Howard L. Brown

Howard L. Brown graduated from Syracuse University in 1967, got married to Nancy Goldis, and joined one of the family plastics companies. In 1972, he purchased Summit Office Supply, a $300,000 office-product company, which he expanded both through internal growth and acquisitions in the New York/New Jersey/Long Island/Westchester metropolitan area. In 1987, he sold Summit to Dutch company Buhrmann-Tetterode (BT) with company sales of $55 million. He remained with the company until 1996, increasing their footprint in the Northeast to more than $500 million. In September of 1998, Brown and investors purchased ten office-product companies in one day, including the main spoke, Allied Office Products in Hasbrouck Heights, NJ. Combined total sales of the companies were approximately $110 million. In 2006, the group of companies known as Allied Office Products was doing sales of $375 million, and Brown once again made an impressive sale—this time to Office Depot. In 2007 and 2008, Brown, his son, employees, and most of the same investors purchased Rentacrate, followed by Shred-X. His restricted covenant for the office-product industry ended in May of 2010 and HiTouch Business Services Inc. became the parent company of Rentacrate and Shred-X. In October of 2010, HiTouch Business Services, Inc. purchased My Office Products, Inc. (doing approximately $120 million in sales), giving HiTouch a nationwide distribution. His team successfully grew HiTouch as he had done with his previous companies, and in 2018, Brown again sold his company, this time to Staples. Along the way, his team introduced many firsts in the industry and developed the “one-solution sell.”-Amazon