Browsing: anniversary

General Distributing Company General Distributing Company is a family-owned business that has been serving Montana since 1948, when Glenn E. Bliss bought into a financially challenged company. 75 years later, General Distributing Company has been in the Bliss family ever since. “The company started off selling tires and batteries and slowly migrated into the welding supply and industrial gas business,” says Vice President Eric Bliss. “Our growth over the last 75 years came from building and maintaining strong relations with our customers, vendors, employees, and our competitors. A focus on understanding our customer needs, providing excellent service, and delivering value-added…

CK Supply CK Supply opened for business on Nov. 3, 1948, as a distributor for National Cylinder Gas Company. CK Supply was founded by Ralph Chase and Ralph Knight. They derived the name of CK Supply by using the “C” from Chase and the “K” from Knight. On Aug. 22, 1951, Chase and Knight sold the assets of the company to Homer Fudge. At that time, Paul Dunn was a service technician with National Cylinder Gas Company and CK Supply was one of his customers. In April of 1955, Paul Dunn became the sales manager for CK Supply. On Dec.…

Butler Gas Products Company In 1948, John A. (Jack) and Thomas G. (Tom) Butler started a gas and welding supply business called Compressed Cylinder Gases. The inspiration came from their father, John T. (Dandy) Butler, who owned and operated a compressed gas company in Coraopolis, a flourishing industrial town near Pittsburgh. Dandy was doing business with a local scrap dealer who was moving east. When Dandy’s sons moved to Reading, this account became their first customer. Through the early years, Compressed Cylinder Gases prospered. Jack and Tom changed the name to Butler Cylinder Gas. Shortly thereafter, Jack was called into…

Bug-O Systems In 1943 the Livesay Multipurpose Machine was invented by Everett Livesay to increase the production of ships and landing craft at Higgins Shipyards in Louisiana. Five years later, H. Edward Cable, a consultant to the welding industry, and four business partners founded the company D&R Electric Company, Inc. on April 6, 1948. By 1958, the company had changed its name to Weld Tooling Corporation and Herbert E. Cable had joined the company as the company acquired the original patent rights to the Livesay Multipurpose Machine. Development and redesign work began, and the BUG-0 was the original model number…

McKinney Welding Supply As New York City became the world’s largest manufacturing center and the introduction of TIG welding, followed by arc welding later in the decade, Charles McKinney recognized the need for a welding supply company. In 1943, in the heart of New York City on West 52nd St., McKinney opened McKinney Welding Supply Company. After successfully running the business for twenty years, Charles retired, selling the business to Nicholas Mattiace Sr., who had started as a truck driver for McKinney Welding, later working his way up to manager before taking over for Charles. Although the company has moved…

Willard C. Starcher Willard C. Starcher, Inc.  was founded by Willard Starcher in 1938. Prior to opening the company, Starcher had worked as a schoolteacher and then as a mechanic fixing generators and refrigerators. He opened Willard C. Starcher in his hometown of Spencer, West Virginia, in a garage behind his house. More than 80 years later, the company continues to operate out of Spencer. “We’re located in rural West Virginia, in a town of 2,600 people,” says John Hill, Starcher’s grandson and current company president. “And it probably had 2,600 people 85 years ago, when the company was started. But it’s our…

Sherwood Valve Celebrates 85 year anniversary Sherwood Valve has its earliest roots in the Hill Clutch and Machine & Foundry Company founded in 1894. In 1923, Aluminum & Brass Company, a turn of the century foundry, produced the first industrial valves in Lockport, New York. In 1934, Hill Clutch & Machine designed the first hydraulic grinder in the United States. In 1938, the Deutsch Company was founded by two brothers. Deutsch Company introduced the first LPG valves under American Screw Products in 1940. All of these industry firsts are tied to Sherwood’s history — still today the only totally…

85 Year anniversary for Purity Cylinder Gases In 1938, Edward Butterfield, Glenn G. Garman and Howard Sweet organized Purity Cylinder Gases. The company was incorporated into the state of Michigan in October of that year, and the first ever store was opened at 721 S. Division Avenue in Grand Rapids. In the mid-1960s, three of the distributor’s employees became new officers within the company. GlennDeVries, Ken Nyhuis, and Don Wyngarden purchased the company from the original founders. These three officers began to build onto the solid foundation left by Butterfield, Garman and Sweet. “The second generation really started that growth process,” says Doug Nyhuis, President…

West Penn Laco Celebrates 95 Years West Penn Laco was founded by Andrew Seibert in 1928 in Pittsburgh’s East Liberty Section. Originally founded as West Penn Lacquer Company, the company was a supplier of automotive lacquer coatings to the Pittsburgh Market. Even 95 years later, automotive refinish products remain a significant component of West Penn Laco’s business. In 1947, Alex MacKay, Andrew Seibert’s son-in-law, and Bill Richards purchased the controlling interest in the company. Ever since, the business has remained in the family, with Alex’s son, Howard MacKay serving as President today, while his grandson, Scott MacKay serves as General…

Sutton-Garten Co. Sutton-Garten Company is celebrating its 105th anniversary in 2023. The company began in 1918 when Charles Sutton and Ray Garten, two Union Carbide employees, were given the right to establish a Prest-O-Lite distributorship for the state of Indiana in Indianapolis. Aside from selling small acetylene cylinders and gas equipment, Sutton-Garten also installed gas lighting systems on cars and trucks and maintained a welding repair shop. “We have been able to grow and evolve the company by embracing the changes in our market,” says President Pat Garten. “Both new products from our vendors and changes in our customer needs.…

ILMO Products Company 110 Year Anniversary Like most companies that have lasted for 110 years, ILMO Products Company bears little resemblance to the company founded in 1913. When D.O. Floreth and his father, Henry Floreth, decided to open their doors, the company was a wholesaler of automobile accessories called Illinois Tire and Vulcanizing Company. Later, as the company evolved, it began going by Illinois Tire & Battery. It was through the automobile industry that today’s ILMO Products entered the gas business.  “[ILMO] got into the gas business through the carbide acetylene headlights for automobiles,” says Executive Vice President Liz Standley. “We…

Norton Abrasives In 1858, Franklin Norton and his older cousin, Frederick Hancock opened a pottery shop in Worcester, Massachusetts, called the Water Street Pottery Shop. In 1873, one of the employees of the shop invented a grinding wheel that would set in motion the next century and a half of history. In 1885, seven Worcester entrepreneurs bought the patent for the grinding wheel as well as the company name and so, Norton Company was born. The founders purchased land in the city’s Greendale section, which was then farmland, and built their first grinding wheel plant. Norton has occupied that land…

By Steve Guglielmo, John Ospina, Abydee Butler Moore, Bob Ewing, Gary Halter and Robert Anders We have spent 2020 celebrating GAWDA’s 75th Anniversary. We have shared fun memories, reflected on GAWDA’s founding, its road to independence and everything in between. But 75 years is not the end of GAWDA’s story. Not by a long shot. As we near the end of 2020, we asked GAWDA’s current President Abydee Butler Moore, Executive Director John Ospina, and the next three presidents in line, to answer some questions about GAWDA’s history and what they expect to see as we continue our march forward.…

Generant Company Generant was founded in 1930 by Albert Simon, an engineer and business owner. He started the company with a line of needle valves, filters, lubricators and pressure regulators. Generant held the original patent on the Air Pressure Regulator and began to assemble and market these products to industry. In 1966, Albert retired and sold the business to his accountant, Paul Buren. In 1968, Buren acquired Generant’s largest supplier, Reliable Screw Machine Products. Reliable was a job shop screw machine company. Then, in 1972, the company further expanded the Screw Machine business with the acquisition of Automatic Screw Machine…

AGL Welding Supply Company AGL Welding Supply Company (Clifton, New Jersey) is celebrating its 100th Anniversary in 2020. The company can trace its roots all the way back to a 1920 business called William Rudolph Company in Paterson, New Jersey. William Rudolph was eventually merged into AGL which is an abbreviation for “Auto Gas Light,” harkening back to the days when the company supplied acetylene gas to light the head lamps for automobiles. In 1958, AGL was acquired by Bud Fenelon, along with his brothers, Tom and Bill, and brother-in-law Joe Brancato. The industry was not new to the Fenelons.…

105 Years CPV Manufacturing The CPV story is built on the enterprise of a farmer turned machinist – whose tradition of quality and craftsmanship remains the cornerstone in meeting the challenges of modern technology. In 1915, Isaiah G. Engle, a Pennsylvania Dutch farmer who had become a skilled machinist, started his own one-man business – manufacturing replacement valves for steam-driven reciprocating pumps. When centrifugal pumps came on stream, CPV pump valves were encased and transformed into silent check valves. To meet the need, CPV developed a unique line of soft-seated valves flat-faced O-ring sealed fittings known worldwide as the O-SEAL® SYSTEM.…

Lincoln Electric 125 years ago, a young electrical engineer by the name of John Cromwell Lincoln founded the Lincoln Electric Company on December 5, 1895, in Cleveland, Ohio. Lincoln invested $200 to develop his unique, direct current electric motor for industrial applications. What started as a spark of ingenuity flickered and gained momentum and the company has grown to become one of the most widely recognized and successful brands in the entire world today. John C. Lincoln and his brother and co-founder, James F. Lincoln, who joined John in 1907, continued to innovate, and in 1911 had invented and launched…

While Tekno Valves North America incorporated in 2009, Greg Leumas and Jim Guitreau actually began selling Tekno Valves products in North America four years earlier. Guitreau and Leumas were working together at another company that sold chlorine valves when they met a Tekno Valves representative at a Chlorine Institute Meeting. “We started talking to them about representing their product in North America,” says Leumas, president of Tekno Valves North America. “We began selling the product in 2005.” Four years later, the company that they had been working for was being sold and Leumas and Guitreau decided to strike out on…

Global Calibration Gases Managing Partner Ray Borzio started a consulting business called Special Gas Systems and Technology (now Special Gas Services Inc.) in 1993 to serve the needs of the independent gases and welding supplies distributors desiring entrance into specialty gases manufacturing. . A small training lab was set up in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and interest grew rapidly. In 2004, the school was moved to Fort Myers, FL at the then corporate headquarters of CryoVation LLC. This gave Special Gas a forum to teach high end production techniques with hands-on lab demonstrations. In March of 2009 Global Calibration Gases was formed…

CryoWorks, Inc. began ten years ago after an idea from Donna Mast. Tim Mast, CEO and owner of CryoWorks, was working as a salesperson from his home office.  Since Donna was also home with their children, the entire family was gaining first-hand experience in the cryogenic piping industry. Tim was helping a customer who was having issues with the products and services that his previous employer was providing. “I got off the phone that day and Donna said to me, ‘Why don’t we do this ourselves?’” says Mast. “So, we started planning it and about a month later we were…