Fun Company Going Strong for 35 Years

For three-and-a-half decades and counting, Fun Company has served the in-home and out-of-home entertainment industry with its own proprietary products as well as growing into the industry’s largest contract manufacturing company.

2026 marks the 35th anniversary of Fun Company, which started building bare cabinets for redemption companies in Tennessee, Alabama and other southern states out of a 6,000-sq.-ft. building that housed the wood shop, assembly, warehouse, shipping and receiving and office space.

In 1997, they jumped on the opportunity for kit-ready cabinets in the coin-operated amusement sector as many of the game manufacturers were not only selling dedicated games but also selling those games or slightly older titles in kit form.

“At the time there was basically only one company marketing kit-ready cabinets, and we decided to throw our hat in the ring,” explained the company’s long-time sales manager Don Teske. “We developed the first kit-ready cabinet where 25” or 27” CRT monitors could be used in a horizontal or vertical configuration.”

The coming out party was in Dallas, Texas, at the AMOA show, where they debuted the Executive Series (ES) cabinets – the ES-25 and ES-27. Teske recalled that the show was a big success. “We met many operators and distributors and were able to meet face to face with some of the manufacturing companies in the industry,” he said.

Fun Company has grown from four employees, which included the original two partners, to just under 100 employees. Jamie Woodward and his sister Becky Groch own the business. Jamie’s son and daughter, Kyle Woodward and Rachael Curran, and Becky’s son-in-law, John Costello, are heading up the second generation of leadership. All are active in the contract manufacturing and other aspects of the corporation, such as the Fun Company game room store that sells home-use billiard tables, arcade games, dart boards, grills and more.

A lot of other growth and change has happened for the company over the years, too. They went from working out of a 6,000-sq.-ft. building to purchasing a 40,000-sq.-ft. facility in 2008. They quickly outgrew that and purchased another 40,000-sq.-ft. building in 2010 and another small space in 2012. Most recently, they added another 25,000 sq. ft. in 2022, equating to a total today of more than 110,000 sq. ft. of manufacturing floor and warehousing space.

Originally all the cutting and assembly of the cabinets was done by hand, with hand routers. Other than some small tasks, they have all been replaced with large-bed CNC (computerized numerical control) routers. There was no metal shop, either. Hinges and corner brackets were hand cut and bent – no shapers, no edge banding machines, CNC lasers, digital printers, laminating machines, paint booth, shipping dock or any of the other modern amenities that are used daily in the production of many of the most popular games in the industry.

The first contract customer was pursued by Teske, a then-newcomer to the company who is on year 28 and counting. He found out that much of the industry did not build their own games and started introducing the Fun Company name, products and capabilities to many of them, eventually building a relationship with Rick Rochetti from then Sammy USA (which later joined up with Sega).

After many visits and meetings, Rochetti agreed to give Fun Company a shot at building one of the new Sammy USA titles and gave them a purchase order for 1,000 Wing Shooting Championship games. In 2002, the contract manufacturing at Fun Company officially began and it has had continuous growth ever since, becoming their primary focus.

The company currently contracts with many different companies, such as Bandai Namco, BumbleBear, DSM Arcade, TouchMagix, Zooom Studios and others in the amusement industry. Outside of the coin-op world, they have products in places such as the Kennedy Space Center, Walgreens, Disney Quest, Hoover Dam and more.“Having grown from a four-person team to where we are today, we don’t forget where we came from or how blessed we are to have people and companies come to us, trust in us and want to work with us,” Teske said. “We often have customers apologetically say they know they are not as big as some of our clients and wonder if we will work with them. We never look at the size of a company – we try to treat everyone like family and strive to build long-term relationships with them all.”

As a contract manufacturing outfit, Fun Company takes on more than just the processes of building the cabinets and games. “We take a lot of the overhead and other headaches such as warehousing, shipping, workers’ comp, employee vacation, turnover, purchasing and other duties that come along with any business and put that on our side. One example is we are an Intertek and UL recognized manufacturer and from working with them for so many years and having the inspectors come through the building we often know what they are looking for when they come to inspect the line, so we try to guide our customers by implementing as much as we can into the units ahead of time so they can more easily pass through the processes when they are submitted for testing.”

Located in central Wisconsin, Fun Company not only endures the cold winters it also endured the “C” pandemic (nobody wants to mention that word, they said) by shifting focus from the amusement industry to the “essential products” industry.

“We utilized our equipment and wherewithal to produce sneeze guards and other barriers along with a unique Sanitation Station that offered people a place for hand sanitizer liquid, a touchless dispenser, an area for wipes, and a trash receptacle,” Teske said.

They originally only made an indoor version, but requests kept coming for an outdoor model, so the engineering team designed one and after rigorous testing it too came on the market.

These were sold to local companies, businesses, schools and government facilities, with the largest customer purchasing 1,000 units on a single order. After the pandemic, the design has been changed slightly for a product in the coin-op industry.

Still a family-owned business after all these years, with the new generation of leadership beginning to take charge, Fun Company also continues their tradition of retaining employees.

“We have very little turnover – now into year 29, I can personally attest to that,” Teske noted. “That lends to maintaining the pride it takes in building high-quality products for our customer base, which includes many of the largest names in the industry.”

To learn more about their work, visit www.funcoamusements.com.