Futon Life Winter 1996     VOL 8 NO 4

Fifteen Years - and Still Going Strong

When you fly into Ontario, CA you can't help but notice the hundreds of single story, football field size buildings below. One building, a Toyota plant, I discovered later, is the largest building of its kind in North America. Among these many structures is the new home of a unique company celebrating a fifteen year anniversary the very weekend of my arrival. In the scope of US corporate history fifteen years is nothing, but in the futon world fifteen years is ancient. Steve Leichter, now the president of Futons By Harlee International, picked me up at the airport and we headed to the new company headquarters in Corona.

"Corona recently celebrated its 100 year anniversary," said Leichter. He told me several stories about the city's past including one about race driver Barney Oldefield who sped around the ring like road that circles the city (hence the name Corona) in 1914 at one-hundred miles per hour, while crowds of thousands cheered him on in the warm California sun.

We soon arrived at one of those football field sized buildings. Leichter pulled over and said, "This is where we were last summer but it was just too small to handle our in-stock futon frame inventory." He explained the company's philosophy of carrying three months of finished goods at all times. "We also had some futon furniture inventory over there," pointing to another building across the street, "but it was still getting too tight for us to be able to service our customers in a timely fashion."

We drove around a few more corners and into the parking lot of another huge facility. "This is our new home," said a smiling Leichter. They had just moved in, two months earlier, in September. "We are very proud of what my dad started fifteen years ago," he said. "We plan to keep it up for at least another fifteen."

Steve Leichter, Harlee president, is a man committed to his business and the futon category.

Harvey Leichter had started his professional career working as a furniture importer during the fifties. "I remember my dad telling us the stories about post-war Japan. He would go in and buy up the teak decks of Japanese war ships being broken up by the US Navy. That weathered teak made some great furniture," said Leichter. After twenty or so years in the furniture business, working his way up through the ranks, for someone else, Harvey decided to venture out on his own. "My dad had a simple plan when he started Futons by Harlee in 1981. I can still hear him talking about, 'quality, dependability and service'. We will never move away from those basic values," he said.

The company actually started on a coffee table in Leichter's childhood home in Long Beach. Several months later they moved to a store front location in Los Alamitos as a small industrial fastener company. "Our first building was an 800 square foot storefront space in a strip mall. In fact we still have a small industrial fastener business to accommodate those customers who are still with us from back then," said Leichter. He reminisced about unloading that first container of screws, nuts and bolts, and also shipping the first order for the fledgling company.

During the waterbed boom of the mid eighties Harlee began to expand into hardware for waterbed frames and also began to manufacture vinyl waterbed liners for the rapidly growing category. In fact, Harlee continues to supply several different products to a still shrinking flotation customer base. "I also remember my dad commenting that we were only a $12 part of a $1500 waterbed retail sale. Furniture, the wooden part of the product, was where he really wanted to be. That's why it was such a natural transition for us to move into the futon furniture business. It's real furniture," he said. As things grew and the company expanded they moved into a space in Garden Grove and then into what they thought was a huge space in Corona. "Our first space in Corona was so big it looked like you could land a plane in it. Six months later we had outgrown it."

My tour of the company's new digs began as we walked through the front door. I was in a futon furniture showroom - a Harlee futon furniture showroom. "When we designed the layout for this space we planned everything for expansion and our continuing vision of growth through innovation. We thought about every square inch of space and how it would serve us five years down the road," said Leichter. He showed me a huge closet which I quickly discovered could become an office, if needed. "Every space is wired for telephones and our computer network," he said.

This computer network is vital part of the Harlee vision. "Anyone on the network can instantly know anything about futon frame inventory levels, shipping details, billing issues, etc.. We wanted to bring this company into the twenty-first century so we would always be ready to deliver those basic values of quality, dependability and service that my dad had instilled into this company, as well as bring futon industry to a level of design leadership it sorely needs," said Leichter.

Harlee's new tag line, "The Design Leader" tells the story of Steve Leichter's perception of his company's future.