W. R. Grace & Co. 13 spoke 15"x8.5" aluminum wheel, OEM, 1978 Chevrolet K5 Blazer Cheyenne
W. R. Grace and Co. is an American chemical business based in Columbia, Maryland. It produces specialty chemicals and specialty materials in two divisions: Grace Catalysts Technologies, which makes polyethylene and polypropylenecatalysts and related products and technologies used in petrochemical, refining, and other chemical manufacturing applications, and Grace Materials and Chemicals, which makes specialty materials, including silica-based and silica-alumina-based materials, which are used in commercial products such as sunscreen[2] and in chemical process applications.[1]
For much of its early history, Grace's main business was in South America, in maritime shipping, railroads, agriculture, and silver mining, with 30,000 employees in Peru.
After emerging from a prolonged bankruptcy period of 12 years in 2014, the company spun off its other major operating divisions. In 2015, Grace separated into two independent public companies. Its Catalysts and Material Technologies business segments remained in Grace, and what would later become GCP Applied Technologies Inc. held its Construction Products and Darex Packaging Technologies businesses.
In September 2021, Standard Industries acquired Grace (the Catalysts and Material Technologies business segments).[3]
The W.R. Grace Building in New York City, where the company had its headquarters before relocating.
History
The company was founded in 1854 in Peru by William Russell Grace at the age of 22.[1][4][5][6] Grace left Ireland during the Great Famine[7] and traveled to South America with his family. He went first to Peru to work as a ship chandler for the firm of Bryce and Company, to the merchantmen harvesting guano, used as a fertilizer and gunpowder ingredient due to its high levels of phosphorus and nitrogen.
His brother, Michael P. Grace, joined the business, and in 1865 the company name was changed to Grace Brothers & Co. The company established headquarters in New York City in 1865.[4] Working in fertilizer and machinery, the company was chartered in 1872 and incorporated in 1895.
In 1904, Michael P. Grace became president after the death of William Grace.
The company expanded, creating business divisions including Grace Shipping, Grace Cruise Lines, Grace Petroleum, Grace Drilling, and Grace Healthcare. Grace acquired and combined other companies to create and expand businesses such as Barilla Pasta, FAO Schwarz, Ingersoll-Rand, Roto-Rooter, Del Taco, and Cartavio Distilleries.
In 1928, an agreement between Grace and Pan American formed Pan American-Grace Airways (or Panagra), a United States international carrier flying down the west coast of South America. Panagra ultimately evolved into a jet carrier flying from Miami and New York to South America before merging with Braniff Airways in 1967, becoming Braniff's South American network. These routes were sold to Eastern Air Lines in 1982 and then to American Airlines in 1990.
In 1945, the founder's grandson, J. Peter Grace, became president. Under his leadership, the company owned the country's largest oil-drilling fleet, ran the world's largest cattle ranch and the world's largest cocoa bean company, sugar plantations in Peru, cotton mills in Chile, silver, clay, phosphate, tin mines and processed rare earths for the US nuclear arms program. Grace owned a food group that operated 900 chain restaurant locations, and a retail division with chains for sporting goods, home improvement, jewelry, aftermarket automotive parts and leather goods. The company operated fertilizer companies, confectioners and beverage companies, including Miller Brewing. Grace pioneered genetic engineering at its Agricetus division in Wisconsin, and human gene therapy at its Aurigent Pharmaceuticals group. The company constructed a 160-acre research complex, the Washington Research Center, in Columbia, Maryland. It also commissioned the New York City skyscraper, the W. R. Grace Building, as its world headquarters, in midtown Manhattan, where it directed worldwide operations, including Grace Container Products.
In 1953, the company became a public company via an initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange. In 1954, the company acquired Davison Chemical Company and Dewey & Almy Chemical Company, entering the specialty chemicals and specialty materials industries and establishing the basis for the current product lines.[4][1]
In February 1981, the company announced a joint venture with Netherlands retail giant Vroom & Dreesmann, which gave its Dutch partner 50% buy-in to many of its retail stores.[8] In 1987, Grace built a can sealant plant in Minhing, China, near Shanghai, becoming the first wholly foreign-owned, private company to do business in The People's Republic of China.[4]
There are two accounts of the incorporation date of W. R. Grace & Co. According to The New York Times, the company was incorporated as part of the estate and successor planning in 1895. The three brothers consolidated most of their holdings into a new private company, incorporated in West Virginia, called W. R. Grace & Company. The consolidation involved W. R. Grace & Co. of New York, Grace Brothers & Co. of Lima, Peru, Grace & Co. of Valparaíso, Chile, William R. Grace & Co. of London, and J. W. Grace & Co of San Francisco.[15]
According to its website, W. R. Grace & Co. was incorporated in Connecticut in 1899. The listed capital of $6 million did not include Grace Brothers & Co. Limited in London or its branches in San Francisco, Lima, and Callao, Peru, nor Valparaíso, Santiago, and Concepción, Chile.[4]
J. Louis Schaefer, who joined the company as a boy, played a key role in not only W. R. Grace & Company, in which he became a vice president, but also as president of Grace National Bank. Schaefer was a co-executor of the estate of Michael Grace with William's son and corporate successor, Joseph Peter Grace Sr.. J. Louis Schaefer died in 1927.[16]
For most of its history, Grace's main business was cargo shipping, operating the Grace Line. To move cargo from Peru to North America and Europe, including guano and sugar, and noticing the need for other goods to be traded, William Grace founded a shipping division. Grace Line began service in 1882,[17] with ports of call between Peru and New York. Regular steamship service was established in 1893, with a subsidiary called the New York & Pacific Steamship Co., that operated under the British flag. Ships built outside the United States before 1905 were banned from the US registry. US-flag service began in 1912 with the Atlantic and Pacific Steamship Company. The activities of both companies and the parent firm were consolidated into the Grace Steamship Company beginning in 1916. The firm originally specialized in traffic to the west coast of South America then later expanded into the Caribbean.
In 1916, Grace acquired a controlling interest in the Pacific Mail Steamship Company. In 1921, Pacific received five 535ft. President class ships from the United States Shipping Board for transpacific operation. In 1923, the US Shipping board decided to place the five ships up for bid and Dollar Shipping Company won the bid. With no large ships for the transpacific operations, Grace sold the Pacific Mail, its registered name, and goodwill to Dollar. Now without a transpacific service, Grace did not need the six intercoastal freighters and sold them to the American Hawaiian Line. At this time, Grace formed the Panama Mail Steamship Company, to operate the smaller ships that were formerly owned and used by the Pacific Mail in the Central American trade. These ships were not involved in the sale to Dollar.[18]
Grace Line ship Santa Rosa in port. This photograph appears with Los Angeles Times article, December 13, 1932, "Ocean Speedster Opens New Shipping Chapter, Ship Ushers in New Era, Santa Rosa, Grace Line's Steamer, First of Four Sister Vessels, Arrives in Port
On the death of William R. Grace in 1904, he was succeeded by William L. Sauders as company president followed by Joseph Peter Grace Sr. (1872–1950) who became president in 1907. In 1938 the Colombian Line merged with Grace Line bringing an end to the Colombian Line.[19] During World War II, Grace Lines operated transport for the U.S. War Shipping Administration, including the SS Sea Marlin.[20]
J. Peter Grace took over management of the company after his father suffered a stroke in 1945. After the war, the Grace line operated 23 ships totaling 188,000 gross tons, and 14 more on bareboat charters. In 1954 the company bought Davison Chemical Company (founded by William T. Davison as Davison, Kettlewell & Company in 1832), and the Dewey & Almy Chemical Company (founded in 1919 by Bradley Dewey and Charles Almy).
In 1960, the Grace Line, inspired by the pioneering efforts of Sea-Land Service, Matson Navigation, and Seatrain Lines, sought to begin containerizing its South American cargo operations by converting the conventional freighters Santa Eliana and Santa Leonor into fully cellular container ships. The effort was stymied by the opposition of longshoremen in New York and Venezuela, and the ships were repeatedly laid up idle and were ultimately sold to the domestic container line Sea-Land Service in 1964.[21][22] In 1963 Grace made a second attempt to containerize its South American trade when it ordered the four M-class combination passenger-cargo ships Santa Magdalaena, Santa Maria, Santa Mariana, and Santa Mercedes with partial cellular holds, but they were no more successful as mixing conventional break-bulk cargo and containers in the same ship negated the operating economies that full containerization promised.[23]
In 1970, Grace Line was sold to Prudential Lines for $44.5 million, with the merged company renamed Prudential Grace Line.[24] It was taken over by Delta Steamship Lines in 1978, thereby extinguishing the name Grace in ocean shipping.[25] Subsequently, Delta Steamship Lines was acquired and consolidated by Crowley Maritime in 1982.
Property nationalized
In 1974, the Peruvian government nationalized properties in Peru owned by the company. Harold Logan, Grace's executive vice president, stated the company would join in governmental-level talks over compensation of expropriated American concerns. The loss of Grace's properties in Peru began in 1969 when 25,000 acres of sugarcane plantations were taken over in agrarian reform. The sugar lands were at Paramonga, 110 miles north of Lima, and at Cartavio, near Trujillo, 200 miles farther up the coast. Grace retained small mining operations producing copper, tin, and silver, in southern Peru, about 100 miles north of Juliaca. Jose E. Flores, head of W. R. Grace S.A. Peru, closed the mining operations for Grace in Latin America when the government of Peru nationalized the remaining interests.[26]
In 1928, Grace and Pan American Airways jointly formed Pan American-Grace Airways known as Panagra, establishing the first air link between North and South America, which began operation in 1929.[27] In 1967, Panagra merged with Braniff International Airways.[28]
In 1966, the company bought a 53% controlling stake in Miller Brewing for $36 million from Lorraine Mulberger, the granddaughter of Frederick Miller, who sold the stake for religious reasons.[34] The company sold the Miller stake in 1969 to Philip Morris for $130 million, after first cancelling an agreed-upon sale to PepsiCo for $120 million. This resulted in a lawsuit.[35][36]
Previously, the company had its headquarters in Boca Raton, Florida.[39][40] Prior to its closing, the Boca Raton headquarters had about 130 employees. On January 27, 1999, it announced it was moving its administrative staff to the Columbia office and closing the Boca Raton headquarters.[41] About 40 of the employees went to Columbia, and some employees went to Cambridge, Massachusetts.[39] In 2014, the company emerged from a 13-year bankruptcy case stemming from asbestos claims and immediately built a new 90,000 sq ft headquarters building on its 160-acre Columbia campus.[42]
While Grace no longer makes asbestos or related products, at the time of its bankruptcy in 2001 it faced over 65,000 asbestos-related personal injury lawsuits involving over 129,000 claims.[44]
On April 2, 2001, Grace and its subsidiaries in the United States filed voluntary petitions for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy reorganization in the Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware.[45] The company was trying to find a resolution through federal court-supervised reorganization in response to the quickly growing number of asbestos-related bodily injury claims.[46]
On September 19, 2008, Grace filed a revised plan of reorganization to the same court, jointly with the asbestos injury claimants.[47] In January 2011, the court issued an order in favor of the new plan[48] and in January 2012, the court denied all appeals and affirmed the plan.[49] After a motion for reconsideration, the plan was reaffirmed on June 11, 2012.[50][51]
On February 3, 2014, Grace emerged from the asbestos-related Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which took more than 12 years.[52][53] Under the plan of reorganization approved by the court, all parties filings the asbestos-related claims were to direct their inquiry to either an asbestos personal injury trust or a separate asbestos property damage trust.[54]
The PBS television show P.O.V., which highlights independent films, in August 2007 premiered the movie Libby, Montana which documents the thousands of people in Libby, Montana, that have been exposed to and are suffering the effects of asbestos exposure. The show also discusses the criminal indictments of many Grace executives for covering up asbestos related illnesses and deaths.
PBS also aired Dust to Dust, a documentary produced by Michael Brown Productions, Inc. in 2002. Dust to Dust reports on the more than 200 people who have died from asbestos exposure in Libby, Montana. The film focuses on the plights of several of these individuals and the damage done over almost 30 years while the mine was operated by W. R. Grace.[56]
NPR aired a piece on All Things Considered discussing the criminal charges against W. R. Grace. A U.S. attorney general alleges that the company and managers of the mine in Libby, Montana, knew about the dangers of the asbestos they were dumping into the air for over 20 years.[57]
On February 19, 2008, the NPR-produced radio show Here and Now broadcast a story about the film Libby, Montana, which details the asbestos contamination in the town of that name.
On April 22, 2009, the television and radio program Democracy Now! broadcast two segments on the trial of W. R. Grace and some of its employees related to the asbestos contamination in Libby, Montana.[58][59] Democracy Now! also broadcast a follow-up interview on May 12, 2009.[60] This interview focused on reactions to the not-guilty verdict in the federal trial, where W. R. Grace and three former executives were acquitted on charges of knowingly exposing workers and townspeople to asbestos, and subsequently participating in a cover-up.
Neem patent
In 1995, the European Patent Office (EPO) granted a patent on an anti-fungal product derived from the neem tree to the United States Department of Agriculture and W. R. Grace. The Indian government challenged the patent when it was granted, claiming that the process for which the patent had been granted had been in use in India for more than 2,000 years. In 2000, the EPO ruled in India's favour, but W. R. Grace appealed, claiming that prior art about the product had never been published in a scientific journal. On March 8, 2005, that appeal was lost and the EPO revoked the Neem patent.[61]
Libby is a city in northwestern Montana, United States and the county seat of Lincoln County. The population was 2,775 at the 2020 census.
Vermiculite is a hydrous phyllosilicate mineral which undergoes significant expansion when heated. Exfoliation occurs when the mineral is heated sufficiently; commercial furnaces can routinely produce this effect. Vermiculite forms by the weathering or hydrothermal alteration of biotite or phlogopite. Large commercial vermiculite mines exist in the United States, Russia, South Africa, China, and Brazil.
American President Lines, LLC, is an American container shipping company that is a subsidiary of French shipping company CMA CGM. It operates an all-container ship fleet, including nine U.S. flagged container vessels.
SEE, legally the Sealed Air Corporation, is a packaging company known for its brands: Cryovac food packaging and Bubble Wrap cushioning packaging. With over $5.5+ billion in revenues in 2023, it is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, United States, led by Chief Operating Officer Emile Chammas, President, Dustin Semach, and CEO Patrick Kivits.
William Russell Grace was an American politician, the first Roman Catholic mayor of New York City, and the founder of W. R. Grace and Company.
The Pacific Mail Steamship Company was founded April 18, 1848, as a joint stock company under the laws of the State of New York by a group of New York City merchants. Incorporators included William H. Aspinwall, Edwin Bartlett, Henry Chauncey, Mr. Alsop, G.G. Howland and S.S. Howland.
Andrew Benoni Hammond was an American lumberman. He developed the Missoula Mercantile Co. He built the Bitterroot Valley Railroad and the Astoria & Columbia River Railroad. He was president of the Hammond Lumber Co. and the Hammond Steamship Co.
USS Leedstown (AP-73), built as the Grace Line passenger and cargo ocean liner SS Santa Lucia, served as a United States Navy amphibious assault ship in World War II. The ship had first been turned over to the War Shipping Administration (WSA) and operated by Grace Line as the WSA agent from February to August 1942 in the Pacific. In August the ship, at New York, was turned over to the Navy under sub-bareboat charter from WSA. She was sunk 9 November 1942 off the Algerian coast by a German submarine after German bombers caused damage the day before.
The Alaska Steamship Company was formed on August 3, 1894. While it originally set out to ship passengers and fishing products, the Alaska Steamship Company began shipping mining equipment, dog sleds, and cattle at the outbreak of the Klondike Gold Rush of 1897. The company was purchased by the Alaska Syndicate and merged with the Northwestern Steamship Company in 1909, but retained its name, and the fleet was expanded to 18 ships. During World War II, the government took over the company's ships. When the war ended, the company struggled to compete with the new Alaska Highway for passengers and freight. It discontinued passenger service altogether in 1954 and shut down operations in 1971.
Asbestos is a group of naturally occurring, toxic, carcinogenic and fibrous silicate minerals. There are six types, all of which are composed of long and thin fibrous crystals, each fibre being composed of many microscopic "fibrils" that can be released into the atmosphere by abrasion and other processes. Inhalation of asbestos fibres can lead to various dangerous lung conditions, including mesothelioma, asbestosis, and lung cancer. As a result of these health effects, asbestos is considered a serious health and safety hazard.
Donald William Molloy is a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Montana.
Michael Paul Grace was an Irish-American businessman who was a shareholder and chairman of the board of directors of W. R. Grace and Company shipping company of New York City and of Grace Brothers & Co. Ltd. of London, England.
Joseph Peter Grace Sr. was an American businessman, polo player, and owner of Thoroughbred horses in the sport of steeplechase racing. He was the president of W.R. Grace and Company from 1907-1946.
Gerald 'Jerry' Bennett was an American politician and businessman who was a member of the Montana House of Representatives for the 1st district from 2009 to 2017.
Andrew Jay Schneider was an American journalist and investigative reporter who worked for the Pittsburgh Press and Seattle Post-Intelligencer as a public-health reporter. He received back-to-back Pulitzer Prizes while working for the Press: one in Specialized Reporting in 1986 with Mary Pat Flaherty, and another for Public Service with Matthew Brelis and the Press in 1987. Schneider also co-authored a book about an asbestos contamination incident in Libby, Montana, entitled An Air That Kills.
West Kasson was a steam cargo ship built in 1918–1919 by Long Beach Shipbuilding Company of Long Beach for the United States Shipping Board (USSB) as part of the wartime shipbuilding program of the Emergency Fleet Corporation (EFC) to restore the nation's Merchant Marine. The vessel initially operated on the round-the-world route from the West Coast of the United States via East Asia and Spain before being shifted to serve the Gulf to Europe and South America trade in 1922. In 1926 she was sold to the W. R. Grace and Company and renamed Cuzco. In her new role the ship operated chiefly between the ports of the Pacific Northwest and various Chilean and Peruvian ports. In 1940 the ship was again sold and transferred into Panamanian registry and renamed Carmona. The vessel continued sailing between South America and the United States and was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-160 on one of her regular trips in July 1942.
USS Santa Olivia (SP-3125) was a cargo ship and later troop transport that served with the United States Navy during and after World War I. The ship later went into merchant service as a freighter, and during World War II took part in a number of transatlantic convoys.
Wessel, Duval & Co. was founded in Boston, Massachusetts in 1825 Augustus Hemenway (1805-1876) as Hemenway & Co.. Augustus Hemenway started the shipping company to move his timber products to markets. Augustus Hemenway had timberland in Maine and started his schooner shipping company to take timber to Eastcoast ports. Later he opened a sugar plant in Cuba, his ships would take lumber to Cuba and bring back sugar. Next, he expanded his timber products to Argentina and other Western South American ports. By 1828 the company expanded to Valparaiso, Chile. Augustus Hemenway married into a Boston merchant family, marrying Mary Tileston (1820-1894) in 1840. In 1865 Héctor Beéche (?-1914) became a partner in the firm and a subsidiary company, Wessel, Duval y Cía, was founded in Chile by Charles P. Hemenway, Augustus's brother. Charles had acted on Augustus' behalf in other matters as needed and became a partner in 1870. T. Quincy Browne became a partner in 1870 also and for a few years the firm was called Hemenway & Browne. In 1875 William Muller joined as a partner, the name returned to Hemenway & Co. Augustus Hemenway died in Cuba in 1876. The partnership continued as Hemenway & Co. till 1885. In 1885 Muller retired and Carlos Wolff joined the partnership, the company name was changed to Hemenway, Beeche and Co.. In 1888 Peter "Perdo" M. Wessel (1851-1821) joined the partnership and the company name was changed to Browne, Beeche and Co..
W. R. Chamberlin & Company was a lumber and shipping company founded in 1915 by William Richmond Chamberlin in the Balboa Building in San Francisco, California. W. R. Chamberlin & Company main business was selling, brokering and shipping lumber and timber products from Portland, Oregon to the growing city of San Francisco and the San Francisco Bay area. By 1928 Chamberlin has four steamships to transport his lumber: the Barbara C, Phyllis, Stanwood, and W. R. Chamberlin, Jr. W. R. Chamberlin & Company was active in supporting the World War II efforts. W. R. Chamberlin & Company's ship the SS W.R. Chamberlin Jr put into service in the United States Navy and renamed USS Tackle (ARS-37). USS Tackle was damaged by an exploding mine on September 4, 1943 and too damaged to be repaired. Before founded W. P. Chamberlin & Company, Chamberlin Chamberlin was president of Byxbee & Clark Company, a lumber company in San Francisco.
Prudential Steamship Corporation was a shipping company founded in 1933 in New York City by Stephan Stephanidis. Prudential Steamship Corporation operated the Prudential Lines. Prudential Lines main routes was from the United States to Mediterranean ports. The Prudential Lines was never successful and was always near bankruptcy. Prudential Lines was active in supporting the World War II efforts. At its peak in the 1960s Prudential Lines owned and operated two tankers, and five cargo ships. In 1960 the Prudential Steamship Corporation was sold to Spyros Skouras and his family. In 1969 the Prudential Lines merged with Grace Lines, which continued to operate the fleet as the Prudential Grace Line.
1 2 "Grace Announces Relocation To Columbia, MarylandArchived July 3, 2011, at the Wayback Machine ." W.R. Grace and Company. Retrieved on June 29, 2011. "The restructuring will entail a relocation of approximately 40 people, including senior management, from Grace's Boca Raton, Florida office to its Columbia, Maryland site. A few positions will be relocated to another Grace office in Cambridge, Massachusetts." and "Following the relocation, Grace will close its headquarters office at 1750 Clint Moore Road in Boca Raton, which currently employs approximately 130 people."
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$1.729 billion (2020)
