How does a company grow from a two-man operation selling only cotton canvas in 1974 to a multi-warehouse, globally connected textile powerhouse in 50 years? The answer for TVF (known for decades as Top Value Fabrics) involves being responsive to customer needs and market demands. As you’ll read, there is more to the story… including some future-forward decisions at crucial times.
Two of TVF’s most influential team members, Vice President of Business Development Robert Hinsch and Classic and Vinyl Program Director Bob Burns, are still heavily involved in our success. They have a combined 75 years of experience at TVF and recently took the time to walk through TVF’s storied history of our ever-evolving textile catalog.
How it all started
“At the beginning, the company started with cotton canvas,” says Bob. “They started selling single fill duck… tarp grade.” As the story is told, the founders, Dick Hanzel and Dick Leventhal, worked together for several years at Hoosier Tarpaulin & Canvas Goods Co. in Indianapolis before launching Top Value Fabrics, today known as TVF Inc. The two decided to join forces to start their own business, which had modest beginnings.
Soon, this small product offering of greige goods and paraffin-coated cotton ducks used for tarps would be staples until more advanced materials became available. By the time Bob started in 1986, offerings had grown to include cotton number ducks, single-fill cotton ducks, army ducks, marine duck fabrics like Sunforger®, and some acrylic-coated outdoor awning and umbrella fabrics. Bob, a significant contributor to TVF’s success, started with TVF the same year our current headquarters opened at 401 W. Carmel Drive in Carmel, Indiana.
Vinyls and nylon rising
By the mid-to-late ’80s, our product offerings expanded significantly into vinyl and synthetic marine fabrics, which we still carry today. During the same period, various-weight nylon was added.
Global sourcing grows
Robert Hinsch joined TVF in 1987. He not only initiated the expansion of our physical geographic footprint in the U.S., opening sales and distribution locations in California and Washington, but he also introduced TVF to sourcing material globally.
When Robert joined our team, Bob recalls that he had experience with imported fabrics.
At first, the imports were a tough sell for a highly domestic-minded team. “At the time,” Bob continues, “we started very slowly, bringing in small quantities to test the market and quality. We did so with our California operation. But we could see the imports were here to stay, so I started pushing management to bring inventory to Indiana.”
Robert adds, “The team was apprehensive about imported textiles at the time.” TVF was and is today all about domestically produced textiles and finished products. Still, it recognized that offering imported materials expanded the offerings our customers could use and helped them remain competitive in an ever-changing market.
Robert’s previous employer, who is known today as Brookwood, helped Robert see that the textile industry was much bigger than just the United States. TVF’s inventory had meager beginnings and was initially kept in a 500-1,000-square-foot portion of Robert’s family’s warehouse space. James Durant, a current TVF senior sales consultant, and Robert used that space for several months to jump-start things, and that it did. We quickly gained traction, leading to a new 3,000-square-foot warehouse and office in Torrance, California. When he first joined TVF, Robert operated a commercial insurance brokerage alongside the new West Coast startup of TVF. Roberts’s true love was in textiles, and he eventually sold the agency to focus his time on building the textile operation.
“That’s how I got into the forecast side of it,” recalls Bob. “I said, ‘I’ll tell you what, if you bring inventory to Indiana, I will keep track of the inventory and help with the ordering.’ So that’s when we began bringing imported nylon and polyesters to Indiana, and sales took off quickly… (and) gave us the jumpstart we needed and gave the salespeople in Indiana the confidence they needed… It took a while for customers to feel comfortable using an imported product, but with the price savings and often better quality than domestic products, customers could quickly see this transition could help them enter markets they couldn’t before.
Options expanding
In the mid-1990s, TVF added a vinyl division with early offerings of 14 oz., 18 oz., and 22 oz. textiles. Currently, we stock 8 oz. to 40 oz. vinyl-coated polyester and vinyl-laminated polyester ranging from 10 oz to 18oz. “We went big into the vinyl market – mainly 18 oz. – and we priced the goods very competitively to make a big splash,” Bob says. “From there, we were off to the races.”
New horizons
Dick Hanzel had an eye for opportunities and taking calculated risks with both people and products. For the initial vinyl startup period, his eye was on the PVC-coated and laminated polyester market in a big way. Robert says, “We lived and breathed vinyl, which today is a significant program for TVF. Dick never did anything halfway. He was all in or not at all.” Focused on that mindset, TVF took a substantial position on inventory to ensure we wouldn’t miss no matter what customer demands were thrown at us. Robert recalls one of Dick’s famous sayings, “’ Don’t ever have a cocktail party and run out of shrimp!’ and that is precisely what we did with inventory; we never ran out of shrimp…”
Dick Leventhal would leave the company in 2001, selling his stake in the company to Dick Hanzel. Leventhal returned in July to speak at the opening presentation of TVF Together 2024, a celebration of 50 years in fabric. “I’ve been delighted to hear that we set up an ESOP for our valued employees, and I think that’s great. Not many companies make it 50 years, and that’s a tribute to everybody sitting here today.”
The start of print media
While TVF supplied a limited amount of print media fabrics in the early 2000s, TVF expanded its offerings of polyester and vinyl printable substrates, specifically for printing, in 2006. Commercial printing, sign and graphic companies, and print service providers continue to turn to TVF for fabrics that possess a high level of consistency, so print runs are smooth from the start.
Robert says the print media division’s origins were humble and again started out of the West Coast operation. He says the decision early on to carry print media fabrics was sparked by the localized nature of the printing industry, and the need for supplies to be close to customers and readily available was vital. In 2013, Jeff Nonte was selected to lead TVF’s Print Media Division as Vice President of sales for print media, shifting the very specialized fabric program from the Industrial Sales Team to a division of its own.
Ownership mindset
In 2010, Dick Hanzel sold TVF to its employees through an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP). The transition made the most sense to Dick, as it was the team that helped TVF get to where it is today. Dick retired from the TVF board of directors in 2014 after devoting 40 years to the company. TVF’s success as a 100% employee-owned ESOP led Hanzel’s successor, former TVF Chief Executive Officer Chris Fredericks, to launch Empowered Ventures, a 100% employee-owned acquisition holding company, in 2021. TVF was its first portfolio company, and the EV family now includes a diverse mix of four companies.
Continued expansion in the Heartland and the West Coast
The period of 2010-2017 marked another expansive era for TVF, which saw the company move to a larger warehouse and sales office in Carson, California. In 2015, our large in-stock selection and the need to expand our Indiana logistics and warehousing facilities to serve customers at the highest level led to the opening of the 145,000-square-foot TVF Fulfillment Center in Lebanon, Indiana (northwest of our Carmel headquarters). The space’s geographical and logistical advantages continue to elevate our customers’ experience from coast to coast.
Twenty-seventeen marked another significant milestone for TVF and the industry, as TVF acquired Pacific Coast Fabrics, blossoming our home décor, print media, apparel partnerships, expertise, and offerings. The purchase of Pacific Coast Fabrics brought co-owners Brian Vieweg and Michael Sanders to the team. Brian serves as program director of TVF’s Apparel and Home Décor Divisions. With their years of experience running textile dye and printing houses, the addition of these two powerhouses in the apparel and print media worlds boosted TVF’s unparalleled level of organizational and industry knowledge.
Trusted expertise past and present
As TVF marks 50 years in 2024, our Core Values (Put Relationships First, Care Deeply, Be Accountable, Help People Succeed, and Always Improve) continue to guide our exceptional service to our customers and our new and longtime employee-owners. For Robert and Bob, TVF’s current longest-tenured experts, there’s significant respect for each other, the company, and the industry:
“Robert was always the innovator, kind of the driver of new products, and then once he got it introduced, I would step in and work on the finer details and ensure we had plenty of inventory,” Bob says.
Robert adds, “In the end, we wouldn’t be as successful as we are today if it were not for Dick Hanzel’s foresight, Dick Leventhal’s ability to build relationships, and the business systems we currently use, coupled with an incredible team within each of our departments. I like to refer to our team as the Dream Team.”
TVF officially marks 50 years in fabric this October. In July, our entire staff gathered in Carmel for TVF Together, a party that has been a half-century in the making.
