View suits Frontier Glass

Here is an interview with Frank Sapienza III, CEO of Frontier Glass Inc. in East Rochester.



Tell me a little about your company.



We're a glazing contractor with commercial and residential customers. On the residential side, we do such things as glass tabletop and shower enclosures. On the commercial side, we will do such things as storefront windows and related projects.



Do you manufacture or primarily install?



We don't manufacture glass. Companies like Guardian Glass in Ontario County do that. We cut aluminum to size for windows and order insulated glass accordingly. We do cut some glass for such orders as tabletops.



This is your first time on the Top 100 list. Making the 2010 list indicates you had a good year in 2009. How has it been going since?



We did have a good year in 2009, but the economy around that time slowed us down. It's starting to pick up now. It's been a slow comeback. Rochester tends to lag behind the rest of the country in coming back. We don't have the big dips, but it can take more time for us to recover, too. But we're seeing more activity now, more projects going out to bid.



Give me some idea of who your commercial customers are.



We deal with the large contractors like Christa and LeChase, and on the commercial side we work with remodeling companies and the like. We do a lot of work with the government, school districts and municipalities. We've done work for the city of Rochester and are involved now with the school modernization project. We did the glass staircase installation at Monroe Community College and did the Rocky Coast exhibit at the county zoo, meaning the enclosures separating the viewers from the animals.



It would seem that improvements in glass technology make window installations more desirable for contractors, in terms of energy efficiency and the like.