Melaleuca Unveils New 371,000 Square Foot International Corporate Office Facility

— With No Debt and Rapid Growth, Melaleuca’s New Facilities Signals Melaleuca’s Expectation of a Bright Future —

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho – Dec. 11, 2012 – Melaleuca: The Wellness Company®, a manufacturer of 350 health, household and wellness products, unveiled plans for a new 371,000-square-foot home office. The new facility will house all of Melaleuca’s international and domestic operations except for manufacturing and distribution. The new facility is the most recent facility to be added to Melaleuca’s 195-acre campus west of Exit 113 on St. John’s Road. The new facility will cover 43 acres of the 195-acre campus.

The company long ago outgrew its current home office on 3910 South Yellowstone. Currently many of Melaleuca’s operations are located in various buildings in Idaho Falls. The company has outgrown all of those facilities. The new facility will allow Melaleuca to bring all of those operations into one facility.

The new facility will house all of Melaleuca’s international operations plus marketing, human resources, business development, IT development, data processing, web development, regional management, finance, accounting, administration, research and development, video studios, event center and a 500-person call center. Melaleuca expects the new building to be ready by spring of 2014.

Employee benefits
The facility will also house Melaleuca’s employee services including a day care center, employee workout gym, employee restaurant, and an employee concierge service center.

Event center available for public use
The 17,000 square foot event center will be Southeast Idaho’s largest event facility and accommodate meetings for over 900 people and will be available for other companies to use for corporate events.

Change in direction
The new facility is a change in direction from Melaleuca’s building strategies over the last 27 years. Traditionally, Melaleuca has purchased and remodeled vacant facilities throughout the cities of Idaho Falls and Rexburg. Melaleuca has renovated a number of old, vacant, buildings, including:

• The old S&H Green Stamp Building on Broadway in Idaho Falls
• The old Penney’s Building in Idaho Falls
• The old Weyerhaeuser building in Idaho Falls
• The old Ziggy’s Hardware store in Idaho Falls
• The old City Sewer and Water building in Idaho Falls (was still in use and not vacant)
• The old Broulim’s grocery store in Rexburg
• The old Diet Center building in Rexburg

More to come
The new Corporate Office facility is only one of several new facilities to be built on Melaleuca’s 195-acre campus. Over the next several years new manufacturing facilities will also be built on the campus.

Expanding sewer facilities
Melaleuca has donated over $2.3 million to the Eastern Idaho Regional Waste Water Authority Public Improvement Project, which facilitated the expansion of the Shelly sewer system bringing the sewer system from Shelley to Exit 113 and the surrounding area. Melaleuca expects a great deal of expansion in this area over the next several years.

No debt philosophy
Melaleuca will pay cash for the new facility. Melaleuca has always had a philosophy of not taking on debt.

“My father taught me to always stay out of debt,” Melaleuca CEO Frank VanderSloot said. “We don’t buy or build anything until we can afford to pay cash for it. As a company, we’ve been frugal in our business decisions. We’ve been fortunate to be able to operate without any debt. We own all of our facilities and manufacturing plants along with our equipment, computers and furniture. We feel that that protects us from any financial problems in the future.”

VanderSloot jokes about having a $1 billion business operating out of an old hardware store. His only regret is that he will not be able to tell that story in the new facility.

Using local contractors
Melaleuca’s philosophy is to always buy locally when possible. Wherever possible, Melaleuca has awarded construction work to local companies, keeping the money in Southeast Idaho. This includes mechanical, electrical, plumbing, excavation, drywall, bricklayers, concrete development, steel formation and more. The general contractor is Bateman-Hall from Idaho Falls and the civil engineer is Harper-Leavitt Engineering from Idaho Falls. HKS Architects from Salt Lake City is the project architect.