With distributors now offering same and next-day delivery, online ordering and more value-add services than ever before, it’s sometimes hard to picture the humble beginnings many independent distribution businesses started from. For Craig Norlin, co-owner of Wautoma, Wisconsin-based Mid-State Supply, it’s not difficult to recall at all; he remembers his father — Austin Norlin — delivering product out of the family’s station wagon with a four-wheel farm wagon towing behind in the 1960s.
After returning from serving in the army during World War II, Austin Norlin purchased a small local washing machine repair store that also sold plumbing, heating and electrical supplies in Wautoma, Wisconsin called C.R. Boyce Co. He lived above the 4,000 square-foot store for 10 years while growing the business alongside his wife LuVerne Norlin. As parts and goods were hard to come by after the war, Austin Norlin would take two-hour bus rides to Milwaukee once a month to stock his store.