The story of WAXIE Sanitary Supply, America’s largest family-owned distributor of sanitary maintenance supplies, begins with two brothers from Utah, Harry and Morris Wax.

Harry began his career as a bookkeeper, but then joined the Navy in 1943 as a Seabee, the U.S. Navy’s construction force that built landing facilities, airfields and other structures in combat areas. He served for two years and was discharged in San Diego.

In 1945, Harry purchased a small business, San Diego Janitor Supply and Chemical Company.

Morris, the younger brother, joined the U.S. Army in 1941 and served for three years with the tank corps. He was stationed in France and Germany and even served as a military governor for several months in Germany.

In January 1946, Morris moved to San Diego to join Harry in the new venture. “At first, I wondered what Harry had done,” joked Morris. “The company had very little business, a handful of employees, and one truck with no low gear and a four-foot truck bed!”

In addition, acquiring supplies right after the war was difficult. Paper products, like tissue and towels, were hard to come by. The company survived by selling the basics – brooms, mops, floor wax and cleaners.

From its humble start the company soon began to grow rapidly. Stated Morris, “A company’s growth is a reflection of the person who runs it. Harry and I were aggressive and willing to go after business.”

In 1948, the Wax brothers needed extra space and the company expanded to occupy the entire building at 10th Avenue and “B” Street. In 1954, the company was incorporated as WAXIE’s Enterprises.

The company continued to grow and more space was required. In 1957, WAXIE moved to a 15,000 square foot building at the corner of 1st and “G” Streets (where Nordstrom at Horton Plaza now stands).

“We have always wanted to expand and grow,” said Morris. “When you look to the future, you’re thinking about new customers which maintains our focus on providing excellent customer service.”

Indeed, in the 1950’s and 1960’s, the company grew by establishing a stable customer base throughout San Diego county. The Waxes divided the county into five territories (Downtown, East County, South Bay, Beaches, and Coast) which were served by its “impressive” fleet of five delivery trucks. Today the firm’s fleet consists of more than 110 delivery trucks, tractor trailers and service vehicles.

In 1962 the company expanded its service territory to include all of Southern California by acquiring the Kleen-Line Corporation, a company that had been in business since 1935 and had warehouses in Santa Ana and San Bernardino, California. The Santa Ana warehouse would eventually be moved to a larger facility in 1989 which was renovated in 2006, while the San Bernardino warehouse was moved in 1979 before being relocated to a brand new 140,000 square foot facility in Ontario, California in 2003.

Harry Wax retired from the business in 1971 and passed away in 1978. In 2006 he would have been 100 years old.

Meanwhile, it was time for the next generation to come on the scene. As a twelve year old in the early 1960’s, Charles Wax, the oldest son of Morris, started working for the company. He swept floors and helped stack products in the warehouse.

Charles graduated from San Diego State University in 1972 with a bachelor’s degree in accounting. He started full-time with the family company in 1973. In 1986, Charles became company president.

In 1977, the company purchased property in a new development in Kearny Mesa. A year later, when the company moved its headquarters from downtown to its current address on Ruffin Road, WAXIE’s building was one of the few in the east Kearny Mesa area. In 1979, the company expanded into two new and very different markets when sales offices were opened in Los Angeles and El Centro, California.

“You have to be a visionary,” stated Morris Wax. “You have to know when to gamble and when to stop. Most importantly, you have to be quick to react. Much of our growth came about because we are a flexible organization that could react quickly to the ever changing market.”

The 1980’s saw the company venture outside of California for the first time. WAXIE purchased the Lovinger Company, a sanitary supply distributor started in 1914 and located in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1984. Then in 1986 WAXIE established a start-up operation in Phoenix, Arizona as well as a branch office in Palm Springs, California. The close of the decade saw the opening of branches in Las Vegas, Nevada (1988) and Tucson, Arizona (1989).

In 1986, Charles began overseeing all company operations. “I have grown up with the company,” says Charles. “We don’t plan on changing things that work. We need to stay responsive to our customers’ needs and focus on the future. And we are willing to continuously invest in the future – in our people and our facilities, and new innovative products and technology.”

As part of that investment, in 1994, WAXIE purchased a 14-acre parcel adjacent to their existing San Diego office in Kearny Mesa for the development of the WAXIE Business Park. In 1995, the company broke ground on a new 58,000 square foot addition for corporate and regional offices along with warehouse space, which were completed in 1996, to bring its size to 111,000 square feet.

For the last several years, WAXIE has been in a strong growth and building mode. The company expanded into Northern California by opening a San Francisco office in 1996; bought Central Valley Sanitary Supply in Bakersfield, California in 1997; built new, beautiful and state-of-the-art larger facilities in Las Vegas in 1997 and Salt Lake City in 1999; and expanded into Denver, Colorado in 2000; St. George, Utah in 2002; Boise, Idaho in 2003; and Idaho Falls, Idaho in 2005. Attractive new facilities were built in San Francisco in 2002 and in Ontario (replacing the San Bernardino division) in 2003. Both of these facilities feature narrow aisle technology which allows twice the amount of products to be stored in half the amount of inventory space.

In 2006, WAXIE established a presence in the Pacific Northwest by opening a facility in Portland, Oregon to service northern Oregon as well as Washington. The company also purchased over 10 acres of land in 2006 with plans to build a new, larger facility located outside Phoenix to service the growing needs of the Arizona market. In the beginning of 2007, WAXIE acquired Midwest Chemical & Supply to expand the company’s presence in Denver Colorado.

In 1945, WAXIE began with one store in San Diego. Today, Inventory Centers are located in several Western cities besides San Diego, including Santa Ana, Ontario, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Palm Springs, El Centro, Phoenix, Tucson, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, St. George, Boise, Idaho Falls, Denver and Portland.

WAXIE provides more than 4,500 items, including leading national brands, and hundreds of WAXIE brand products, including chemicals, consumables, equipment and accessories. Customers represent many different business sectors including healthcare, commercial, food service, military, contract cleaners, hospitality, education, industrial and retail.

WAXIE Sanitary Supply employs almost 700 people and is still family owned.

Morris, who passed away in 1996, expressed the sentiment of the entire WAXIE family when he said, “It’s been marvelous to watch the growth of our company. It has exceeded all of my expectations.”