Company type | Public |
---|---|
Industry | Adhesives, coatings, and sealants |
Founded | 1887 |
Founder | Harvey Benjamin Fuller |
Headquarters | , |
Number of locations | 81 (2023) [1] |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people | Celeste B. Mastin (President and CEO) John J. Corkrean (CFO) |
Services | Manufacturing |
Revenue | US$3.51 billion (2023) [1] |
US$355 million (2023) [1] | |
US$145 million (2023) [1] | |
Total assets | US$4.72 billion (2023) [1] |
Total equity | US$1.76 billion (2023) [1] |
Number of employees | 7,200 (2023) [1] |
Divisions | Hygiene, Health and Consumable Adhesives, Engineering Adhesives, Construction Adhesives |
Website | hbfuller |
H.B. Fuller Company is an American adhesives manufacturing company supplying industrial adhesives worldwide. The company is also controversial for its role in a glue-sniffing epidemic in Latin America in the 1990s. [2]
As of 2018, the company ranks 873 on the Fortune 1000. [3]
H.B. Fuller was founded in 1887 by Harvey Benjamin Fuller in St. Paul, Minnesota, as a one-person company making glue for wallpaper. [4] [5] By the 1890s, Fuller's inventions included wall cleaners and the company had business throughout the United States. [6] It incorporated in 1915, and in 1921, Harvey Jr. took over as president. [7] [5]
In 1941, Elmer L. Andersen, purchased the company from the Fuller family. [8] Sales at the time of Andersen's purchase totaled US$200,000 annually; by 1959, sales had increased to US$10 million annually. [5] H.B. Fuller expanded its position in the consumer goods market in 1956 with the construction of a plant in Minneapolis to make packing tape. [9] By 1962, H.B. Fuller was one of the three largest adhesives manufacturers in the United States and had 20 manufacturing facilities in the U.S., South America, and Canada. [5] H.B. Fuller acquired the Costa Rican company Kativo Chemical Industries in 1967, expanding its portfolio to include paints and inks. [10] The company went public and made its initial public offering in 1968. [11]
Elmer L. Andersen's son, Anthony, became company president in 1971. Under his leadership, H.B. Fuller sales increased from US$60 million in 1971 to approximately US$800 million in 1991. [12] In 1976, H.B. Fuller and 22 other companies joined together to form the Minnesota Keystone Program, a group of corporations that agreed to donate a portion of their pre-tax profits to charity. [13] The company became a member of the Fortune 500 in 1983 and was recognized by Robert Levering and Milton Moskowitz as one of the "100 Best Places to Work in America". [14] [15] By 1995, the company sold its products globally and had more than 10,000 adhesives in its catalog. [4] That year, the company expanded into powder coating with the construction of a new facility in Oakdale, Minnesota. [16]
In 2022 the company won an Adhesives and Sealants Council Innovation Award for "Low Monomer/Emission Reactive Hot Melt Adhesives." [17]
In the 1990s, the company faced controversy over the glue-sniffing epidemic among street children in Latin America. A Fuller company brand, Resistol glue, was abused among these children to a sufficient extent that glue-sniffing children were called "resistoleros" regardless of the brand of glue being abused. [18] A lawsuit filed against the company over the death of a Guatemalan teenager from sniffing glue was dismissed in 1996 due to lack of jurisdiction. [19] The controversy eventually led to the company's withdrawal from the Latin American market. [2]
Adhesive, also known as glue, cement, mucilage, or paste, is any non-metallic substance applied to one or both surfaces of two separate items that binds them together and resists their separation.
Minneapolis–Saint Paul is a metropolitan area in the Upper Midwestern United States centered around the confluence of the Mississippi, Minnesota, and St. Croix rivers in the U.S. state of Minnesota. It is commonly known as the Twin Cities after the area's two largest cities, Minneapolis and Saint Paul. Minnesotans often refer to the two together simply as "The Cities". The area is Minnesota's economic, cultural, and political center.
Elmer Lee Andersen was an American businessman, philanthropist, and politician who built a successful business career with the H. B. Fuller Company. Andersen was most notably the 30th governor of Minnesota. A self-described progressive Republican, he was a well-regarded politician who passed many social and environmental regulations during his time as governor.
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Loctite is an American brand of adhesives, sealants, surface treatments, and other industrial chemicals that include acrylic, anaerobic, cyanoacrylate, epoxy, hot melt, silicone, urethane, and UV/light curing technologies. Loctite products are sold globally and are used in a variety of industrial and hobbyist applications.
Minneapolis is a city in and the county seat of Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States. With a population of 429,954, it is the state's most populous city as of the 2020 census. Located in the state's center near the eastern border, it occupies both banks of the Mississippi River and adjoins Saint Paul, the state capital of Minnesota. Minneapolis, Saint Paul, and the surrounding area are collectively known as the Twin Cities, a metropolitan area with 3.69 million residents. Minneapolis is built on an artesian aquifer on flat terrain and is known for cold, snowy winters and hot, humid summers. Nicknamed the "City of Lakes", Minneapolis is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks, and waterfalls. The city's public park system is connected by the Grand Rounds National Scenic Byway.
Andersen Corporation is an international window and door manufacturing enterprise employing 12,000 people at more than thirty manufacturing facilities, logistics centers, and company owned retail locations. Andersen is a private company headquartered in Bayport, Minnesota.
3M Company is an American multinational conglomerate operating in the fields of industry, worker safety, healthcare, and consumer goods. The company produces over 60,000 products under several brands, including adhesives, abrasives, laminates, passive fire protection, personal protective equipment, window films, paint protection films, dental, orthodontic products, electrical, electronic connecting, insulating materials, medical products, car-care products, electronic circuits, healthcare software, and optical films. It is based in Maplewood, a suburb of Saint Paul, Minnesota.
Ridgedale Center, colloquially known as Ridgedale, is an enclosed shopping mall in Minnetonka, Minnesota, a western suburb of the Twin Cities. It is directly located off I-394/US 12 between Ridgedale Drive and Plymouth Road. Ridgedale Center comprises 1,105,337 square feet (100,000 m2) of leaseable retail space, and contains approximately 140 retail tenants. It is currently jointly owned by Brookfield Properties and CBRE Group, and managed by Brookfield. The anchor stores are JCPenney, Nordstrom, Macy's, and Dick's House of Sport.
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