The Raymond Corporation: vital to the global supply chain

While the term “supply chain” has become part of the vernacular, it is still safe to assume that typical consumers are probably not thinking about the steps that it takes to get the item from their Amazon shopping cart to their front door. The incredibly intricate and interconnected global world of storage, distribution, and material handling is, like so many things in this modern world, taken for granted. 

In many respects, our collective apathy is a testament to the incredible success of the Raymond Corporation — a company that generated more than $800 million in revenue in 2021 that many people have never heard of, yet rely on every day. For the last 100 years, the ingenuity and innovation of George Raymond, Sr. and the company he founded has made Raymond, a Toyota Industries Corp. company, a leading global provider of material-handling products and intelligent intralogistics solutions. 

From its headquarters in the Chenango County town of Greene, which has a population of about 6,000 people, Raymond’s employees design, maintain, and manufacture products and warehouse-solutions systems that are essential to the global supply chain. And believe it or not, it all started with a wood pallet and a barber chair. 

The roots of Raymond Corp. can be traced back to the Lyon Iron Works, which was founded in Greene in 1840. It was a small machine shop that specialized in making iron that was then cast into agricultural implements. As the population of the Empire State continued to climb through the 19th century, the Lyon Iron Works remained a small but successful firm, supplying the local market with the tools it needed. By 1922, the Lyon Iron Works was primarily producing sawmills for the area’s once thriving timber market and wrought-iron fencing. However, the business was not doing well. Enter George Raymond, Sr. That year, he made the fateful decision to move his family from their home in Brooklyn to Greene — a town that was named after Revolutionary War General Nathanael Greene  — where Raymond had purchased a controlling share in the Lyon Iron Works for $6,000. 

In leaving Brooklyn, Raymond was actually returning to his roots in Central New York. Born in Owego, he graduated from nearby Cornell University with a degree in engineering. Ever an innovative problem solver, Raymond threw himself into turning the business around. At first, he re-focused the foundry on servicing the local agricultural sector in rural New York and over the border in Pennsylvania. More importantly, he began to manufacture custom machines and products that could help customers handle materials in warehouses and on shop floors, using cast iron and hard wood. By the end of the decade, this new line of equipment comprised about 75 percent of the company’s sales. In 1929, Raymond received his first patent for his “basket truck,” which like so many Raymond Corp. products are ubiquitous in the industry.

Around this same time, George Raymond, Sr. made another critical decision that would have major ramifications on his business and the broader material-handling industry it helped define. Raymond hired an eager young jobseeker, William House, who shared his affinity for machines, design, and engineering. House would stay with the company for 41 years, playing an integral role in its growth and success. Nowhere was this more evident than in the development of the two inventions that altered the course of the Lyon Iron Works and the material-handling industry forever — the double-faced wooden pallet and its partner, the hydraulic hand pallet truck.

As the story was relayed to me by Steve Raymond (George’s grandson), George, Sr. was getting his haircut at his usual barbershop in the local Sherwood Hotel. Having been fascinated with hydraulics for several years and struck by a thunderbolt of inspiration, Raymond asked the barber if he could buy his extra barber chair. The barber would not sell him the chair, but he did “rent” it to Raymond for $10; so, he took the chair back to the shop on Foundry Street. With Bill House, he proceeded to take it apart and reverse engineer it. This was the birth of the first hydraulic lift truck, and it was designed to be used in tandem with the skid “platform” Raymond patented in 1931. Eight years later, after much testing and design alterations, Raymond and House patented, sequentially, the double-faced wooden pallet and the hydraulic hand-pallet truck, both improvements on their earlier work. Over 80 years later, these two revolutionary inventions are ubiquitous and essential to the global marketplace. 

However, the severity of the Great Depression almost extinguished the fires of innovation being stoked in Greene before they had a chance to spread. The Depression hit Lyon Iron Works’ biggest customer bases the hardest, as the agricultural and manufacturing sectors were decimated. By the end of 1931, Raymond, House, and a part-time secretary were the only employees left from the 78 in 1929. But Raymond managed to survive. Spurred by the incredible demand brought about by the war effort, sales reached $250,000 ($5 million adjusted for inflation) in 1941. That year, George, Sr. changed the name of the company to Lyon-Raymond Corporation. In 1943, George hired the company’s first professional engineer, Chris Gibson. 

The post-war era saw Lyon-Raymond grow exponentially as it continued to drive innovation. Another watershed moment in the company’s history was a fateful meeting between Raymond, House, Gibson, and a grocery industry consultant, Harry Messerole in 1947. Messerole’s idea was a simple one: why not shrink the size of the aisles in the warehouses, thereby saving his customers millions in wasted storage space? Could Lyon-Raymond build a lift truck to these new, smaller specifications? A few years later, the team at Lyon-Raymond patented the first electric narrow-aisle lift truck, another Raymond invention that changed the industry forever.

With the unparalleled economic growth of the 1950s, Lyon-Raymond’s business was booming. In 1950, annual sales exceeded $1 million for the first time, and the Lyon-Raymond Corporation became The Raymond Corporation. By 1955, total sales reached $5 million. That same year, George Raymond, Jr., was elected president of the company his father purchased when George, Jr. was just an infant. It was an incredibly proud day for the Raymond family. 

To maintain the growth of an increasingly complex and expanding product line, Raymond Corp. began construction on a brand-new manufacturing facility in Greene in 1956. In order to raise the requisite funds, George, Sr. made the difficult decision to take Raymond Corp. public on the NASDAQ market. Three years later, George Raymond, Jr. became CEO. George, Jr. had implemented Raymond Corp.’s authorized-independent-dealer strategy in the 1950s, and that move helped tremendously with the company’s expansion over the ensuing decades. As its market share increased, Raymond expanded internationally, opening a massive new $300,000 manufacturing facility in Brantford, Ontario in 1965. Two years later, George Raymond, Sr. passed away, having turned his $6,000 investment into an internationally known, publicly traded company employing 600 people with revenues near $50 million annually.

During the 1970s and 80s, Raymond Corp. continued its legacy of innovation, investing heavily in automated lift trucks and a host of other leading-edge solutions. In 1979, the company opened a new parts distribution center in East Syracuse to better serve its network of intendent dealers across the country. By 1980, Raymond Corp. had sales of $113 million and reached its peak employment of 1,800. 

Over the next two decades, Raymond Corp. looked to integrate computer technology into its industry-leading product lines, as a way to maintain a competitive advantage amid a changing economic landscape marked by deindustrialization and downsizing. George, Jr. retired as CEO in 1987, though he stayed on as chairman of the board. Ross Colquhoun became president and CEO. Colquhoun continued to push Raymond towards the future. A few years later, the company produced the industry’s first computer-operated truck. Under Colquhoun’s leadership, Raymond expanded its network of international partners in Sweden, Germany, Australia, Singapore, and into Central America and South America. In 1996, Raymond Corp. reported sales of $308 million.

The next year marked the end of an era when Sweden’s BT Industries AB acquired Raymond. In 2000, Japan–based Toyota Industries Corp. purchased BT Industries. 

Today, a century after George Raymond, Sr. uprooted his young family from Brooklyn to chase his dream in the town of Greene, The Raymond Corporation is a global leader in the industry it pioneered. Raymond’s visionary contributions to the field are still being lauded.                              

Robert J. Searing is curator of history at the Onondaga Historical Association (OHA) (www.cnyhistory.org), located at 321 Montgomery St. in Syracuse.