Supplier of the Year: Grainger

The Grainger team at the new Santa Ana branch, which opened in April, from left, Hung Nguyen, customer service associate; Ashley Bowden-Potts, branch manager; Antoine Jackson, customer service associate; and Eric Roth, sales associate (photo courtesy of Grainger).

Grainger ranged far and wide in the past year in Southern California.

The Illinois-based company-a broad-line supplier of facilities maintenance products to contractors, businesses and institutions-opened in 2005 full-service branches in Culver City, Irvine, Santa Ana, Sorrento and Torrance.

Grainger also relocated several facilities to Burbank, Chino, Long Beach, Oxnard and Rancho Cucamonga. And new Grainger Express locations opened in Santa Monica and the Wilshire district of Los Angeles.

"For the third quarter of 2005, we grew in Southern California by 17 percent compared to the same quarter the year before," said Chris Garleib, Grainger's regional sales vice president for California and Nevada.

Illinois-based Grainger has been a local supplier to business customers throughout California for 70 years, and now operates about 50 locations in the state. The California outlets are supported by a 338,000-sq.-ft. location in Mira Loma.

The $5-billion company has about 600 locations throughout North America and employs more than 15,000.

"Our goal is to lower the number of customers per territory, which in the end gives us more customer touches and better service to the customer," Garleib said.

"In Northern California, we're positioning ourselves to better serve the wine and health care industries. We even have some territories that are dedicated to serving the health care market."

In Southern California, inventory levels are up 50 percent, square footage is up 55 percent and the company increased its sales staff by 40 percent. Graleib said the investment in Southern California will continue in 2006.

"We're really understanding our customer needs and solving their problems more effectively because we have more high-quality people out there to do that," Garleib said.

"That is what's really fun about that this expansion."

-By Paul Napolitano

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