preview

Buckman Laboratories

Good Essays

9-800-160
REV: JANUARY 22, 2003

WILLIAM E. FULMER

Buckman Laboratories (A)
If you can’t maximize the power of the individual, you haven’t done anything. If you expand the ability of individual members of the organization, you expand the ability of the organization.
— Bob Buckman, CEO and Chairman of Buckman Laboratories

A major Buckman customer in Australia announced plans to commission a new alkaline fine paper machine in 1998. Not only was it always attractive to get “start-up” business but this particular machine tended to use more chemicals than most paper machines. The customer’s tender was broken into two areas--machine hygiene and retention—with annual revenues estimated to be
$600,000 and $700,000, respectively. …show more content…

There were 200 shareholders, including employees, directors, and outsiders. Buckman family members owned the largest block of stock.
Founded in 1945 by Dr. Stanley Buckman, the company, from its beginning, emphasized its abilities to create and manufacture innovative and unique solutions for the control of the growth of microorganisms in customer processes. It started in Memphis, Tennessee, with five employees in a small building located on land that was once a lumberyard. Offices and laboratories were located on the first floor of the building, and a 50-gallon black iron chemical reactor and a steam boiler were placed in the basement. It was sufficient to supply the initial order for 20 gallons of a microbicide, trade-named BSM-11, to the company’s first customer—Whiting Paper Company. Three years later
BSM-11 and its derivatives had become the industry standard for microorganism control. Soon a new production facility was built next door and Buckman Laboratories of Canada was formed.
During the decade of the 1950s, the company’s customer base expanded to include the leather, paint, sugar processing, agriculture, paint, coatings and plastics industries. In the 1960s new manufacturing and sales companies were formed in Mexico and Belgium. This expansion was followed in the 1970s with the opening of sales and manufacturing companies in South Africa and
Brazil and a sales company in Australia. New

Get Access