Piel Corporation history

By 1912 the business was successful enough to relocate to new facilities on 59th Street as well as purchase a small pigment company, Crescent Color Pigment, located south of New York City in Dunellen, New Jersey.

It was also in 1920 that Alexander's son-in-law, Frank K. Greenwall, joined the company.

In 1928 National Gum changed its name to National Adhesives Corporation after merging with two smaller adhesives companies located in upstate New York and Ohio.

Unilever had been formed in 1930 when Brothers Lever of England merged with the Dutch Margarine Union.

Continued Prosperity Following Alexander's Death in 1940

By June 1946 the magazine had a commitment from the businessman Lessing J. Rosenwald to put up one-third of the estimated start-up capital.

To reflect the new breadth of its operations, in 1959 the company changed its name to National Starch and Chemical Company.

By 1961 annual revenues grew to $60 million, and the company continued to grow by both internal and external means, domestically and internationally.

To improve distribution, National Starch began building regional manufacturing facilities in 1963. As a result, the company created new divisions in 1968: Adhesives, Resins and Specialty Chemicals, and Starch.

The 1974 purchase of California-based Ablestik Laboratories opened the door to selling high-performance epoxy-based adhesives to the microelectronics industry.

In 1980 National Starch ranked 449 on the Fortune 500 and a year later jumped to 405, with consolidated sales of $668 million and net income of $41.4 million.

In 1984 Piel became the chairman of the company and two years later oversaw the sale of the magazine to the German publishing enterprise Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck.

In 1986 National Starch topped $1 billion in annual sales.

By 1997 Unilever decided, however, to concentrate on consumer products and put the four specialty chemical businesses on the block.

In 2000 the company's three-decade stretch of record growth was interrupted, although it still remained a profitable business.

With the United States economy slipping, coupled with the lingering effects of the terrorists attacks of September 11th, National Starch faced even greater challenges in 2001.