Safely Ahead of the Game

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.