Littlejohn Inc, Spartanburg, South Carolina, has opened a new 6,000-square-foot distribution facility in Chicago, Illinois.
The third location since the company's founding in 1936, the new distribution center was chosen because of the appealing Chicago market and the company's ability to better serve its customers in surrounding states, said Tully Brewer, Littlejohn’s president and chief executive officer.
The Chicago tanker parts center will be anchored by Brett Clavenna, branch manager, and Dean Fukar, outside sales, both of whom played a key role in the search for an expansion site.
“The challenging part wasn’t finding a physical location," said Brewer. "In fact, we could have picked pretty much any place in the Country. The challenging part was finding a location where we could hire employees who share our core values. As much as anything, it was the search for the right people that drove the choice of this location. Integrity is everything to us. We feel strongly about teamwork and integrity. That’s paid off for us in many ways, including the fact that we have very little turnover. In fact, everyone who works for us in South Carolina has been with us 10 to 25 years."
Littlejohn employs 23 and has over 25,000 square feet of distribution space for Spartanburg, Cincinnati OH, and now Chicago.
For the petroleum industry, Littlejohn’s inventory includes bottom loaders, couplers, emergency valves, gate valves, flanges, manways, gaskets, and pumps. For dry bulk transporters, the company offers check valves, tees, couplers, gauges, flanges, and various other parts. It also serves the stainless sector with parts such as rupture discs, vapor valves, hydraulic valves, manways, emergency valves, pumps, and gauges.
Littlejohn’s business has boomed during the past six years, and the company continues to add new product lines and to expand the products stocked. “We have had great first and second quarters of 2008,” Brewer said. "With the Ohio and Chicago center up and fully operational, Littlejohn officials will be watching the market carefully to decide if further expansion is necessary. Additional locations will always be a possibility. The exact time-frame will be determined by market conditions and our customer base, but we’re open to further expansion. We’ll do whatever it takes to remain an industry leader."