Graco (fluid handling)

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Graco Inc.
Type	Public(NYSE: GGG)
Founded	1926
Founder	Russell Gray
Headquarters	Minneapolis, United States of America(Northeast, Minneapolis)
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Patrick J. McHale, President and CEO^[1]
Products	Fluid handling products
Revenue	$841.3 Million (2007)^[2]
Employees	2300^[3]
Website	www.graco.com

Graco is a manufacturer of fluid-handling systems and products based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

[edit] History

Russell Gray, a Minneapolis parking lot attendant, founded Gray Company, Inc. in 1926 with his brother Leil Gray to produce and sell Russell's air-powered grease gun, invented in response to cold weather making hand-powered grease guns inoperable. Sales their first year of operation were $35,000. By 1941, annual sales had reached $1 million. They capitalized on opportunities in defense-based lubricating needs during World War II.

After the war, they began expanding outside of lubricant handling, developing a paint pump and direct-from-drum industrial fluids pumps. By the mid-1950s they had expanded to $5 million in sales and 400 employees, and were servicing fluid handling needs in a wide variety of industries.

Leil Gray dies in 1958, and was succeeded as president by Harry A. Murphy. He was succeeded in turn by David A Koch in 1962. The company continued to expand, helped by the 1957 introduction of the airless spray gun. By 1969, when Gray Company went public and changed its name to Graco, it had annual sales of $33 million.

After acquiring H. G. Fischer & Co, a manufacturer of electrostatic finishing products, sales continued to climb, reflecting an industry-wide shift in automobile painting from air-based to electrostatic technologies. By 1980, sales had climbed to $100 million.^[4]