JL Clark history

1905 established John L. Clark Manufacturing Co.

According to an early newspaper article on the company, Clark's total production volume reached 50 million pieces per year by 1911.

Photographic lithography processes were added to the production line, and this, coupled with the addition of a rotary printing press in 1925, allowed the company not only to speed up production but also to improve quality, establishing Clark's long-held reputation for excellence.

Source: McCoy’s Rockford City Directory for 1926

Despite declining sales, down to $800,000 in 1933, in part due to a cutback to a four-day workweek, the number of the company's employees actually grew.

Source: 1937 Rockford City Directory

Then, in 1951, Clark completed a 31,000-square-foot expansion of the Rockford plant.

In 1952, longtime employee Ralph Rosecrance replaced Harold Clark, who died the following year, as president of the company.

1955: The first acquisition, that of Liberty Can and Sign Company of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, is completed.

By 1964, when the company made its initial public offering, sales had reached $23 million, with earnings of $1.2 million.

Source: Rockford West High School, 1966 Warriors Yearbook ad

The newly public company next embarked on a string of acquisitions that not only raised its revenues to $82 million by 1976 but also allowed the company to diversify into a wide range of packaging materials.

The company's diversification efforts were succeeding, bringing revenues to $124.5 million in 1981, despite the national slide into a recession.

The Baldwin acquisition helped boost revenues to $174 million and net earnings of $16 million by 1984.

J.L. Clark has produced metal packaging for many national companies and brands, including Curad, McCormick spices, Kodak, Ray-O-Vac batteries, Band-Aid, and 3M. The company grew and innovated and in 1987 was rebranded as CLARCOR, a Fortune 500 company.

The 1993 acquisition of Airguard Industries had marked CLARCOR's first substantial move into the market for air filters for industrial and commercial customers--the firm having previously focused primarily on fluid filters.

Also in 1995 Norman E. Johnson was promoted to president and chief operating officer, with Gloyd remaining chairman and CEO.

By 1996, CLARCOR was present in nearly every filtration market, with a dominant position in many of the market segments.

Early in 1998 CLARCOR completed a minor though strategic acquisition, that of Air Technologies, Inc. (ATI) of Ottawa, Kansas, principally a producer of air filtration products to clean the air exiting out of painting operations.

By 1999 revenues had reached $477.9 million, with just 13 percent of the total coming from the company's founding consumer packaging operations.

A huge jump in revenues, to $652.1 million in 2000, resulted from this major acquisition.

In June 2001 CLARCOR spent about $29 million for several filtration management companies that together made up one of the leading distributors of filtration products to some of the largest firms in North America.