John R. Burt
1920 - 2003
John R. Burt was born in 1920 near Sand Lake in Iosco Country, Michigan, the fourth of John & Fanny Burt’s five children. At the age of 13 John traveled to Michigan’s upper Peninsula to work as a ‘flunky’ in the lumber camps. After a series of manufacturing and construction jobs he ended up working for Frankenmuth’s Universal Engineering in 1941. It was then that he met his wife Mildred List.
John served in the army during WWII and after returning home worked a series of jobs, eventually starting Burt Construction in 1952. In 1959 after a series of unfortunate events, John lost everything. He lost his small company and he, his wife, and five children even lost their house.
Undeterred, John helped to start Bridgeport Pools in the mid 1960s. After getting stuck with. Bad batch of swimming pool liners, John decided the only way he could control quality was to manufacture the liners himself. In the mid 1970’s John started Tri-City Vinyl in Saginaw. During that time, the roof at Tri-City Vinyl needed a new roof, so John figured that if a pool liner could keep water in it could also keep water out.
From that idea, Duro-Last Roofing was born. Incorporated in 1981 and headquartered in Buena Vista, Duro-Last went on to become the industry leader in custom fabricated commercial roofing. Since its founding, the foundation has donated almost $3 million dollars to support Christian education in the Saginaw area.
John Burt died on April 11, 2003, survived by his wife Mildred, children Carol Stuhr, Sharon Sny, Connie Moeller, Kathy Burt Allen, and John C. Burt, along with his long-time business partner and advisor Tom Lawler. The John R. Burt Enterprise family of companies grew to include facilities in seven states with 800 employees.
In March 2023, those companies were acquired for over $1.3 billion dollars.