In 1976, Southwest School Supply opened for business, in Culver City, California, out of a walk-in closet large enough for a desk, a typewriter, and a telephone. Our secretary was Sande Stickler, who answered the phones, helped our customers and wrote, "Thank you" notes for every order that we received. Brent Stickler was our sales representative, purchasing agent, order puller, and many times delivery person. Together, they raised three children in the mix of all this.Unfortunately, we didn't have the luxury of many things such as, company buildings, delivery trucks, inventory, or name brand products. We diligently tried to find companies that had products unknown to most of our customers because the competitors already sold name brands, and who were we? Most reputable companies already had enough coverage in the California School market, and that we probably would not be in business long enough anyway, or so the vendors thought.So we shopped even harder to find other Quality Products at quality prices to allow the school market to have different choices, something they had little of because our competition was already selling name brands.As we were growing our home was too small for us and we decided to find a warehouse, where we could bring in inventory, and now we hired our first employee with a hopped up van to make deliveries for us in the afternoons. We continued in the Los Angeles area for another 10 years. Wow, we had another person we had added to our business family, we were on our way! Little did we know our first employee would remain with us for 28 years.After spending 10 years in the Los Angeles area, our business was really starting to grow, so it was time to move to a bigger facility, although, after searching, Los Angeles was too expensive to be able to expand to what we could afford, so we found our next facility and moved our business to Ontario, California.In Ontario, we added 5 more people to our staff. Our first accountant, who has been with us for 25 years now, a customer service rep, 2 in our warehouse, a manager who was with us for 22 years, and a driver, who has been with us for over 20 years.Wow, how times have changed in so many ways, since opening our doors. Today we have two facilities in the state of California, one in Jurupa Valley, California, to service our southern school base of customers and one in Tracy, California, to service our northern California school base of customers. We have over 30 trucks on the road daily.The only goals we set back in 1976 were to be the “Best we could be,” and the largest privately owned school supplier in the State of California. We have far exceeded our goals, thanks to the many, many years of service from our dedicated employees and satisfied customers we have continued to remain close through all these years.Thank you,Brent and Sande Stickler