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Delta Faucet National Sales
Meeting , 1976
Stu Rich(deceased) – front center /driver’s
seat
Stew Tomkins(retired) – front left |
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Although some of the faces have changed over
the years, the core values of our company founders remain the
same. These goals are to add value to our market through strong
relationships with industry leading manufacturers, while delivering
effective and exceptional service to our wholesale trade partners,
with a focus on the importance of sales and service to our secondary
market, the trade professional. Servicing the wholesale channel,
and generating demand with pull-through sales to the trade while
partnering with the wholesaler, are activities that represent
the foundation of our business established by Stu Rich and Stew
Tomkins. It is this foundation that is responsible for producing
the market-share our manufacturing principals have relied on
throughout the years.
M. Stuart Rich and C. Steward Tomkins
formed Rich-Tomkins Company, Inc. in 1961, based on their ten-year
alliance with Bradford-White. These two independent salesmen
joined together to provide wholesalers and manufacturers with
a liaison that was both experienced and committed to the success
of both parties. The inception date of the company is viewed
as January 10th 1961 when Richard Knapp, General Manager of
the then Pennsylvania-Bradford Corporation, declared the following
in a letter to all customers:
"This company has been proud
of the sales personnel it has had in the Philadelphia metropolitan
area for many years. We feel Stu Rich and Stew Tomkins have
done an outstanding job of representing Pennsylvania-Bradford
conscientiously while at the same time seeing that you were
given the best possible service and quality at competitive
prices."
"As of January 1, Stu and Stew
became independent businessmen and in the future will act
as manufacturer’s representatives rather than direct
company salesmen. We are pleased that they will continue to
represent Pennsylvania-Bradford for many years to come and
promote the long standing ties Penn-Bradford has with its
metropolitan customers."
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| Stew
Tomkins (honorary guest, Bradford-White 2007 National
Sales Meeting) with Guest Speaker Former Secretary
of State, Colin L. Powell |
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Once partnered, Stu and Stew lit the torch
of the company's success by developing mutually beneficial associations
with many major manufacturers in the plumbing and heating products
industry. As a result, the success of the company is attributed
to many successful relationships that have taken place over
the years. The company is proud to be in its 47th year of service
to Bradford-White
Corporation, and its 30th year of service to Delta
Faucet Company, two manufacturers committed to supplying
the market with superior quality products through innovation,
while being customer focused. Throughout the years, the agency’s
involvement and relationships with industry-leading manufacturers
from various product markets has attributed to the experience
level of the agency within our region.
In 1990, this enabled Stew Tomkins and Stu
Rich to promote from within, by handing the torch to Ken Holloway.
Ken first started as an outside salesman and then progressed
to Sales Manager before becoming President in 1990. Realizing
the need for the agency to expand to better meet the needs of
its customer base, Ken was instrumental in bringing the agency
into the business of rep warehousing.
The early 90s were a turbulent time for Bradford-White,
the agency’s largest manufacturer and closest relationship.
The senior employees of Bradford-White developed the vision
and brand of a product for “plumbing professionals only,”
and were able to break away from their parent company and successfully
form Bradford-White
Corporation as an ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan).
This transition closed the local Philadelphia facility and consolidated
operations in today’s plant in Middleville, Michigan.
This left a need to be filled for a local point of distribution
to effectively service the wholesale channel and the trade.
Realizing the importance of this, the agency expanded with a
warehouse to meet this need as well as other opportunities,
and relocated in our (now) former location in Tinicum Township,
PA.
In order to maintain this added level
of service to the wholesale channel as well as provide the synergy
of multiple product lines from one location in a competitive
market, the agency opened up a larger facility on October 1st
2002. Our current location in Aston PA is a 22,500 square foot
office and warehouse. Our office is the support hub for our
territory, containing our Inside Sales office, conference room,
and warehouse distribution center. It extensively supports the
wholesale plumbing and heating products market in the Philadelphia
Metropolitan Area, as well as all of Eastern and Central Pennsylvania,
Delaware, and Southern New Jersey.
On June 30th 1999, Stew Tomkins, C.E.O.,
retired from Rich-Tomkins Company after fifty years of service
to the plumbing industry. Ken Holloway now serves as C.E.O of
the agency. Throughout the early years of the new millennium,
opportunities presented themselves that enabled the agency to
bring in new brands to the market. Early in the year 2000, Rich-Tomkins
became the regional distributor for Vitra,
an international leader in vitreous china bathroom fixtures
manufactured in Turkey. Through this acquisition the agency
also was given the Virginia and Maryland markets for the Vitra
brand. This put the agency in a position to represent not only
domestic, but also international manufactures in order to bring
quality and innovation to our market place at competitive prices.
A major domestic manufacturer, Whirlpool, later approached the
agency to represent its line of plumbing products for the trade.
This also opened up the Virginia and Maryland markets to the
agency for the trade brands of Whirlpool
and Kitchen Aid.
Effective January 1st 2006, Stew Chaffee became
President of the agency as Ken Holloway “passed the torch”
to Stew. In this role, Stew Chaffee is responsible for all sales
activities, and relationships with manufacturing principals.
Stew has been instrumental in developing close relationships
with the major secondary market sectors that drive the demand
for our business, and has previously demonstrated outstanding
abilities as sales manager for the company.
The entire team at Rich-Tomkins is proud
of the confidence that manufacturer, wholesaler, contractor,
builder, and specifier have put in the agency over the years.
Rich-Tomkins is on its way to celebrating its 50th anniversary
of service to the wholesale plumbing and heating channel of
distribution. We regard the growing and changing relationships
with our customers as an important aspect of our business, along
with the service level that we provide as their representative.
We look forward to adapting change as necessary in order to
continue to deliver quality service, and innovative products
to our market into the future.
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