Editor’s note: With a heavy heart, we announce the passing of our great PVF leader and friend, Morrie Beschloss, on May 2, 2023. Morrie’s love for the PVF industry has spanned more than 70 years, and his words of wisdom have guided many throughout his leadership, mentorship, writings, and presentations. We know he is smiling and proud that he sent in his last column in time for publication! We are honored for the time he spent writing for our industry and within the pages of The Wholesaler magazine. We will have a special feature celebrating Morrie in our July issue... stay tuned.

When Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s federal bond increases ran up to an unexpected degree, he reversed a slow but sure upturn that had seen a positive attempt toward increased U.S. industrial production.

The Federal Reserve’s excuse was that general U.S. production costs were too high, increased even further by the slow, upward climb of overall base costs. This would make the general economic slump further backward in years to come. While the opposite has turned out to be true, this position was solidly approved by President Joe Biden and his staff.

This obviously did nothing to lower America’s overall buying costs but seemed to let them keep going up. This has kept Federal Reserve bonds climbing up, economic expansion of America’s overall business dividend down, and company growth and economic production faltering.

This has created a dangerous reversal of a financial return from economic production. Struggling economies now must suffer high Federal Reserve bonds simultaneously. It is very unfortunate that there is no economic direction at the White House, which seems to have divorced itself from America’s once globally leading economic power.

Hopefully, whoever is elected the next president understands that the American economy and its high world reputation are critical to the American future. 

Aramco Tops World Oil Producers

With crude oil prices hitting $100 a barrel, this has jumped Saudi Arabian Aramco ahead of Russian producers and others around the world.

In fact, it reached a market capitalization of $1.9 trillion. Its performance has helped boost Saudi-economic growth, even as the United States and Europe worry about recession. As a business, it recorded the fastest gross domestic product growth among oil producers last year.

This has allowed the Mideast’s vast oil production to announce the creation of a new national airline, Riyadh Air, part of an effort to make Saudi Arabia into a global business and tourist hub. It has even allowed the Saudis to become involved in the world’s overall policies, which has never before been in the interests of the relative oil production giants. 

This venerable Arab leader has quickly realized that the global oil shortages made it a new big shot in world politics to put its global value for all major world nations to see.

In effect, the days of noninvolvement in world politics are gone for oil giant Aramco. Cleverly, it has announced its support of overall policies now shown by other major Mideast nations, such as Iran and other Arab leaders, in supporting world policies, including overt aggression against Israel.

Bravo to a Great Industry Leader 

When Lee Martin took NIBCO’s reins in 1957, he continually worked to improve manufacturing processes and efficiencies. A true visionary, he strived to always launch new products that provided a higher value to customers in the form of better design, better materials or better manufacturing processes.

Over the years, NIBCO has survived and thrived during the toughest economic times — a testament to exceptional product quality and adherence to its core values: safety, integrity, teamwork, continuous improvement, and philanthropy.

Rex Martin continues the family leadership as chairman of the board. He began his NIBCO career in 1975; he served as president from 1986 to 2005, president and CEO from 1992 to 2018, and was elected chairman in 1995.

Under his leadership, several important milestones led to the company’s growth. He brought NIBCO into a whole new market segment — retail, a major market for the manufacturer for the past 30 years.

In 2019, the company acquired the assets of Milwaukee Valve Co., which had previously purchased Hammond Valve.

Rex led the acquisition of Sure Seal (2015) and Webstone (2016) to supplement NIBCO’s product offerings.

He began the company’s lean journey in 2004 to keep manufacturing in the United States.

His first successful implementation of SAP in the United States was in 1998, which enabled the launch of several websites, advanced usage of electronic data interchange and vendor-managed inventory and the introduction of a customer self-service website, NIBCOpartner.com.

In 1996, NIBCO doubled the size of its world headquarters building to 100,000 square feet in Elkhart, Ind. It entered the European market by building a plastic pipe and fittings plant in Lodz, Poland, in 1992. 

Today, the company is a worldwide manufacturer of flow control system solutions for residential, commercial, industrial, marine and irrigation markets. With a manufacturing history spanning more than a century, NIBCO is positioned for continued growth under its fifth generation of family leadership and employee ownership. 

Recently, Ashley Martin, Rex Martin’s daughter, was named executive vice president. She co-founded the American Supply Association’s Women in Industry group and continues to support diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace.

As the company enters its fifth generation of leadership, NIBCO continues to shine.