Holderness Supplies of Tucson Arizona Continues Warehouse Expansion Program

As an old-time mining engineer and construction man Ed Holderness was well suited after years in underground mining, to become southern Arizona distributor for Hercules Powder Co. late in 1940.

The business continued as such until Ed's stepson, Bill Daily. joined him when he returned from World War II. At this time the business became a partnership called Ed llolderness Mine & Contractor's Supplies.

Soon the partnership became the distributor for Union W'ire Rope Corp., of Kansas

City, Mo., and also began selling lumber to retail yards as a desk-wholesaler.

As a retail lumber yard desk-wholesaler the partnership sold Douglas fir, pine, red' wood and plywood and participated heavily in sales of mining timbers.

In December 1958, Bill and his wife, Kit, purchased the entire assets of Ed Holder' ness Supplies, Inc., and Ed Holderness re' tired. Explosives, Inc. was sold outright to a third party.

In April 1960, Ed Holderness Supplies,

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Angeles, California 90014 like to hove my own copy of the Colifornio Lumber Mer- i eoch month. Pleose enter my subscription for, lnc., moved to its next place of business, 2115 E. 22nd St., in Tucson, and opened a distribution yard handling Douglas fir, pine, redwood, plywood and other associ' ated items for retail lumber yards. It also expanded the mine supplies division of the company to ventilation tubing, drill steel, drill bits and numerous other mine sup' plies items.

In September 1960 Bob Large joined its stafi and created the building materials division carrying nationally known items.

Because of a three-fold increase in inven' tory the company moved to its present quarters at 3502 E. 34th St. in December 1962 where it has 20,000 sq. ft. of ware' house space, a 2500 sq. ft. office and a total of 171,5500 sq. ft. of land area with a private 500 foot spur that can be lengthened to 700 feet when needed.

In October 1963 the company purchased additional product lines from a friendly competitor, Lumber Dealers Supply, now out of business.

The 16 employees of the companY are led by Bill Daily through his general man' ager, Ray Gross. The operating structure is a departmentalized one with the mine supplies division headed bv Wendell Bivens, the building rnaterials division by Bob Large and the lumber and plywood division by Ed Jolurson. There is no central pur' chasing as each department head buys his own inventory and is also active in sales. The company has four other people on the floor to assist in sales, inventory, and book' keeping. It also has two outside salesmen.

The warehouse and yard facilities are handled by four men' With the palletizing of roofing by Celotex, U.S.G. and others the utilization of three fork trucks makes the operation nearly 100/o mechanized' Box cars of lumber and moulding are unloaded by hand and unitized for mechanical handling.

At the present time plans are on the drawing board {or further expansion.