With distributors now offering same and next-day delivery, online ordering and more value-add services than ever before, it’s sometimes hard to picture the humble beginnings many independent distribution businesses started from. For Craig Norlin, co-owner of Wautoma, Wisconsin-based Mid-State Supply, it’s not difficult to recall at all; he remembers his father — Austin Norlin — delivering product out of the family’s station wagon with a four-wheel farm wagon towing behind in the 1960s.

On Feb. 1, NIBCO announced it has acquired Matco-Norca and its subsidiary SVF Flow Controls.

IMARK Plumbing recognized members and suppliers who achieved results and successfully participated within IMARK marketing programs. 

For many, the term “hot work” might conjure up an image of a vast mill, where molten ore is ever present in vats, being poured into casting molds amidst a shower of sparks and extreme radiant heat. Or perhaps one imagines a metal worker operating a plasma table cutting thick sheets of steel like a hot knife through butter. While these are definitely both examples of hot work, the term covers a much wider array of activities performed in varied work environments.

Advocacy is one of the pillars of the American Supply Association. When the association was founded more than 50 years ago, the need to advocate on behalf of the industry as a whole with a unified voice was paramount and the need remains today.

My first job in this business was to be a truck driver for an AC/Refrigeration wholesaler on Long Island. I didn’t have a car at the time, so I walked a mile to the branch and loaded a box truck, which I then drove 30 miles east to the branch where I would spend my days. Once there, I unloaded the transfer stock, reloaded for the local deliveries, and then drove off to learn about life.

In 2022 more the 4 million people left their jobs each month in the U.S. This ongoing mass exodus was coined “The Great Resignation” in 2021 by Anthony Klotz, an associate professor of management at University College of London. The Great Resignation was brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic and the way it changed how people think about how, when, where and why they go to work. Klotz recently told CNBC Make It that he expects quitting and company turnover to slow down in 2023 — hopefully good news for businesses nationwide struggling to staff their companies.

Uponor North America announced Jon Sillerud, vice president, operations, has agreed to accept the additional responsibilities of leading the supply chain function for the company, effective immediately. 

The ASA OPR has been regarded as the gold standard in PHCP-PVF distributor benchmarking for more than 40 years and presents more than 130 financial datapoints for wholesalers to compare themselves against the entire industry, firms of similar sales volume, similar product offerings and of similar geographical location.

Each year, the AD Board’s Nominating & Governance Committee holds an open nomination and voting period, during which AD members select members to its board of directors.