Andersen Windows & Doors made Jay Lund a job offer just a few years after he earned a political science degree in 1981 from St. Olaf College.

Nobody could have predicted that Lund would become CEO of the large manufacturer 30 years after he graduated, but his leadership ability and talent for business quickly emerged as a young staff consultant with the national accounting firm Arthur Andersen.

It provided a professional education program to young hires with potential, which Lund credits with teaching him about computer science, accounting, and manufacturing systems. “They taught me just a lot of business-related skills that really accelerated my career,” Lund recalls. It also gave him exposure to different types of industries.

Lund was ready when Arthur Andersen deployed him to do work that transformed the rest of his life. “I got this assignment at Andersen Windows,” Lund says. “I spent two years there in a consulting role, and they recruited me. I just thought it was a great fit, great company, great culture, interesting business, and the right place for me to make a career. So in 1985, I joined the company as a financial systems supervisor.”

He also says he thought Andersen would provide financial stability for his young and growing family. Lund, who grew up in Golden Valley and Minnetonka, was a competitive ski racer when he was a teen. While at St. Olaf, he met his future wife, Gail, who was a college ski racer in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Lund married in his 20s and he and his wife raised five children.

Lund thrived at Andersen. He became CEO in 2011 and retired from the top job at the end of 2022. During Lund’s CEO tenure, company sales more than doubled, rising from $1.8 billion to more than $4 billion for the privately held company.

Lund remains chair of the company, but he’s no longer a daily presence at the Bayport headquarters since his CEO retirement. Now, he and his wife spend most of the year in Jackson, Wyoming. “We’re in the Tetons,” Lund says. “It’s a beautiful area, and we love to ski and hike and do all of these outdoor activities.”

Breakout moment

Over three decades, the climb that Lund focused on was to gain increasing responsibilities at Andersen. “I liked being in the IT area early on,” Lund says. “We were developing transactional systems to run the business. You were learning an awful lot about how a business operates,” including developing manufacturing, accounting, payroll, and procurement systems, he notes. After accumulating that knowledge, Lund left Andersen in 1993 to become the chief information officer of a Mankato-based company.

His hiatus was extremely brief. “It became very clear to me my passion was Andersen,” Lund says, recognizing that he was energized by the business and the relationships he had made. “I had worked on the Renewal by Andersen concept team back in the early ’90s,” he recalls. “The leader of that team was Don Garofalo, and he went on to become our CEO for many, many years and our longtime chairman. Don was a very visionary guy and just a wonderful mentor to me.”

Garofalo asked Lund to return to Andersen and gave him a marketing role, which Lund characterizes as a “breakout moment” in his career. Lund then got a special project assignment to revamp Andersen’s distribution network. “That led to a key role on our first-ever strategic planning work with the Boston Consulting Group in the late 1990s, which gave me exposure and visibility to the board,” Lund says.

“I led our first major acquisition of one of our large distributors,” Lund says. “We acquired several sales organizations.”

Jim Humphrey, a former executive with Armstrong World Industries, joined Andersen in 1999 in a key leadership role and later succeeded Garofalo as Andersen’s CEO in 2003. “He gave me the opportunity—as we completed these acquisitions—to bring the various sales organizations that we had acquired into one cohesive, direct sales team,” Lund says. Humphrey tapped Lund to lead Andersen’s sales operation, which he did for many years. Lund later became president of the Andersen business, chief operating officer, and then succeeded Humphrey as CEO.

“He completely avoided the CEO syndrome. He never took himself too seriously. He was always quick to give others credit.”

—Jack Morrison, former board member, Andersen Windows & Doors

Leading the charge

While the Great Recession hit on Humphrey’s watch, Lund says that Andersen was still feeling its effects when he became CEO in 2011. Among his early CEO priorities were paying off debt and rebuilding the workforce. Throughout his tenure, Lund expanded the Renewal by Andersen business that has focused on replacement windows and doors. He also introduced new window lines.

“We’ve been on a 13-year run where, every year, the business has continued to grow and become stronger and more resilient,” Lund says.

Jack Morrison, who served on the Andersen board for two decades, says that Lund’s depth of knowledge in multiple aspects of the business—from manufacturing to distribution to strategic acquisitions—served Lund well. Morrison says Lund assembled “a terrific management team,” which helped Lund deliver on Andersen’s goals.

Morrison emphasizes that Lund’s leadership style allowed him to work well with all stakeholders. “He completely avoided the CEO syndrome. He never took himself too seriously. He was always quick to give others credit,” Morrison says. “He’s a good listener, and he’s a person of rock-solid integrity.”

Donald Allan Jr., president and CEO of Stanley Black & Decker, got a first-hand look at Lund’s leadership under pressure when Covid-19 surfaced in March 2020. Allan is the lead independent director on Andersen’s board.

“Suddenly, we all had massive supply chain issues and challenges,” Allan says. “Jay was outstanding in navigating that with his team.”

In the early weeks of the pandemic, large parts of the U.S. economy simply were shutting down. “Nobody was really sure what was going to happen with revenue,” he says. Allan remembers Lund coming up with a variety of cost controls that would shield employees as much as possible from cuts. “Jay was very passionate about that,” he says.

Fortunately for Andersen, as white-collar workers realized they would be spending several months at home, the demand for home improvement projects rose rapidly, Allan says.

In good and bad economic times, he says, Lund has “built a DNA and culture” that allows Andersen to cope with short-term challenges but stay attuned to developing new products and services that allow it to be extremely competitive in the marketplace. For example, Allan says, during Lund’s tenure, Andersen introduced windows that are designed to be durable in hurricane zones such as Florida and the Carolinas.

At St. Olaf College in Northfield, Lund is a veteran member of the board of regents, which he chaired when Covid arrived in Minnesota. David Anderson, who retired as St. Olaf’s president in 2023, worked closely with Lund over several years.

“One of the things about Jay that I really admire is he is able to understand what the most important thing is,” Anderson says. Lund doesn’t get overwhelmed, but quickly identifies what needs to get done. For example, Lund recommended and Anderson appointed a Covid czar on campus to coordinate the college’s pandemic response.

“Colleges are messy places,” Anderson says—everybody wants to voice their opinion. As board chair, Anderson says, Lund never tried to be CEO of St. Olaf. Instead, he invited collaboration. “He’s just a very approachable, friendly, optimistic, and happy guy,” Anderson says.

See the other 2024 Minnesota Business Hall of Fame inductees.