Sanford (writing products)
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Sanford L.P., based in Oak Brook, Illinois, is a Newell Rubbermaid company. Sanford is the largest writing products manufacturer in the world. It is primarily known for manufacturing Sharpie Markers, automatic pencils, and its Paper Mate products.
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[edit] History
It was founded in 1857 by Frederick W. Redington and William H. Sanford, Jr. in Massachusetts as the Sanford Manufacturing Company. The company moved to Chicago in 1866 - five years before the Great Chicago Fire destroyed Sanford's Chicago location. New facilities were soon built after the devastation of the fire and operations resumed. In 1947, just following World War II, the Sanford Ink Company was forced to move locations to make room for a new expressway. The company settled in Bellwood, Illinois, where it still maintains a facility.
At the time of the move to Bellwood in 1947, Sanford consisted of 100 employees and sales of $500,000. Recently, Sanford's 3,000 employees produced almost $1 billion in annual sales.
In August 1985 Sanford became a public company. On February 14, 1992, Sanford was acquired by the Newell Company, (now called Newell Rubbermaid, a Fortune 500 company).
[edit] Acquisitions
Business grew through many acquisitions. Newell already owned Keene Office Products and Rogers Office Products, acquired in 1991. In 1994 they acquired Eberhard Faber, in 1995 Berol and Phillips, and in 1998 rotring, a German pen company. Also in 1998, Sanford split into two divisions: Sanford North America and Sanford International. In 1999 Rubbermaid Incorporated Home Products, Little Tikes, Graco, and Curver were acquired and the company changed its name to Newell Rubbermaid.
Sanford became a major force in office products when, in 2000, Gillette sold its writing instruments division to Newell Rubbermaid, whose own stationery division, Sanford, became Sanford, L.P. Gilette had acquired Parker Pens in 1993 and had already owned the PaperMate brand, as well as Waterman and Liquid Paper. This, along with other acquisitions, made Sanford the largest writing products manufacturer in the world.
[edit] Locations
Sanford has locations in Bellwood, Illinois; Lewisburg;Maryville,Tennessee and Shelbyville, Tennessee; Janesville, Wisconsin; Los Angeles, California; Ontario, Canada; Hamburg, Germany; Mexicali, Mexico; Bogotá, Colombia; Caracas, Venezuela; and Newhaven, East Sussex in England.
As one of Newell Rubbermaid's largest and most profitable companies, Sanford stands as an international leader in the writing instrument and art supplies industries. [1]
As of 2007 Sanford is headquartered in Oak Brook, Illinois.
[edit] Brands
Sanford manufactures pens and pencils under many brandnames:
- Expo and Expo2
- Foohy (formerly Colorific)
- MeanStreak
- Mr. Sketch, includes a line of scented markers
- Papermate
- Parker
- Prismacolor
- rotring
- Sensa, pens known for their ergonomic design and adaptive grip.
- Sharpie
- Sharpie Accent
- Waterman
Sanford also owns Berol, and Reynolds, primarily sold in Europe.
Sanford manufactures other office supplies such as CardScan, Dymo, Laurentien, Liquid Paper, mimio, pelouze, and Rolodex.
mimio devices allow users to turn standard dry erase board surfaces into Interactive Whiteboard surfaces when used with a data projector and, without projector, to digitally capture EXPO dry erase marker notes on the board. mimio systems (hardware and software) enable users to link physical whiteboards to software created whiteboards such as in netmeeting, or to share physical whiteboards via web conferencing solutions. On October 4, 2006 Newell Rubbermaid acquired the mimio interactive whiteboard (iWB) product line. The mimio line has become part of the Sanford Brands portfolio of products.
Sanford is the distributor in North America for uni-ball pens and pencils, which are made by the Mitsubishi Pencil Company.
