Running a family mattress business isn’t always comfy.
The golden rule: don’t fight over money.
“That’s the key,” said Mel Trudell, co-owner of family-owned Custom Comfort Mattress Co. “It’s give and take.”
Anaheim-based Custom Comfort won the up-and-coming award at the Family Owned Business luncheon put on by the Business Journal and California State University, Fullerton’s Family Business Council at the Hyatt Regency Irvine on Nov. 17.
Custom Comfort makes high-end mattresses,in Orange County, nonetheless. They sell for upward of $4,000.
The company employs nearly 100 workers at its Anaheim plant and at six local stores.
Sharing the wealth is particularly meaningful to the Trudells. There are 10 siblings in the family. The kids shared sleeping quarters and wore hand-me-downs.
“We grew up with nothing,” Mel Trudell said. “So everything we have is more than we grew up with.”
Trudell, born and raised in Fullerton, began working at a mattress factory in OC when he was 15. He and his brother Marty Trudell later started the mattress business in the family’s garage in 1983.
Marty Trudell has retired. Brother Gary Trudell is a partner in the business. Many other family members work at the company.
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Mattress clan: Matt Trudell, left, Maria Osborn-Trudell, Mel Trudell, Gary Trudell, Michael Trudell, Robert Trudell |
“For the most part, we get along,” Mel Trudell said.
Working with your family has its downside, he said.
“I’ve had to fire my own family members,” Mel Trudell said. “That’s probably one of the worst parts of the job,letting someone go.”
The upside: a built-in workforce. Many of Custom Comfort’s employees are friends or relatives.
“Our maintenance guy,I grew up with him,” Trudell said.
Many factory workers are longtime employees. The factory manager has been with the company since he was 15.
Mel Trudell sets the tone at Custom Comfort. He works in stores and answers the phone.
“I love to deal with customers,” he said. “But if the bathroom needs to be cleaned up, I’ll be there.”
The goal: grow Custom Comfort into a 50-store chain during the next decade, Mel Trudell said. He said he’d like to expand to Riverside, San Diego and San Bernardino.
“We’ve talked about doing franchises,” he said.
Custom Comfort recently burnished its image. Its older ads were wordy and played up the company as the small guy taking on big mattress makers.
The new ads feature familiar OC faces: Paul Folino, chief executive of Costa Mesa-based Emulex Corp., and Jim Doti, president of Chapman University in Orange.
Doti’s ad features a Chapman building.
In Folino’s, he’s eating from a popcorn bucket at Chapman’s film school. The text includes a mention of Emulex and the Orange County Performing Arts Center, which Folino supports and where he recently served as chairman.
Making mattresses in OC is tough. Little is wasted at the company’s 60,000-square-foot factory.
“We recycle almost everything,” Mel Trudell said.
The company makes its box springs with coiled springs, instead of the foundations used by other mattress makers. Its box springs also use a steel mesh lining over the coils of the mattress.
As its name implies, Custom Comfort makes custom beds of all kinds. The company has made beds for motor homes and round beds. It can even make heart-shaped beds.
If customers request more padding, Customer Comfort will pick up the mattress and add more padding.
“We’ve done that eight or nine times,” he said.
If the bed needs to be softer on one side, firmer on the other, Custom Comfort does that too.
The company considered moving to Arizona a few years ago, Trudell said.
Earlier this year, a state law went into effect that requires mattress makers to put a fire barrier in every mattress. That upped costs by 8%, he said.
Custom Comfort can better control costs because it owns its building, Trudell said. The factory also has lowered its workers’ compensation insurance costs by stressing safety, he said.
