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Once a quiet family-owned
Consider, for instance, that Graco equipment squeezes
tomato paste onto millions of frozen pizzas, pumps oil and lubricating
fluids into millions of cars, applies paint to homes, business and
industrial installations, and that it helps give cars made around the
world their high-gloss finishes. By successfully exploring a growing
number of applications, Graco's performance in recent years has been
remarkable. Today, Graco is one Minnesota company that clearly proves
what being a market leader means.
All of this seems a
long journey from a cold winter's day in Minneapolis in 1926, when
Russell Gray, then a parking lot attendant, figured there had to be a
better way to lubricate cars than by using hand-operated grease guns.
The temperature that day had dropped so low, the grease was impossible
to move.
To meet that need he developed a grease gun powered
by air pressure. Favorable reaction from service station owners and a
growing automobile market led Russell and his brother, Leil, to form a
business to market Russell's new grease gun. The result was Gray
Company, Inc., which generated sales of $35,000 during its first year of
operation.
During the next two decades Russell and Leil guided
the company through sustained growth, primarily with
By the start of World War II
Gray Company was doing one million dollars in sales. The firm responded
to the new demands and opportunities presented by America's rapid
defense buildup with a variety of new lubricating products. When the war
ended, management realized it could
By 1948 the company found another foothold with its first paint pump, and a year later introduced a direct-from-drum pump for heavy-duty industrial fluid handling. By the mid-1950's the Gray Company continued to be a leader in automobile servicing, and also established itself in paint spraying and finishing, food handling, cleaning, and literally hundreds of different applications areas. While still a small enterprise, sales rose to $5 million and the work force grew to 400.
With the development of the
airless spray gun in 1957, which made Gray Company a market leader in
spray coating and painting, and the death of Leil Gray in 1958, the
Graco of today began to take shape. Harry A. Murphy, Gray's successor,
served for four years and on his retirement David A. Koch assumed
leadership of the company. Koch set out to strengthen the firm's
commitment to its constituencies, which he believed included the
community in which it was based, as well as customers and employees, by
aggressively expanding the corporation. When Gray Company went public in
1969 and changed its name to Graco, sales stood at $33 million.
Graco reached the
$50-million mark two years later, a little less than 50 years after the
sale of its first grease guns. Significantly, Graco had by then acquired
H.G. Fischer & Co., an electrostatic painting equipment manufacturer,
and dramatically boosted its position in the automotive finishing
industry, which was even then replacing hazardous and wasteful
air-atomized painting with environmentally cleaner and more efficient
electrostatic painting. Growth continued as well. By the decade's end
Graco, through solidifying its position in existing markets and entering
new ones, would pass $100 million in sales. Important decisions had also
been made--including the decision to make significant strategic
investments in finishing technology--that would set the stage for even
greater growth.
As Graco moves into the 21st
century, the company defines its basic mission as "service to people
through profitable growth." Both objectives are being met as Graco has
become a world leader in complete fluid handling systems and packages
that move, control, deliver, dispense, and apply fluids in commercial
and industrial settings.
Graco Inc. has shown that patient investing can lead
to sustained and profitable growth while allowing a firm to live up to
its obligations as a partner in community development.