Jeld-Wen
American company

JELD-WEN is an American company with its headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina. The company operates more than 120 manufacturing facilities in 19 countries. JELD-WEN designs, produces and distributes interior and exterior doors, wood, vinyl and aluminum windows, wall systems, shower enclosures, closet systems and other components used in the new construction, as well as repair and remodel of residential homes and non-residential buildings.
History
JELD-WEN was founded in 1960 by Richard "Dick" Wendt when he, together with four business partners, bought a millwork plant in Klamath Falls, Oregon. The company first established operations to support their millwork business and later added other materials to its offering including fiber, vinyl, aluminum and steel.
During the 1970s and 1980s, JELD-WEN grew through vertical integration and acquisition. By 1989, JELD-WEN was ranked seventh among privately held companies in Oregon with revenues of more than $350 million.
Throughout the 1990s, JELD-WEN continued diversification efforts, moving into additional areas of service and expanding to new countries and continents. In 1996, Forbes ranked JELD-WEN at 225 of the nation's top 500 privately owned companies. In 1997, it was ranked 119 and revenues were estimated at $1.39 billion.
The public source identifies “Jeld-Wen” as american company. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Jeld-Wen, American and company.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1612593. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1960, 1989, 1996 and 1997.
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This entry incorporates text from “Jeld-Wen” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.