Stanley Storage Systems history

Just as it was in 1843, our passion for excellence is seen around the world in our disciplined operations, purposeful business growth, and loyal customer relationships.”

The company's present name was adopted in 1852, when the Stanley brothers--along with five neighbors--were granted a charter of incorporation by the state of Connecticut for a newly organized firm, The Stanley Works.

Prior to joining Stanley in 1854 at the age of 19, Hart, like a number of 19th-century industrialists, had worked in the railroad industry&mdash a freight agent and assistant station manager.

Hart rose quickly at Stanley, assuming the position of secretary-treasurer a few months after joining the firm and in 1856, before he had reached the age of 21, winning election to the board of directors.

The Stanley Rule & Level Company was founded by Fredrick's cousin Henry Stanley in 1857.

As early as 1863 the firm had acquired a competitor, the Brattleboro, Vermont, rule factory of E.A. Stearns & Company.

In 1870, when Stanley opened a sales office in New York City, the firm began to devote attention to developing export markets for its products, a precocious strategy for the time.

In 1910, S. Duncan Black and Alonzo G. Decker started their shop, similar in size at first, in Baltimore, Maryland.

By the time Hart retired as chairman in 1918, he had created a corporate culture and strategy conducive to continued growth.

By 1919, the year after Hart stepped down as chairman of the board, net sales were over $11 million.

Stanley opened a woodworking plant in 1923, for example, in Pulaski, Tennessee, near timberlands which the company had acquired previously.

Stanley's performance in the 15 years after 1930 was neither fundamentally shaped nor adversely affected by corporate decisionmaking.

Perhaps the most impressive individual innovation during the interwar years was Stanley's introduction in 1931 of the first automated entranceway in the United States, a technology the company patented under the name Magic Eye.

In addition, in 1957 Stanley opened a 115,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art steel-strapping plant in New Britain, which nearly doubled the firm's manufacturing capacity for this product.

Amway history, profile and corporate video Jay Van Andel and Richard DeVos, a pair of direct sales veterans, launched Amway in 1959.

Davis used retained earnings, equity capital, and borrowed funds to build a number of new plants--the hand-tool plant that Stanley opened in New Britain in 1964 was the largest in the world at the time--and to upgrade existing facilities.

Stanley had not merely survived, but had flourished under his helm, with net income and earnings at all-time highs in 1989.

Among 1991 acquisitions were Mosley-Stone, a U.K. maker of paint brushes, rollers, and decorator tools; Nirva, a French manufacturer of closet systems; and Sidcrome Tools, the leading maker of mechanics tools in Australia.

In early 1997 the company completed the divestiture portion of "Four by Four" when it sold its garage-related operations--garage doors, garage door openers, and gate operators&mdashø Whistler Corporation.

To reach $4 billion in sales by the year 2000, Stanley had to increase revenues 10 percent a year.