MRC Global Inc.

MRC Global Inc.
McJunkin Supply Company was founded February 15,
1921 in Charleston, West Virginia. More than 90 years later
the company still maintains deep roots in the community
where it all began.
Brothers in law, Jerry McJunkin, Bernard Wehrle and
George Herscher built a company based on integrity,
hard work and customer service. Descendants of the
three founding families played leading roles in guiding the
company’s prosperity for more than eight decades.
Customers in the thriving oil and gas industry of the 1920s
came to depend on the McJunkin Supply salesmen in their
vehicles with bright red fenders to meet all their supply
needs in the field.
With this focus on customer service, McJunkin soon became
a leading supplier of pipe and other products for the oil and
gas industry and the small, one-room operation grew from
its first location on Hansford Street to three branch offices,
a forge shop and warehouse in only three years. First year
sales totaled $450,000 and grew to a million dollars in the
company’s second year.
In 1934, The Great Depression hit the company and sales
dropped dramatically until World War II helped the nation’s
manufacturing sector rebound. By 1941, McJunkin’s
locations had been repurposed to produce bomb casings
and tracks for amphibious vehicles to support the war effort.
This boost in manufacturing activity, allowed McJunkin
to expand its existing operations in West Virginia and
Kentucky by opening new locations in Ohio.
The later part of the century proved to be full of growth.
The company changed its name to McJunkin Corporation,
expanded to 29 branches in 18 states by the end of the 1960s
and in 1971 McJunkin established a central warehouse in
Nitro, West Virginia. And in 1982, the company moved into
its new headquarters at 835 Hillcrest Drive in Charleston,
West Virginia. But with all of this success, the McJunkin
Corporation family also experienced heartbreak when
a tragic corporate plane crash took the lives of four key
executives and two company pilots in 1975.
McJunkin Corporation continued to grow in the 1980s
through three major acquisitions: Appalachian Oilfield
Supply Company, Grant Supply and Republic Supply
of California. These three acquisitions gave McJunkin
a strong presence across the United States. Then, in
2001 McJunkin solidified their position in the Midwest by
acquiring Joliet Valves.
The biggest change for the family-run business came in
2007, when Goldman Sachs acquired a controlling interest
in McJunkin Corporation. This paved the way for the
next phase of significant growth. Shortly after, McJunkin
Corporation entered into a “merger of equals” with Red
Man Pipe & Supply Company.
Red Man Pipe & Supply Company was founded in 1977 by
Lewis ‘Lew’ Ketchum and his wife, Betty. Lew, a Delaware
Tribe Native American Indian, saw an opportunity to give
back to his community by providing careers and educational
assistance for minorities through his company. With a rich
heritage of customer service, integrity and community
involvement, the two companies already had very similar
cultures. Red Man also held a controlling interest in
Midfield Supply in Canada.
The resulting company, McJunkin Red Man Corporation
(MRC) became the largest global distributor of pipe, valve
and fitting products to the energy and industrial markets.
merger. In 2008, MRC exercised an option to purchase
the remaining ownership of Midfield Supply and expand
its territory across the Canadian border. That year they
also acquired LaBarge Pipe and Steel, founded in 1952.
The company’s customer service oriented culture meshed
perfectly with MRC’s service-centered philosophy.
A year later, in 2009, MRC acquired Transmark Fcx Group,
a company that also began in 1921 in The Netherlands,
a move that made MRC a global powerhouse in the PVF
industry through a distribution network that now includes
North America, Europe, Asia, Australia and the Middle East,
a geographic presence unmatched by its competitors. Most
recently, Stainless Steel Pipe and Fittings Australia joined
the MRC family of companies in June, 2011, and was
quickly followed by the operations and assets of OneSteel
Piping Systems in March, 2012, also in Australia.
In 2012, MRC became MRC Global Inc. and began trading
on the New York Stock Exchange as a publicly traded
company. The company then made its debut appearance
on the Fortune magazine “Fortune 500” list of the 500 largest
publically held companies in the U.S. based on it’s $4.83
billion in sales in 2011. Today, nearly 300 people operate
out of the Charleston, West Virginia Corporate office and
an additional 100 employees throughout the Kanawha
valley. Globally, the company has 4,425 employees in 18
countries.
“The company’s founders never had a limited vision of
the company’s future,” Henry B. Wehrle, Jr. wrote in the
Foreword to McJunkin Corporation’s 2007 Pictorial History.
“They would of course be greatly pleased with the company’s
extraordinary growth but would probably not be surprised.”
Led by Chairman, President and CEO Andrew Lane, MRC
continues to focus on the business of distribution, which
reflects the firm’s investments, growth and success.
“MRC has faced many challenges during its long history,
including the recent recession,” says Lane. “Through
our employees’ hard work, we’ve always found a way to
overcome these challenges and set MRC up for success.
There are not many companies that are leaders in their
chosen field and have a nine-decade history of successes
to build on.”
MRC’s growth has been strong and steady since the
For more information about MRC, please visit www.mrcpvf.com