Northern Safety Corporate Timeline
1983: Sal Longo and his brother Ronald found a home-based business selling first-aid kits and safety gear out of a van to local factories and municipalities in Frankfort, N.Y.
1985: The company adopts the name Northern Safety and enters the direct mail industry with an 8.5-inch-by-11-inch mailer with two gloves on one side. Armed with 1,000 names from the McCray’s Industrial Directory, Northern Safety sends the mailer in a No. 10 envelope and sees a 2.5 percent response rate. Later that year, the mailer turns into a 24-page catalog. Sales increase threefold over the previous year, and the company moves into a small office and warehouse in Utica, N.Y.
1999: The company moves into a new building in Frankfort, N.Y., a 94,000-square-foot, custom-built facility.
2001: Northern Safety completes the expansion of its warehouse, doubling its size from 60,000 square feet to 120,000 square feet.
2002: The NS® family of products is introduced. The first products are N-Specs® Safety Eyewear and NS® Hand Protection.
2005: Sal Longo completes the buyout of his brother and co-founder in June and restructures the company. This begins a period of rapid expansion for Northern Safety. In one year, the company grows from 170 employees to 310.
2006: In May, Northern Safety completes the acquisition of Kingsport, Tenn.-based Safeco, an occupational health and safety products supplier with an outside sales force. Immediately after closing the sale, Northern Safety buys a warehouse in nearby Church Hill, Tenn., and begins construction on office space on that site. At press time, the project is scheduled for completion in mid-August
