Melaleuca:The Wellness history

Melaleuca has been a Better Business Bureau Accredited business since 1987.

1989:Vitality Pak, a vitamin packet, is introduced.

1990:Company is included on the Inc. magazine list of the 500 fastest growing private companies.

According to papers filed with the Idaho state government, B & V Technology, Inc., then headed by Frank VanderSloot as president, Allen Ball as secretary, and Roger Wright and Harold Ball as directors, merged with Melaleuca, Inc. on December 30, 1993.

1994:Company begins selling its products in Canada, its first international market.

So in 1995 Melaleuca teamed up with Doctor John Folts to develop a supplement based on flavonoids.

In spite of several changes, VanderSloot admitted in an article in the March 24, 1996 Idaho Falls Post Register that 'People find it hard to separate us from the original organization.' In any case, the new firm continued to grow.

1997:Dietary supplement Provex CV is introduced; sales begin in Taiwan.

1998:Operations begin in Japan.

In 1999 he spent an undisclosed sum to sponsor billboards around the state asking rhetorically whether taxpayer money should be used to support It's Elementary, a public TV program exploring how four schools dealt with homosexuality.

One of his favorite causes is Concerned Citizens for Family Values, which in 2002 paid for ads that helped defeat a defense lawyer--"A liberal's liberal," says VanderSloot--running for state attorney general.

Leading producers: three presidential directors who got commissions topping $1 million in 2003.

Since then, the company has grown at a compound annual rate of 28%, crossing the $1 billion in annual sales mark in 2011.

With a long history of renovating vacant buildings and only engaging in new construction when the project can be paid for in cash, Melaleuca moved into its new global headquarters in 2014.

Melaleuca: The Wellness Company, a privately held manufacturer of more than 480 health and wellness products, headquartered in Idaho Falls, Idaho, released its annual report for 2015 this morning.