Industry & Services >> CEO Interviews >> March 3, 2003
PETER DESOTO is currently the Chief Executive Officer of MI Home
Products Inc. In 1956, after college and the army, Mr. Desoto
became a product line manager at the Florida operation for about
a year. In 1964 he was sent to California to become a plant
production manager of the company's southern California window
screen plant. In 1965 Mr. Desoto went to St. Louis, Missouri, to
do a startup of a new window screen plant in a new market for the
now separate screen company called Metal Industries Inc. of
California. In 1966 he was sent to Elizabethville, Pennsylvania,
to open a new window screen plant in a new market. In 1972 he
directed MI Home Products' entrance into the storm window and
storm door business. In 1981 Mr. Desoto was named vice president
of Metal Industries of California Inc. and directed the entrance
into the vinyl replacement window business. In 1984 he was named
President of Metal Industries Inc. of California. In 1991 Mr.
Desoto directed MI Home Products' entrance into the new
construction window business. In 1997 Mr. Desoto joined together
with his current partners Jay Poppleton (then president of the
company's air distribution division) and Sally Guthrie (the
founder's daughter) to buy MI Home Products. Profile
Products and a picture of the company as it is now?
Mr. DeSoto: MI Home Products is the new name for Metal
Industries, Inc., of
