A Future in Fiberglass: New Frontiers for Modular Construction w/ Futuro Houses [podcast transcript]

John McMullen 

Welcome, everyone. My name is John McMullen. I'm the Marketing Director here at MBI. Today, I'm happy to welcome Anthony Corpora, CEO of Futuro Homes. Anthony is here to talk about his company's unique product offerings and the future of prefabricated housing. Anthony, thanks for being here.

Anthony Corpora

Thank you much appreciate it. I'm excited to be here.

John McMullen

I am, too. So, tell me about yourself, Anthony. What's your background and how did you become the CEO of Futuro Homes?

Anthony Corpora

So, I had a pretty vast experience working for a great public school system in Northeast Ohio. I became a middle management coordinator, and I developed the urge to really pursue leadership and management as my master's degree, and was kind of set to get into some heavy administrative roles. So, I do have a pretty collaborative background and influential background, I've worn many hats in the public sector. And lo and behold just through relationships and interest, I took an early retirement of 21 years, and moved into this role as the CEO of Futuro Houses. It was great because once you see opportunity and what drives a leader to be stimulated this, I knew this was the slam dunk for me. I'm not saying the public school sector was not it, but when you look at an opportunity of a lifetime, it was just too good to pass up.

John McMullen

So, tell me about Futuro Houses itself as a company. I did a lot of research before the show, and I found an old 60s era kind of UFO house. It didn't seem directly related to what you're doing. But then I was obviously looking at your website and they're very similar. Is there a connection between the two?

Anthony Corpora

There is. If I can give you a little bit of background on the company. Futuro Houses is a subsidiary of US Lighting Group, which is a publicly held OTC Markets company. To make a long story short, the company went moving into a new space into the fiberglass world. We were in the electronics business, we decided to get into the fiberglass business to create a molded fiberglass travel trailer company. That's where I came on board trying to create something grand. You need to build a team around you. So, I was put in place to lead the efforts, lead the coordination, and build the ultimate team to pursue the vision of what Cortes Campers will bring and what it's bringing to the RV industry.

The core competency behind that was fiberglass. We have our engineers, and our technicians are very well versed in fiberglass. They were also in the boat building industry. So, to make a long story short, as you're looking at the overall picture of US Lighting Group and getting into diversified markets, we obviously know the RV space is growing. What we're bringing to the RV world is amazing. We also felt that we could do the same into the housing industry because right now nobody builds houses out of fiberglass. So obviously it's a great way to diversify the company portfolio and to dive into another multibillion-dollar market. So, we are taking the same innovation and success of what's making Cortes Campers successful and putting those same core competencies into Futuro Houses. Lo and behold, started researching houses. Then we came across the original Futuro from 1968 of the world famous Matty Cernan. Then what happened was we go further into the house, what was created and the influence that had all over the world. We said, this is where we need to start. We obviously looked at some of the shortcomings of the house, we decided how we could improve it, hence, the creation of our first UFO house, as we call it. We've totally re-engineered the house. That's kind of where we started. So, it was kind of a steppingstone to get here. Obviously, the vision of the company is we started with this house because it will definitely grab the attention of the world which we've been successful at and then we have houses to come.

John McMullen

Very good. I have to say I love this house. I love the original from 68 and you've modernized it. It looks a little sleeker, a little bit more 21st century but it's still got this great sense of fun and whimsy. It's definitely an attention-grabbing house. I was wondering if you could tell me more about the house itself. It's made of fiberglass as you mentioned, but how was it produced? How was it put together? What improvements did you make over the original?

Anthony Corpora

So, a couple of things that we do from our core competency of how we build things is we don't use any wood in any of our construction. That's a core competency of Cortes Campers and it overlaps. It's the same with Futuro Houses. So, if you see some of the old pictures, you'll see their renovations, and pictures of just a lot of wood. Obviously, you'll see rotted wood, molded wood and decayed wood. So, our recipe here for success is to build something with the highest-grade marine materials that you can buy in the industry to give you a product that's going to last a lifetime.

Number two, it will look amazing because of the gloss and what our composites bring to the industry are far superior. Then we go further to realize that the original Futuro house had some shortcomings. The first one is it was not easily shipped. You’ll see a lot of old pictures and a lot of them were flown in by helicopter or hauled in by a super oversized semi-truck. So, I don't have too many friends with helicopters and it's very expensive to haul with an oversized flatbed. So, then we decided to further make the product easily transportable by making it in smaller parts. So, our house, there's 36 pieces. There’s 12 on the top, in the middle, on the bottom, and it will fit in a standard shipping container. That was also a part of our charge.

We are planning on shipping internationally. Eventually, we also came across at the original Futuro house, the windows didn't open. I don't know if I'd ever want to be in a house where the windows didn't open. So, we decided to again go another step farther to give a great double pane acrylic window to the industry, one that will open. We came up with a shape because it was depending on how it would fit the container. The house is actually bigger than the original. We went from 26 feet in diameter to 30 feet in diameter. So, we now have a bigger footprint than the original and it really elongates it. I think it looks even, more UFO flying saucer than the original just because we have elongated the house to 30 feet. So those are some of the you know some of the main takeaways and what we're doing different. Zero wood, exceptional high end marine composites. Then if you see our base, some of our renderings, and what we've shown it the ix Center, our base is quite different. It looks a little bit more techie UFO and it will also break down into parts that will fit in a container. So that was part of our success, as making this easily attainable to get to the consumer with easy shipping.

John McMullen

Well, I do hope you continue to offer the helicopter delivery for those who want it. It seems entirely appropriate to have your spaceship flown in.

Anthony Corpora

Yeah, there are some people that may want to do a special request. So, there are basically no limitations to what we could do here for Futuro Houses. So, we will make it happen and we will find the media there to videotape it.

John McMullen

Very good. Speaking of delivery, whether it be by truck or air, or however else, as I understand it, the house can be placed just about anywhere. Are there zoning issues or code issues that you've encountered that maybe your customers need to be aware of?

Anthony Corpora

Right, so right now we're developing a dealer network across the United States and Canada. We're working with our dealers and they're getting up their websites. You'll see our dealer in Montana already has the website up. We have Virginia, New York, Pennsylvania, so we are establishing a dealer network. It will be their responsibility to intimately work with the consumer on the area where the house will be built. Some areas, as you know, don't have any codes and regulations. Some have a lot of them. We feel obviously with the construction, composites are stronger than steel. We can make this laminate any strength we want it to be. So, there are basically no limitations. Obviously, if you're looking in places in Montana where you're going to need 60 pounds per square foot of snow. In Alaska, I think we're upwards of 150 pounds per square foot. So, we can work that out with our engineers and make sure that we may change the laminate a little bit but we can make a house to put basically anywhere in the US.

John McMullen

Well tell me about the off grid living options for this house. I was looking at your website and that was a big feature that could not only be placed anywhere, but in any sort of range of modern electronics or amenities, correct?

Anthony Corpora

Correct. Yep. Right now, we're selling shell kits. As we're working on the interior, this thing will be able to look on the grid or off the grid. It will have wind, solar, it will collect rainwater. So, you could basically put this anywhere. You could put it in terrain, doesn't have to be on a slab. Obviously, depending on where you're going to put it, you may have to comply with some of the zoning. A lot of people will put these where there is no zoning, put them on rock structures, level them off with bricks, and to some places where you may have to hike and get to it. It's almost to the imagination of the consumer. A lot of people want to use these for Airbnb opportunities. So, that also will give a unique experience, I think there's going to be a following in the United States have unique futuros all over the country. You'll see like thumbtacks, and stickers on people's refrigerator of where they've gone and have an agenda of which ones, they want to see this summer. So, it's going to be really cool.

John McMullen

So, from what I've heard, your houses are very customizable depending on your customer's needs, which makes me think about your factory. Can you tell me a little bit about that and how that's evolved since you first started? What processes are you using now that maybe you weren't when you started?

Anthony Corpora

Correct. So, we have actually had the original, we call it a fiberglass plug. We knew that this thing had to be perfect. So, we have fast fiberglass and tooling experience, but you could never beat the accuracy and efficiency of a router. So, we outsourced once we had this engineered in SolidWorks. We had it outsourced to a tremendous tooling company in Michigan. They created the plug. So, obviously when we make the molds and make the parts they fit perfectly, and it looks great. So, we outsourced all of that. What we're doing right now is continuing to make tooling so that we can gear up for mass production. Basically, you grow and scale and fiberglass, not so much by more people, it's creating more molds. So, it's kind of like a baker and his bread pans. You could make more loaves of bread if you have more pans and that's kind of the same in fiberglass.

So right now, we have about a 30,000 square foot building. So obviously we make campers as well, through Cortes Campers, which is a subsidiary company of Futuro. We also now are going to grow and expand Futuro Houses by making more, we call them pipe piece molds, which are the top, the bottom and the window molds, which will be the centerpiece. So, once we have multiple multi reach, then we can very easily grow, scale and make the houses to meet the dealer demand and the consumer demand.

John McMullen

Well, it sounds like you've been drawing on a tremendous amount of material knowledge and experience. This sounds like it's been a relatively easy process, but there must have been some sort of challenge that you've overcome along the way. I was wondering if you could maybe dive into that a little bit? What has been that challenge and how did you overcome it?

Anthony Corpora

You know, there's always challenges of starting a company. This just didn't happen overnight. This was years in the making. So, we just didn't have this idea a couple of weeks ago and launch this thing. This has been years. So obviously, just like any startup company, finding the capital for r&b and getting everything in process. Obviously, being publicly held helps with US Lighting Group, but it's getting the idea, doing a lot of the research of making sure that it's going to be a success. So, there's been a lot of time taking in that sense, understanding the market, and what's going to make this work. So, there were all kinds of challenges, but once you bring the team around you from our lead engineer, who is really the mastermind behind all of this, and the team, we're working on marketing efforts, it becomes very easy when things roll together. So obviously, we have huge plans for Futuro Houses in general, not just with the futuro house, but with a lineup of houses. So obviously, though we have huge expansion plans for all of our lineup, and then to the production of what we're going to bring to market. It's going to be amazing and it's going to just keep growing.

John McMullen

I have no doubt. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about fiberglass specifically. Not only for uniquely shaped houses like Futuro makes, but do you think there's a potential for fiberglass in other types of construction? We talk a lot on this show about commercial modular construction. Tall buildings, workforce housing, all types of structures. Can fiberglass be utilized for those types of things, in your opinion?

Anthony Corpora

Absolutely. Fiberglass is probably one of the ways of the future. If you look at what fiberglass brings to the industry versus wood, I'm picking fiberglass any day of the week. You can see in the IBC codes and all that they're actually starting to have a denims for things like things outside of the woods spectrum. So you're saying that fiberglass brings a lot of benefits from cosmetic to futuristic, but from a long lasting and even structural. It's going to gain momentum.

John McMullen

You mentioned at the top of the show you're able to fit futuro houses into a container for easy shipping, which makes a lot of sense. What have you learned about not only the logistics side of this, but the manufacturing? The shipping? How have you sort of optimized your process as you've gone along?

Anthony Corpora

It starts with our dealers doing their marketing efforts and gaining the consumer sales, which we're starting to get orders right now. Then obviously, it's just that communication of lead times getting to the consumer. So, they can get everything done on the forefront to gain their permits. So, it's just about communication with lead times, getting everybody on the same page, and lamination for us is very easy. That's what we do. That's our bread and butter. We design cool products and we make cool products. I have guys in the back with anywhere from 20 to 40 years experience in fiberglass and composite. So, these guys can do this in their sleep. Once you have everything standardized and laid out, it's just like riding a bicycle. So, this is what their true passion is and that's what we're all about. So just again, meeting the demand for the product.

I don't know if we'll ever get there because that means you have a cool product and hopefully we'll never have inventory and there will always be a lead time. So, that's one of our goals here. We're doing some really cool things with our dealers right now. Not so much on the UFO futuro but our 200 and 300 house that you can see on our website. We're looking to dive into some of the homeless rehabilitation acts that the privately funded and government funded monies are going towards. So, we're working with our dealers now to work on getting our houses to those people just because we bring the quality and indestructibility to the industry. So, it fits real well with their model.

John McMullen

You anticipated my next question. I was going to ask about other projects that Futuro was working on. Can you tell me a little bit more about these houses? It seems like a great use of materials and your dealer network to solve or at least put a dent in what is a huge housing crisis.

Anthony Corpora

Yes, correct. So, we started obviously with the futuro UFO house to grasp the attention of the world and we've done that. That is a higher price, that's a niche product. A lot of people want to use those for that entrepreneur opportunity to rent them out. Some people still want to live in them, but then we decided to produce in volume. Price point means everything, so we decided to bring smaller houses to the industry. We have what's called a 200, 300, or 400. It's obviously from 200 square feet to 400 square feet and they're all unique in nature. It's similar to how we build the campers. Everything is fiberglass, it's all molded in, we're using the same appliances, and what we're putting into our campers. It's really a seamless transition to go into this market after your tooling and the design are done because the lamination is basically the same.

So, it's real easy to just get into having more products, which will obviously excite the consumer base. Then you could do some humanistic things just to keep your karma bank recharged by doing some really nice thing for disadvantaged and homeless acts rehabilitation acts out there. So that's emerging and looking like they're these states and cities adopting models of what they've done in Texas. Their homeless population is going down and they're just looking for a really good product out there. So, it's grasping the attention of our dealers and grasping the attention of the decision makers to get our units out there on the property for these efforts.

John McMullen

That's excellent. I was wondering if you could speak to the potential, outside of providing structures for homeless or houseless people, what's the potential for off grid premanufactured homes just in general? Do you anticipate seeing more home seekers and homebuyers turning to options like either the UFO house which I know is a niche product, but fiber fiberglass houses in general, to be their primary house?

Anthony Corpora

Absolutely. People are using these for extra income, but I believe this will also start the craze to be either on the grid or off the grid with structures that are longer lasting and cheaper. Everything is about price point, so we bring a huge advantage to the market. On top of it, we also have consumer financing. Now that we have financing with consumers who are creditworthy, you could take a 25 year mortgage, that's really reasonable on any one of our products. So, there are a lot of advantages right now. I believe this has been a trend. We went to the Home and Garden modeling show and you can see all the neat things that are going on there. There's a lot of people out there making cool products and I think it's a trend that will continue to emerge. I think futuro houses just brings something to the industry that right now nobody brings, which is fiberglass. So we have a huge advantage, but hats off to everybody else that are doing similar things to what we're doing.

John McMullen

Well, Anthony, this has been fascinating. I really appreciate your time today. Thank you so much. I can't wait to see Futuro take off as a company.

Anthony Corpora

John, thank you very much. I had a great time talking with you today and looking forward down the road. If you need to talk in the future, just come find me.

John McMullen

Will do. There's a dealer in Virginia. I'm in Virginia, I may well visit.

Anthony Corpora

Excellent. She's amazing. We've signed her on a couple of weeks ago. She definitely brings a lot to the table. So we’ll get you in touch with her.

John McMullen

Excellent. My name is John McMullen. This has been another episode of Inside Modular: The Podcast of Commercial Modular Construction. Until next time.