After serving Casper for more than 50 years, Decker Glass (formerly Decker Auto Glass) is expanding to a new location in Cheyenne, Wyoming. This brings the number of Decker Service shops to five, with locations in Casper, Douglas, Rock Springs and now Cheyenne.
Decker Glass has been a staple of Casper for more than five decades, and the owners of Wyoming’s largest glass repair shop are thrilled to become a similar pillar in the Cheyenne community.
“This company has been in business since 1975,” said Jason Bullard, the owner and president of Decker Glass. “We’re a Wyoming company and we’re aggressively growing throughout the state; even looking to open more locations in the future. There’s a lot of consolidation happening in this industry. So there’s a lot of opportunity that comes with that. The next logical step for us was Cheyenne, on the intersection of I-80 and I-25.”
Specifically, Decker Glass is located at 2016 E. Lincolnway. It’s close to the interstates and, more importantly, it will be easily accessible for individuals in Wyoming and Colorado who need to repair or replace their glass parts.
Bullard, along with Tim Cortez, the vice president and co-owner of Decker, has been in charge of the company since 2021. The history of Decker is a rich one, going back to even before 1975.
“Mr. Decker actually started this company prior to 1975,” Bullard stated. “The Decker family started the company, and then Kurt Weston owned it in the ’80s before Dan Seth bought it in the ’90s. And then Dan retired and we bought it in September of 2021.”
For Bullard and Cortez, the decision to purchase Decker Glass was an easy one to make; even if it was a bit surprising. Neither man had worked for the company prior to purchasing it. In fact, the two men came from vastly different backgrounds.
Bullard came from the oil and gas realm.
“I was with National Oil Well, and then we split off and became Distribution NOW, and then we bought Power Services, Inc. and I went over there and ran that for five years,” Bullard stated. “But then COVID happened, and it was really rough. It was tough on me mentally; I had to lay off 160-something people and that was hard. So after I got on some level ground, I decided I wanted to do something different.”
Cortez wanted to “do something different” as well, after a decorated career in the fire service.
“I worked for the City of Casper for decades,” Cortez stated. “I started out as a firefighter back in 1999. I rose through the ranks and ended up becoming the Fire Marshal and Division Chief for the City of Casper. Before then, I worked for the Bureau of Land Management; that’s how I worked my way through college. And then it was fire service. It was a great occupation. I was helping people. It was a lot of problem-solving, day in and day out. At the end of the day, it’s kind of a lot like what I do now — it’s helping people and solving problems.”
The only difference for Cortez is that, now, the problem isn’t a massive fire; it’s repairing or replacing glass for his customers, his friends, his neighbors.
And they are neighbors. Both Bullard and Cortez grew up in Casper. In fact, the two were best friends throughout high school. They graduated from Natrona County High School. And they know, more than anybody, how important and how pivotal the former Decker Auto Glass is to the people of Casper and, now, Cheyenne.
“We’re all about Wyoming,” Bullard offered, “and Wyoming people want to spend money in Wyoming, with Wyoming companies. We’ve been in Casper for years, but Cheyenne was a dark spot for us where we didn’t deliver anything. We didn’t have a wholesale trip. So we created one and started selling items wholesale down there. But then we saw a demand for a retail side.”
So, they expanded Decker Glass into Cheyenne. They’ve also dropped the “Auto,” as Decker sells all sorts of different types of glass. As its former namesake suggested, Decker replaces and/or repairs windshields and mirrors, and it always will. However, these days, it also offers residential glass services, such as repairing a broken mirror or a glass table. It also offers custom-fit glass windows and doors for homes and businesses. Additionally, Decker provides window and glass services for heavy equipment vehicles, commercial and industrial buildings and much more.
“We have a wholesale division and our retail side,” Bullard offered. “We do wholesale throughout the entire state of Wyoming and the surrounding region including South Dakota and Nebraska. We’re better known as The Glass Warehouse throughout the region. And we started incorporating other materials and services, besides just auto glass. We’ve started ordering big containers of flat glass; we’ve started making our own IG’s (Insulated Glass) because there’s not really anyone else in the area that’s making IG’s. We do house glass, we build storefronts and more.”
It’s not just the materials, not just the services offered, that make Decker Glass the premiere glass experts in Wyoming — it’s also the employees. Decker Glass is made up of the top glass technicians in the state; some of whom have been with the company for decades.
“We also offer consultation services,” Cortez said. “We have employees that have been in this business for so long. We’ve got installers that have been here for 20-plus years. They’ve been here, seen that, done that. And that’s something that’s really tough to match anywhere in the country, because of the loyalty and the cowboy ethics — that’s how we run our business. And it’s a good match. Customers get what they expect, and hopefully we exceed their expectations.”
Both Cortez and Bullard know all about Cowboy ethics. Their roots are in Wyoming and they have no plans to leave. Wyoming is home and, with that, comes the desire to keep business (and money) in the Cowboy State.
“We’re all about Wyoming,” Bullard stated. “We want Wyoming people to spend their money in Wyoming, with Wyoming companies. And that’s part of why we wanted to expand into Cheyenne. It was frustrating seeing a lot of our hard-earned dollars as Wyomingites go across the border into the front range. And I get it; it’s close, and there’s so much competition that they can jump over to Fort Collins and get everything they need. But we do it better here. We do think that the people of Wyoming work harder. We’ve seen it, day in and day out. We can service our customers better than anybody else. We know what they need. We know what the people in Wyoming are driving, and we can service our people better than anyone else.”
That confidence comes not from hubris, but from observation. Bullard and Cortez studied what Decker Glass has become over the last 50 years. The former Decker Auto Glass has always been an integral, service-focused business for the people of Wyoming. They know how important Decker has been to the people of Wyoming, and they want to continue to shape the company and take it to even greater heights — in Casper, in Cheyenne and beyond.
“If you take the aggregate of sales, service, and pricing — all of the things that a consumer looks for — when it comes to all of that, we’ve got it,” Cortez said. “We have a lot of great mom-and-pop businesses in our community that we service, and we do it all; from a wholesale warehousing side to retail, installing, replacing and more. We will get you whatever you need. And at the end of the day, what that means for people is that they get excellent quality at a really great price. We’ve got all the bases covered for the folks that are willing to trust us with their vehicles, homes and businesses.”
Decker Glass in Cheyenne, located at 2016 E. Lincolnway, is now open. For more information, visit the Decker Glass website and follow them on Facebook.
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