Fusion Sign and Design puts brands on the street

A sign company can make money by selling you a new sign. It can also earn your loyalty by finding a use for the old one. Melissa Rippy, an Allstate agent, described the second experience in a testimonial published by Fusion Sign and Design. Another provider, she said, wanted to replace a sponsorship sign for $5,000 to $10,000. Fusion helped install the existing sign for a few hundred dollars.

That is one customer’s account, with the limitations of a company-selected testimonial. Still, it is a revealing place to start. The useful question was whether the sign could serve its purpose. The answer involved listening, evaluating what was already there and getting something installed. No grand rebrand required.

Fusion works at the intersection of advertising and construction: the place where an attractive drawing acquires dimensions, materials, a delivery date and an installation crew. Its growth story runs from housing developments to restaurant chains, with acquisitions bringing new markets within reach. The common product is a brand that people can actually find.

01 / THE WORKBranding gets its work boots

The company’s commercial offering includes building identification, directories, architectural signs and the individual illuminated letters familiar from storefronts. These are purchases made by people who have premises to open, properties to manage or visitors to direct. A business can commission a sign package through Fusion rather than arrange every stage independently.

For apartment developments, the range extends to parking garages, electrical signs and wayfinding. Here, identification has several jobs. It gives the property a visible name, helps residents and guests navigate, and supplies the smaller information points that make a building usable. A dramatic entrance sign and a practical directory belong to the same customer journey.

Homebuilders bring another rhythm. Fusion offers flags, model-complex signage, on-site marketing and street or monument signs. A new neighborhood needs to attract buyers while it is still becoming a neighborhood. The route to a sales office matters alongside the presentation inside it. Signs have to work with the changing geography of development.

Some of the tools are delightfully literal. Fusion’s traffic offering includes people waving arrows, along with temporary pole signs, trailer signs and large balloons. A prospective buyer still has to make the correct turn. For all the money spent polishing a brand, an arrow at the right junction can do a very respectable day’s work.

02 / THE EXPANSIONA route into the drive-thru

Co-founders Loren Hanson and Dave Haffter came to a business with plenty of physical constraints. Haffter’s account of the Colorado Springs operation starts in 2009, inside a storage unit. He later described its growth into a 14,000-square-foot building and an acquired Northglenn operation occupying 10,000 square feet. In this industry, expansion has a floor plan.

The acquisition of Loren Industries gave Fusion a more direct route into quick-service restaurants. First described by adviser Keystone in November 2023 and announced more widely in January 2024, the transaction expanded manufacturing capabilities in Southern California and Texas. The announcement put the increase in manufacturing capacity at 33 percent.

Loren’s work included illuminated signs, awnings, canopies and drive-thru components. Its named restaurant customers included Dutch Bros, Popeyes, MOD Pizza, Burger King and Chipotle. Fusion was acquiring a business accustomed to delivering coordinated restaurant packages, along with the ability to make more things. That combination explains the attraction better than a bigger map alone.

There was a human consideration on the seller’s side. Keystone said Loren founder Dan Lorenzon received competing offers but selected Fusion because of the fit for employees and the prospect of a continuing role. The decision suggests that a buyer’s operating plans can matter alongside financial terms when the people running the acquired shop intend to stay.

Another transaction followed with Arrow Sign Company in Lawton, Oklahoma, announced by adviser Benchmark International in November 2024. Arrow brought more than 60 years of commercial signage experience and services extending through maintenance. Benchmark explicitly described Fusion’s strategy as expansion through acquisitions. The opportunity is to connect established local operations to a broader business.

03 / THE PRICEPut a scope beside the number

The other end of Fusion’s range appears in a Manteca, California, council memo dated November 4, 2025. Staff recommended an agreement for an archway spanning approximately 80 feet across Main Street near Wetmore Street. The proposed contract ceiling was $550,000, with $70,447 in project contingency and a total project budget of $620,447.

Three firms submitted proposals: Fusion, Express Sign & Neon and NMI Industrial Holdings. A four-person evaluation panel assessed them, and staff selected Fusion based on qualifications and the project’s requirements. The memo is evidence of a negotiated scope and recommended budget, rather than a final invoice for completed construction.

Set beside Rippy’s reused sign, the archway illustrates why a price without a scope tells a buyer very little. Reinstalling an existing advertising asset and developing a structure across a street are different purchases. Materials, design responsibilities and installation demands need to be understood before the numbers become useful.

Fusion’s commercial model follows that logic. Customers request quotes for defined work, while ongoing relationships create opportunities across successive properties and projects. A buyer should start with the site, intended use, quantity, deadline and any assets that might be reused. The useful comparison is what each proposal includes and who is responsible for delivering it.

04 / BEFORE THE INSTALLATIONThe permit belongs in the plan

At Rienda, part of Rancho Mission Viejo, Fusion’s Riverside division described getting involved early enough to work through county permitting. Its February 2024 project account also identified a coordination problem: multiple guest builders had marketing needs that had to fit into a coherent approach. The assignment crossed organizational boundaries before it reached the roadside.

The practical lesson is easy to copy. Bring the signage team into the discussion while the site and marketing plans can still change. Establish who approves the design, who manages permissions and how different stakeholders resolve competing requests. Those questions sound administrative until an installation depends on the answers.

Fusion’s Northern California division described a separate four-project collaboration with Descor Builders for Elliot Homes in May 2024. The featured development was in Folsom. Such relationships put the sign provider alongside construction teams, where the work has to fit the progress of a larger project. The sign is one deliverable in a crowded schedule.

05 / INSIDE THE SHOPYes, there is a sewing department

Fusion’s capabilities span metal fabrication, large-format printing, painting and industrial sewing. The sewing equipment supports banners, flags and awnings. Its field offering includes the people and vehicles needed to install the finished work. This is a broad collection of trades serving the same brief: make a business visible in a particular place.

The company’s careers page reflects that mix, listing roles such as fabricator, architectural sign painter, installer and CNC operator. It describes support for employee learning and development. These are the skills a customer depends on after approving the artwork, when small decisions about making and placing the object accumulate into the finished job.

There is also a specific example behind the culture language. A 2017 announcement about operations executive Mark Breininger described Fusion’s Three Deep program, which used team accountability and bonus incentives to support safety. Breininger put his motivation plainly: “it’s really all about the people.”

“it’s really all about the people”

Mark Breininger · 2017 operations announcement

Awards and values statements are easier to publish than operating habits. The interest of that announcement lies in the mechanism it describes: responsibility shared among colleagues, connected to incentives. For an organization making things in shops and installing them in the field, those everyday practices deserve attention.

06 / THE NEXT TESTOne brand, many local realities

In January 2026, Fusion described the infrastructure behind its national pitch: centralized project tracking, coordinated fabrication and freight, and installers qualified for licensing, insurance and performance. It said partners follow shared installation procedures and reporting protocols. The proposed advantage is consistent execution across places with different practical requirements.

This puts Fusion in competition with local sign shops as well as other companies managing larger programs. Its breadth is most relevant when a customer needs several disciplines or locations coordinated. For a straightforward single-site job, the comparison may turn on the specific crew, scope and quote. Size alone does not settle that decision.

For a larger rollout, buyers can ask to see how milestones, installation photographs and changes are tracked. They can also ask who takes responsibility when fabrication, shipping and site readiness fall out of step. Fusion’s own description makes coordination central to its offering; those are sensible places to examine that promise.

The same approach depends on timely approvals, workable site access and a clear brief. A network cannot resolve a customer’s contradictory instructions by simply adding more locations. The most transferable idea in Fusion’s work is to connect design decisions to the people who must build and install them. Start that conversation early, and the sign has a better chance of arriving with its purpose intact.