Frank Vandersloot

Frank Vandersloot is the CEO of Melaleuca, Incorporated, a direct-marketing firm located in Idaho Falls, Idaho.  The firm manufactures and sells natural household and personal care products.   Prior to Melaleuca, Inc., Mr. Vandersloot held key management positions with two Fortune 500 companies: Regional Vice President for Automatic Data Processing and Vice President for Cox Communications.  Vandersloot is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, sometimes inadvertently called the Mormon Church.  His faith informs his leadership style.

VanderSloot earned an associate’s degree in business at Ricks College in Rexburg, Idaho, followed by a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Brigham Young University.

Vandersloot purchased Melaleuca in 1985.  Then the company was a poorly-managed, with a handful of products based on the melaleuca, or “tea tree” of Australia. [1]  The company had several problems.  Science substantiating the medicinal qualities of melaleuca leaves was shaky.  Distributors were required to purchase a large amount of inventory to launch their home businesses.    The company’s ownership of tea tree shares turned out to be much smaller than originally thought.

Vandersloot shut down the company, purchased its inventory, trademarks and product recipes and rechristened it Melaleuca.  With a small core of people in management, he created an R&D department that evolved into a 20-person staff, including three Ph.D. chemists.  Through their research, they began to acquire patents and launch new products.

By 2004, sales had surged to nearly $700 million a year.  Vandersloot does not promise his direct sellers that they will get rich quickly.  The sign-up fee and monthly maintenance fee are infinitesimal.  He counsels distributors to avoid debt and be frugal, both constant messages from the LDS Church.  The company keeps product prices low.  The company sells nationally and also has a presence in Taiwan, Japan, Australia, Hong Kong, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

Melaleuca was awarded the 2003 Environmental Excellence Award by the Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry. In June 2001, VanderSloot was named Ernst & Young, CNN and USA Today’s “Entrepreneur of the Year” for the U.S. Northwestern region.

The Vandersloot Family owns Riverbend Ranch in Idaho Falls, selling cattle.  This is in addition to other large cattle ranches in the area, owned by the Vandersloots.

Vandersloot served a two-year mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to the Netherlands.  He and his wife Belinda have a combined family of 14 children.  In a 2004 interview with Sandpoint Online, Vandersloot said the following:

“I joined the LDS church when I was 17, at the beginning of my senior year in high school, and I learned that what the LDS church believes and teaches is that we’re sons and daughters of God. As such, that gives a whole new light to everything. Number one, you know that there’s someone there who cares about you, who’s on a much higher level than you are and who believes in you. You establish goals to try to be more like Him, and you learn that when you fall down, you can be forgiven. You learn that there is a purpose to all of what life is all about, and you try to exercise that purpose.”