(FORTUNE Magazine) – TALK to Tony Andersen about managing and inevitably, unabashedly, he delivers his credo: ''Customers are first, employees second, shareholders third, and the community fourth.'' Shareholders third? Who is this guy in rumpled duds with scraggly hair and beard, rolling his eyes at Wall Street? ''I'm not your typical FORTUNE 500 CEO,'' he admits. Andersen, 56, sells glue -- the glue that keeps your office furniture intact, your house erect, and the FORTUNE magazine you're holding in one piece. He sells so much glue, in fact, that his company, H.B. Fuller Co., is No. 374 and climbing on the FORTUNE 500. Here's a chief who covets customer satisfaction over quarterly profits, wins praise from environmental groups, and contributes 5% of pretax income to charity (the corporate average is around 2%). Interesting what a do- gooder can accomplish. Over the past ten years, Fuller has returned almost 20% annually to investors. Lately the stock has sold for $72 a share, nearly twice the price of a year ago. Customer service is key. It started with Andersen's father, Elmer L. Andersen, 82, a well-known progressive and former governor of Minnesota, who bought Fuller in 1941. He encouraged salesmen to unlock plants in the middle of the night and personally deliver glue to customers who had inadvertently let supplies run dry. Says Tony, who became CEO in 1973: ''I don't know how to perform for shareholders over the long term unless I do my best for customers.''

That takes stick-to-it-iveness. Fuller had sold adhesives to Procter & Gamble for years, but to cement a permanent relationship Andersen wanted a major contract to make glue for P&G's disposable diapers in the U.S. So he pampered Procter. In 1986 he commissioned a top salesman to analyze the needs of the diaper bosses; then he assigned four chemists to come up with a moisture-resistant adhesive supple enough to replace several glues P&G had been using. To show Procter just how serious he was, Andersen started building a $17 million factory in Paducah, Kentucky, three years before the supply contract was signed. It produced little glue for a year but is now operating at capacity. Thinking long term, Fuller began investing abroad in the early 1960s. Last year non-U.S. operations contributed 46% of revenues and 63% of profits. Neither revolutions nor earthquakes nor rampant inflation has prompted management to shut any of Fuller's 32 factories in Latin America. Indeed, the Fuller folks believe they owe Latin America something in return for their hefty profits. In Lima, Peru, where malnutrition is widespread, Fuller managing director Bernardo Wagner is using two huge gluepots, idled by recession, to cook soy porridge for 10,000 children a day. Magnanimity has its price: Profits have been uneven and the stock has had a bumpy ride. But Andersen recently named a No. 2 who could help smooth things out. Walter Kissling, 60, the former head of Fuller's international operations, is now president and chief operating officer. ''Walter is more concerned about short-term profitability than Tony,'' says Kathy Plourde, who follows Fuller for Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette. Kissling grew up in near poverty in Costa Rica, never attended college, and moved from his home country only last year when he flew to St. Paul for his new job. Now ensconced in a windowless office at Fuller's spartan headquarters, he says he wants to raise the company's 3.3% net return on sales to 5%. Though more hardheaded than Andersen, Kissling shares the CEO's views: ''A company exists to make money for its shareholders, but if you have happy customers and employees who support its value system, the payoff to stockholders will work itself out.'' Sounds like a boss who sticks to principles.

CHART: NOT AVAILABLE CREDIT: NO CREDIT CAPTION: H.B. FULLER