History
Webb Chemical Service Corporation was incorporated in December of 1963. The owners were William Barger and his wife Eve. The name Webb is an acronym made by the first letter in the first name of the Barger family (i.e.: William, Eve, Betsy and Bill).
Mr. Barger had been Vice President of Production for OTT Chemical, a chemical manufacturing firm located on Agard Road on the north side of Muskegon. Eve and Betsy were employees. The first non-family employee was Clarence McMiller (Click). It was a "mom and pop organization". Mr. Barger would make sales calls in the morning, change clothes and deliver chemicals in the afternoon and hand write invoices at the end of the day.
Bob Hilleary began to call on Webb Chemical sometime in 1964. 85% of the company’s business was with OTT Chemical. All sales activities were in Muskegon and Whitehall. Bob Hilleary came to work for Webb in September of 1968.
It was still a "mom and pop organization". Webb had six employees Bob; Bill, Eve, Betsy, Click, a warehousemen and Dale Fuller the Office Manager. They operated out of a building on East Western Avenue that had wooden floors. There were no lift trucks, storage tanks, safety showers, air conditioning, etc. Our sales dollars were about $750,000 and OTT Chemical was about 70% of that. From late 1968 to 1973 we expanded our geography to include Grand Haven, Holland and Grand Rapids. Our sales grew to about $3,000,000. We added a truck driver or two and more help in the warehouse. In 1971 we moved to the Jarman Street property. In 1973, Bill Barger sold Webb Chemical to William White and Bob Hilleary. We went through various legal steps to buy assets not stock, and still end up with the Webb Chemical name.
The day Bill White and Bob Hilleary signed the papers to acquire Webb Chemical, they picked up mail at the PO Box. There was a letter in the mail from Teamsters advising Webb our employees wanted their union and suggested a date to meet and discuss a contract. We didn’t meet, we forced an election and Webb won.
Lots of things happened for the positive under White/Hilleary. The company grew from May of 1973 sales of about $3,000,000 to sales of $11,800,000 in June 1981. It was June 30, 1981 that Bill White was killed in an airplane accident, and Webb Chemical became entirely owned by the Hilleary family. During the 80’s and 90’s Webb continued to grow in every way; product lines, suppliers, geography served, employees, and overall sales. In 2008 Webb topped $40,000,000 in sales.
If you know very much about chemical distributors in general, you are aware that for the last 30+ years many acquisitions have occurred. There are not near as many Webb’s as there use to be. Bob Hilleary has had many opportunities to cash in, but had no interest in selling Webb Chemical.
Bob Hilleary retired on December 31, 2009 and his children (Brad, Brook and Mark) took over as owners.
Today, Brad Hilleary as CEO is continuing the tradition established by his father running a full line commodity chemical distributor that sells not just in Muskegon, not just in West Michigan, but throughout the entire United States.