I’ve been with Big L Windows and Doors for eight years, a timeline that beautifully intersects with a major milestone in 2026: our company’s 50th anniversary. While I never met our founder, E-Z Eddie, I knew the second-generation owner, Bill Horbett Sr., and today I work for his son, Bill Horbett Jr. Seeing this company grow from 40 employees when I started to a record 70 today has been incredible. But my own path to marketing coordinator wasn’t exactly traditional. I started right on the warehouse floor.
I always loved media production. I studied it in college and spent nine years working part-time at a local radio station. To make ends meet, I took a full-time warehouse job at Big L. For a few years, I juggled both worlds until the radio gig wound down. When our long-time marketing director retired right as Bill Jr. was taking over, I knew it was my moment. I built up the courage, walked into the boss’s office, and pitched myself based on my media background, and got the job.
To understand how I look at our brand today, you have to know how we got our name in the 1970s. Bill Sr. returned home to help with the family aluminum storm window business. They eventually bought a local branch of a manufacturer called Alumo. They couldn't use the corporate name, so they chopped off the “A” and called themselves Lumo. Back then, local newspapers charged for advertising by the individual letter. To save money, the family simply advertised “The Big L Sale.” The nickname stuck so completely that when they branched out on their own, they officially branded the company Big L.
Today, that scrappy, budget-conscious DNA is still a part of who we are, even as we expand into markets like Rochester and manage a 60/40 split between residential installations and professional sales with people like builders and contractors. Day-to-day, I’m doing a ton of tracking: I oversee our social media, make sure that all the brands and manufacturers we work with follow our brand guidelines, manage major sponsorships, and track budgets down to our monthly employee breakfasts. To work more efficiently and thoughtfully, I turn to Gemini.
Our installers and sales team do an incredible job, and we’re fortunate to pull in a high volume of five-star user reviews on Google. Replying to every single review takes a lot of time, so I’ll ask Gemini to help me come up with tailored responses. I’ll take inspiration from Gemini’s suggestions to ensure every message feels personal.
That creative partnership extends to our social media. My small team loves shooting playful video skits to show the fun side of Big L. When we hit a creative wall, we plug our ideas into Gemini to see what unique angles we haven't considered. The benefits have also spread to our pro sales department, which manages complex communication with builders and architects. When project managers are slammed, they use Gemini to refine their emails for extra clarity or distill insights and key details from client messages, like order specs.
On the paid advertising side, we love the sheer breadth of placements the Google Ads Performance Max offers, instantly scaling our reach across platforms while keeping budgets in mind. The insights we gain from this traffic allow us to identify opportunities to improve the digital customer experience and uncover behavioral trends that guide our next creative and strategic decisions.
We may be celebrating 50 years of old-school, hands-on service, but we aren't stuck in the past. By using AI to sharpen our communication and smart automation to scale our marketing, we’ve found a way to honor E-Z Eddie’s legacy while taking advantage of this incredible new technology.