Weber Supply is older than Canada
Family proud of Kitchener’s oldest business
KITCHENER —
David Weber wears his company’s history like a badge of honour.
His family’s tenure at the helm of Weber Supply dates back to 1923, when David’s grandfather, C. N. (Carl Nicholas), purchased an existing hardware store in downtown Kitchener.
Over the years, the small retail operation transitioned into the national industrial supply business that remains today.
David represents the third generation of Weber family leadership; his sons Zach and Alex are on track to become the fourth a few years from now when David retires.
That the same family has run the business for nearly a century is impressive enough.
But Weber Supply’s roots in the community predate even the birth of this country, reaching all the way back to 1855 and the day Samuel Date and a partner opened a hardware store in what was then Berlin.
“There’s not many companies that have lasted 162 years,” says David, maintaining that their business is the oldest business in Kitchener.
No one’s ever told him otherwise, he says.
“We’ll always be based in Kitchener for that reason, so we can say we’re the oldest company in Kitchener.”
As Berlin prospered in the 1850s, so did Date’s hardware store. His successor, an ironmonger from Stratford named John Fennell, purchased the store in 1863 and ran it for six decades until his death in 1922.
A year later, C.N. Weber purchased the business at the age of 24, and would serve as president of the renamed Weber Hardware Company — and later, C.N. Weber Ltd. — until 1972.
In that time, the focus shifted from retail sales to wholesale distribution, as the business expanded, relocated, and tapped new markets.
C.N. chose one of his sons, Jack, to succeed him as president in 1972; Jack led the business through further expansions and acquisitions and steered it into the computer era, later introducing one of the first radio-frequency warehousing systems in North America.
David was appointed president in 1997; Jack chaired the company until his sudden death from a heart attack in 2000.
“While I was president, I was still learning a lot from him,” David says. “When he did pass, I had to take care of everything — but he left me with a good team.”
David changed the company’s name to Weber Supply Company Inc., and sold its building supply division — which had been distributing hardware products to independent retailers — to focus on industrial supply. A few years ago, the company moved to its current 100,000-square-foot fully automated headquarters on Strasburg Road.
Today, customers or sales representatives can send in orders directly from their phones or tablets.
It wasn’t all that long ago — the early 1980s — that Weber Supply was giving away fax machines to their more remote customers as a way of streamlining the ordering process.
From its humble 19th-century origins in a King Street storefront, Weber Supply now boasts branches and distribution centres throughout southern and northern Ontario, and from Manitoba to British Columbia.
“We do believe we’re the oldest distribution company that sells industrial and safety supplies in all of Canada,” David says.
“I’m always struck by the reaction of people when we say we’re older than Canada,” notes Alex. “It doesn’t sink in.”
And on the eve of Canada’s 150th birthday, the Webers aren’t shy about waving the flag.
“We’re proudly Canadian,” says Alex. “That’s used throughout all of our marketing material.”
A pamphlet highlighting the company’s presidents includes a Canadian history timeline and a reproduction of an 1855 map, the year the hardware store opened. The cover of another company publication features its logo superimposed over a Canadian image of red maple leaves.
And to celebrate its own sesquicentennial in 2005, a coffee-table book was published chronicling the company’s history and featuring a selection of aerial photographs taken across the country by Carl Hiebert.
To honour Canada’s big year, the company is making 150 donations to charitable organizations nominated by employees.
Weber Supply is part of The Weber Group of Companies, which oversees the Queen South Business Centre and Woodside Self Storage at Weber Supply’s former home on Queen Street S.
Generally speaking, industries require products in three main categories to run and maintain their operations — electrical, plumbing and everything else. Weber Supply provides the everything else.
“We’re the catch-all, which is a good place to be,” says David. “We get stuff like picnic tables. We get a lot of one-time orders.”
Their catalogue includes everything from air filters and adhesives to wheelbarrows and wrenches. There’s also a complete range of health and safety gear and equipment, from caution tape and signs to hard hats, gloves and respirators. Customers include companies in the manufacturing, construction, education, health care, agriculture, forestry, mining, and oil and gas sectors.
“Our competitors, some of them are a little big, and can’t move as fast as we can,” David says. “We’re big enough to play in the Canadian market, but still small enough to turn on a dime.”
Weber Supply stocks about 30,000 different items, but deals with more than 100,000.
“We have people on staff that all they do is source product,” David says. Inventory changes on a daily basis. “That’s one of the biggest challenges for distribution in general — knowing when to walk away from a product.”
The company employs approximately 200 people across Canada, with about half of them in Ontario.
“People definitely are our greatest asset,” says David. “We work hard to create a culture and atmosphere that they love to work in and want to succeed in.”
Acquisitions have secured a foothold in western Canada; and the company may look to expand east as well.
“We would love to get into the Atlantic Provinces. That would be our next goal,” David says.
There’s also room to expand in Kitchener, inside the existing building and elsewhere on site.
Looking back on 162 years of company history — nearly a century of that in his family’s hands — David says he’s proud of what’s been accomplished.
“We have a great knowledge that’s been passed down from my grandfather to my father, to me,” says David. “My grandfather was a man of very few words, but he would say a few words. I know he would be pleased.”