Walter Stucky joined window and door profile extruder Veka at its Fombell, Pa., headquarters in 1988 as plant manager after working 11 years for three extruded building-products companies in his native Germany. He was named a vice president in 1989 and became executive VP the following year. In July 2001 he was appointed president of Veka Inc., which reported 2002 sales of $136 million and is growing quickly via expansion and acquisition. The firm bought the Berlinex Inc. plant in western Canada last summer, has a joint venture in Chile, a sales and distribution arm in Mexico, and is busy now expanding its plant in Reno, Nev., for the second time in 18 months. Between its Fombell and Reno plants, Veka Inc. now operates 78 extruders in almost 850,000 square feet of factory space.
The 36-year-old Veka parent company in Germany describes itself as the world's largest extruder of vinyl lineals for the window, door, fence, deck and railing industry, with more than 3,000 employees, manufacturing facilities in 16 countries and annual worldwide sales exceeding $800 million.
After graduating from the University of Stuttgart with a master's degree in engineering, Stucky worked seven years for the Elbatainer GmbH division of Schmalbach-Lubeca, then joined Aluplast GmbH (created by Schmalbach's spinoff of its window and door division) in Ettlingen, before moving to Forbo GmbH in Frankfurt, where he was technical director and then commercial director.