Medline history

In 1918, Irving Mills, then 12 years of age, joined his father's business; six years later, at age 18, Irving Mills took over as head of the company.

1924: Irving Mills takes over management of his father's business.

Irving Mills attended Northwestern University at night while running the family company and graduated in 1939 with a degree in business.

In an effort to make the point that Medline sold high-quality goods and to increase customer familiarity with its products, Medline came out with a glitzy and unconventional catalogue in 1979.

Although this figure represented a 225 percent increase over 1980 revenues of $53 million, the company still only generated half the profits of the nation's largest healthcare products distributor.

Although the approach offended some people, Medline's textile sales increased by 40 percent the following year, and it was not until 1985 that the company retired its unique catalogue.

In 1995, Medline, then the largest privately owned medical supplies manufacturer, added a new 130,000-square-foot production facility for surgical and medical trays in Waukegan, Illinois.

In 1999, in a move to expand its online presence into the physician offices marketplace, it purchased the latex exam glove business Kendall Healthcare Company (a division of Tyco International, Inc.) and began listing and selling products on Neoforma.com.

Despite attempts on the part of Wisconsin and Iowa to entice Medline to relocate to their state, the company made a firm decision to stay in Illinois and broke ground in 2000 for a $14 million, 124,000-square-foot corporate headquarters.

The September 11, 2001 collapse of the World Trade Center in New York afforded Medline other opportunities for growth as well.

In 2002, Medline signed a distribution agreement with A & A Medical Supply to distribute Medline's line of medical and surgical products to physician offices throughout the United States, thus furthering the company's move into the physician offices marketplace.

According to Jon Mills in a 2003 Chicago Tribune article, "You couldn't ship into Durango, Colorado in winter because the roads were dirt.