BASCO CORP. TIMELINE
The local manufacturer of glass shower doors and enclosures celebrated its 60th anniversary in 2015.
1963: First to manufacture all shower enclosures with safety-tempered glass
1970: First line of frameless shower enclosures
1988: First curved glass bath enclosure
1994: Introduced a limited five-year warranty on parts and workmanship; that has since been extended to a lifetime warranty
1999: Launched sales and installation training center, known as Basco University
2005: Opened a new 4,500-square-foot, state-of-the-art training center
2010: Initially launches RODA semi-custom heavy glass frameless shower enclosure brand and re-launched in spring 2015
SOURCE: Basco
A fixture common in many home bathrooms today — an enclosed glass shower — is the brainchild of one local company that says it founded the original shower door and is now the largest maker of shower enclosures in the country.
Basco Corp., headquartered in Mason, celebrated in 2015 the 60th anniversary of its founding by Bill Rohde. Now under second generation leadership of son George Rohde, Basco averages production of about 100,000 custom-made shower doors a year, said Greg Weyman, vice president of marketing.
At first, the showers with sliding and swing-open doors helped keep the bathroom floor dry, Weyman said. But as the decades have passed, showers now are used to provide an almost spa-like experience, he said.
Responding to changing customer trends over time has been one of the company’s keys to survival, he said.
“I think it’s about staying in front of trends, what homeowners and the building construction market is looking for,” he said. “That glass utility is now a designer piece of the bathroom.”
Basco designs and fabricates shower doors and enclosures.
Customers of Basco products include plumbing wholesalers and suppliers for construction contractors. Homeowners and remodelers can also find Basco products in home improvement stores such as The Home Depot, Lowe’s and Menards, Weyman said. Increasingly, business is growing online, where customers can shop for home products on websites such as Wayfair Inc. and Amazon.com.
In addition to the Internet, growth opportunities are seen in commercial market bathrooms as well such as hotels, he said.
Also last year, Basco re-launched the Roda product line of heavy glass doors with less metal framing.
Basco has about 300 employees in Butler and Warren counties at its 250,000-square-foot headquarter and manufacturing operations in Mason, as well as an approximately 50,000-square-foot glass tempering plant in Fairfield, according to the company.
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