(Photo courtesy of Island Sash & Door)
Bend Welcomes Successful Business to the Community
Island Sash & Door is a successful new addition to the Central Oregon business community, offering a wide variety of windows and doors for every part of a home. Rick Locke, along with his two sons William and Alexander, purchased the business in 2024, just after the business had opened up a physical location here in Bend.
To understand the founding of Island Sash & Door, Rick provided some insight, explaining that, “Island Sash & Door was founded on Whidbey Island in the town of Freeland, Washington in 1998. David Serres was the proprietor and sold windows and doors to the local market and to the surrounding area. In 2015 Serres expanded with the acquisition of Simmonds Glass in Anacortes, Washington. Simmonds has been a full-service glass shop in Anacortes since 1923, celebrating 100 years this last year.”
Continuing, he said, “Serres brought in David Oster as General Manager in 2016 to help grow and expand the business. Oster eventually became a partner in the business and added installation services to the window and door portion of the company to complement the shower door, mirror and retail business. The company had already exited the commercial and automotive portion of the industry. Island Sash continues to service the San Juan Islands, Skagit and Whatcom counties and surrounding areas. The company specialized in supplying and installing windows, doors and related products and services to primary and vacation homes being built in the islands and local markets.”
In 2020, Island Sash opened their doors to Eugene, Oregon. Rick explained that this was due to Oster’s familiarity with the region, and the market, “Oster had long worked in Oregon for local window companies, as well as developing the market for Western Pacific Building Materials. He recognized the need for a supplier of high-quality windows and doors for the growing primary and vacation home markets in Oregon. Oster is now the general manager of the Oregon market for the company.”
Rick, however, got involved in the industry in 2013. He was a retired Microsoft sales leader who purchased the Seattle-based Windows, Doors & More. Rick had a career previous to Microsoft in the window and commercial glass industries, and looked to that industry to buy a company after he and his wife retired from Microsoft. Windows, Doors & More is a window and door distributor in Seattle with products and a business model very similar to Island Sash & Door, and in fact, competed with them in some markets.
In 2017 Locke also acquired Montana Sash & Door. They specialize in providing windows and doors for luxury homes, with expertise in luxury products including thermal steel windows, thermal bronze windows and minimal profile thermal aluminum products, as well as a full range of aluminum-clad wood products. They service high-end markets like Big Sky, Whitefish, Lake Coeur d’Alene and Jackson Hole.
2024 brought Rick and crew to Bend with the purchase of Island Sash & Door. With expertise from other markets, Rick sees similarities in the type of home, clients and needs in Bend, as in other markets they serve like Big Sky and Jackson Hole.
The current family of companies has nine locations across Seattle, Anacortes, Freeland, Coeur d’Alene, Kalispell, Bozeman, Jackson, Eugene and Bend, and serves most of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.
While currently operating the three companies separately and under three different brands, Rick hopes to consolidate in the future for management as well as branding and operations.
The Bend location employs two experienced and well-regarded local window veterans in Rod Turcotte and John Gooding. According to Rick, “Rod and John are well known in the market and understand the needs of local builders and trends of architectural design in the region. They have created a hands-on showroom in Bend with full-size displays of windows and doors representing some of the top manufacturers in the industry. Through their sister companies, they have access to many of the top brands in the world, as well as local and regional manufacturers.”
Looking to the future here locally, the company intends to invest in the market and will grow as needed to support the needs of the home-building community. Rick said that installation resources for large, site-built products is an area that Montana Sash sets an industry standard for, and Island Sash intends to continue that model here.
Rick is currently the chairman of the board of directors of the National Glass Association. He said that this is a role that exposes him to industry-changing products and technologies for the future.
“Products like vacuum insulating glass, electrochromic glass, transparent film photovoltaic glass and super energy efficient frames, will soon be mainstream in the market and have the opportunity to dramatically impact the performance and use of all fenestration materials,” He said.
As a family and a business, Island Sash seems happy to be in Bend. Both of Rick’s sons, Alexander and William, are avid outdoorsmen with a preference for downhill skiing and love the mountains. “Having a family business with locations in some of the top ski venues in the country is a bonus for them,” said Rick.
The Rick and company look forward to becoming a community leader, and expect to grow and hire for numerous roles including: window technicians, sales consultants, administrative specialists, and delivery/warehouse roles in the coming years.
