FreMarq History- By Owner/President Todd Frederick
Like so many others in the aluminum curtain wall and window industry, once you are in, you tend to stay. I started in 1982, which doesn’t seem like it, but that was 39 years ago. I started as a draftsman for a great company and worked my way up to Engineering Manager. In 1996 I left that company to start my own and never looked back. Over those past 39 years, I have had the pleasure of meeting and working with a lot of great people in this business, and I appreciate each one of them.
I am old enough to remember the oil crisis in the ’70s. That led us to be more energy conscious, and in our industry, led us to; insulated glass, thermally broken framing, and Low E coatings on the glass. This continued to improve over the years, but only marginally. U-values continued a downward trend but primarily due to the glass performance. Glass has gone from single Low E coatings in a dual glazed unit to triple glazed with dual Low E, always making the frame the weak link. Sure, the framing improved somewhat over the past couple of decades by incorporating alternative thermal breaks like polyamide or incorporating dual thermal breaks, but nothing industry-changing. It seemed everyone was happy being inside the same box, not willing to venture out.