Born in Nebraska in 1930, James R. Kuse raised the funds for the leveraged buyout of Georgia Pacific partly by mortgaging his home in 1984. Kuse joined with several other executives from Georgia Pacific, an industrial chemical producer, to create the new Georgia Gulf Corporation. Under the bold leadership of Kuse Georgia Gulf Corporation, manufacturer of specialty chemical products was able to make good on its debts in a record amount of time. Kuse not only paid back the company’s debts, but also grew Georgia Gulf Corporation into one of the most successful businesses of the late eighties.
Kuse took the company from yearly revenues of $500 million to more than $1.5 billion. He quadrupled the company’s profits, and created a 500 percent increase in the company’s stock price.
James Kuse died in 2001.
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