History
The company was incorporated in 1922 under the name Utility Supply Company. During the early 1930s, the company published its first office products catalog. The concept was such a success that the business was further expanded with the opening of its first retail store in 1937. In the early 1950s, in addition to its catalog and retail operation, management recognized growing opportunities in the office products wholesale business. In 1970, the company opened its first state-of-the-art distribution center. As time passed, the Company found it difficult to compete as both a retailer and wholesaler. So, in 1978, the retail operations were sold and the Company began to operate exclusively as an office products wholesaler.
To provide the capital to further its growth, United Stationers went public in 1981. In 1984, the Company established MicroUnited to capitalize on the growth in the computer supplies sector. The company's MicroUnited division focused on the distribution of peripherals and supplies to computer products resellers. United Stationers recognized that its marketing programs and distribution infrastructure would be attractive to customers within other industries. Therefore, the company established its United Facility Supply Division in 1994 to participate in the distribution of facility maintenance supplies.
Read more about this topic: United Stationers
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“When we of the so-called better classes are scared as men were never scared in history at material ugliness and hardship; when we put off marriage until our house can be artistic, and quake at the thought of having a child without a bank-account and doomed to manual labor, it is time for thinking men to protest against so unmanly and irreligious a state of opinion.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“The principle that human nature, in its psychological aspects, is nothing more than a product of history and given social relations removes all barriers to coercion and manipulation by the powerful.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)
“A man acquainted with history may, in some respect, be said to have lived from the beginning of the world, and to have been making continual additions to his stock of knowledge in every century.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)