, people who are there are in it for the long haul. That’s impressive. It speaks to Bob Fedder’s original vision. I’m excited to see that continue and see Chris’ ability to grow the company beyond what anybody thought possible.”

Fox says he enjoys all aspects of his new job, but that’s not to say there aren’t challenges. From an industry viewpoint, Fedder has a good deal of competition, despite a gradual consolidation. Within the company, Fox and his team must wrestle with the pace of change.

“I’m coming in, I have ideas, I have energy, I have a lot of my personal net worth on the line, … I’ve put my chips down and I’m playing the hand—failure’s not an option,” Fox says.

He is a big believer in controlling one’s own destiny.

“The folks that achieve professional happiness really can’t leave their fate to the eddies and currents of whatever’s happening around them,” Fox advises. “Jump in the boat, grab some oars, set a direction and go. But most importantly, don’t be afraid to define what your future state looks like, define what you want your professional life to be.”

At home

Fox was born in Ohio but spent his formative teen years in Rochester. He has lived in numerous locales including Buffalo, Boston, New York City, London and elsewhere. He and his wife of 25 years, Karen Bentley, now call Bushnell’s Basin home.

When he took the job with Xerox in 2000, he was based in Connecticut, while his wife was working with a large ad agency in New York City. Although she was not overjoyed when Fox was to be relocated to Rochester, she supported him, he says, as she has with all of his other moves, including the decision to acquire Fedder.

“She was really supportive of this move. And for anybody who goes through the process of trying to buy a small company, it’s a draining process,” Fox says. “Some folks would say, wait a minute, you’re not going to take our nest egg and go and plunk it down on anything. She has faith that I know what I’m doing. She’s the balancing force. If I need the encouragement, she pushes me. If I’m being aggressive, she meters me. I joke that we’re Chris and Karen Inc. She has a role in Chris and Karen Inc., even though it may not always be obvious, but that partner role is really important to the success of Chris and Karen Inc.”

She was not quite as supportive, though, when Fox decided to take up racecar driving, a hobby a friend introduced him to and which has led to his becoming a national Porsche instructor and national BMW High Performance Driver Education instructor.

“My wife’s journey was, ‘I’m just going to pretend you’re not going and hopefully it’s a phase and you’ll get over it,’ to, ‘I’m not happy about it but I’m not going to win an argument telling you you can’t go, so we’re just not going to talk about it,” Fox says of the first couple of years he participated in the sport.

But while he did lose one car to an accident in which he wasn’t hurt, Bentley gradually warmed up to the idea of her husband racing. In fact, last year she agreed to ride with him.

“She took a ride and she got out of the car and I thought she was teasing me because she’s always got this sarcasm. We finished the laps and she said, ‘Oh my god, that was better than Disney World.’ My wife loved it. Today she’s very supportive and enjoys it.”

Fox has had a number of defining moments in his life and career. The decision to apply to Harvard Business School was one.

“I was a state school student. I was an engineer, not an investment banker. I was an unremarkable candidate,” he says. “It was the only school I applied to and somehow I got in. In orientation they said, ‘A lot of you sitting out there in the audience probably think you’re an (admittance) mistake. We’ve been doing this for 100 years, trust us, you’re not.”

The decision to leave the corporate world behind and build an advisory business around his experience was another such moment. But that work provided Fox with the resources he needed to acquire Fedder.

“When the time came to do something like this, it was also a pretty significant bet on myself, and part of me goes, at this stage in my career, why gamble? Why try? I could retire or just coast and pad the retirement account,” he recalls. “But I still have a lot of energy, a lot of desire. I just love working on businesses. To me, this is like tinkering on a car. I want to go create this high-performance engine or car. It’s just a high-performance business instead.”

[email protected] / 585-653-4021 / @Velvet_Spicer

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Christopher Fox

Title: President, R.P. Fedder Industrial LLC

Age: 55

Education: Bachelor of science degree, mechanical engineering, University at Buffalo, 1987; MBA, Harvard Business School, 1992

Family: Wife, Karen Bentley

Home: Bushnell’s Basin

Hobbies: Golf, boating, racecar driving, working on businesses

Quote: “In the business world, growth is the food that keeps the body alive. You have to grow. If you’re not growing and the markets are growing around you, that means you’re losing share. And that’s not sustainable.”