HISTORY OUR Before the Johnstone Supply Cooperative was founded, there were independent wholesale distributors scattered throughout the United States. The South Texas region was no different. Our company began in 1947 as South Texas Refrigeration Supply— later changing owners (and names) in the early 1950s to Airtrol Supply, Inc. Harry Samuels was the owner in the early 1950s and ran the company until 1947, when he sold it to Ted Stephens. At the time, there were just four supply houses in the Corpus Christi area. Airtrol Supply thrived on providing specialty services to contractors then, as we still do today. When Ted took over, his experience as both a Trane Chiller salesman (in the early 1960s) and an estimator for a local mechanical contractor served him well in growing the business. He moved Airtrol Supply into electronic controls, servicing the commercial building space while continuing a strong presence in refrigeration, motors, and specialty parts sourcing. During the late 1970s, increased competition from new supply houses put pressure on profit margins. Looking into industry trade resources, Ted found out about the Johnstone Supply Cooperative model and reached out to the founder, John Shank, to get more information. Airtrol Supply joined the Johnstone Supply cooperative in 1984 as their seventy-sixth member store. Fast forward to the mid 1990s. Tim Stephens was a civil engineer living in Phoenix, Arizona. He had been to several Johnstone Supply owner meetings to learn more about this cooperative that Ted had joined many years before. Tim was sold on the way the business was operated and agreed to move back to Corpus Christi and buy out the family business in 1996. We had an opportunity to expand the business footprint in 2000 by acquiring an existing store in McAllen, Texas, and added a third location in Brownsville (in response to a customer request to better cover the Rio Grande Valley). Johnstone Supply – South Texas now has seven locations across South Texas. We are dedicated to serving our customers better than anyone else and will continue to invest in our assets and the people to do so.
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