W.B. Mason
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W.B. Mason is a large office supply contract retailer that competes with Staples, OfficeMax, and Office Depot. It was founded in 1898 by William Betts in Brockton, Massachusetts, where its headquarters are still located. It began as a rubber stamp company, which thrived in the Brockton shoe industry. A year later, W.B. Mason introduced free delivery, using his horse-drawn wagon with his face painted on the side to cart product around downtown Brockton. In 1987, W.B. Mason grew to become the largest office supplies and office furniture company in Southeastern Massachusetts. [1] - - W.B. Mason currently serves the New England and Mid-Atlantic areas of the United States. They have nine distribution centers, roughly 1800 employees, 700 sales representatives, 200 delivery trucks, and over 100,000 customers. W.B. Mason is also the official supplier of the Boston Red Sox, the Philadelphia Phillies, and the New York Yankees. They sponsor the post-game show after Red Sox games on NESN, and the 2-hour condensed replay of Yankee games on the YES Network. W.B. Mason also has their corporate logo prominently displayed in all three teams' home ballparks: Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, Yankee Stadium in The Bronx, New York, and on the Green Monster at Fenway Park in Boston. - - Along with those sponsorships, W.B. Mason assisted with funding a brand new sports complex at Stonehill College in Easton, MA, and thus reserved naming rights as W.B. Mason Stadium. The special relationship on the collegiate level is due in large part to W.B. Mason's CEO, Leo Meehan, being an alumnus of the institution. A number of W.B. Mason television commercials have used the college as a filming location as well. - The current owners live in the Greater Boston Area.
Their logo features two U.S. flags flanking a portrait presumed to be W.B. Mason. This logo is in violation of the rarely enforced United States Flag Code, section 8i, which reads, "The flag should never be used for advertising purposes in any manner whatsoever." It is also interesting to note that the flag on the right has 50 stars but the one on the left shows only 45 stars. This is probably because when the company was established in 1898 there were only 45 states in the US.
