Our History...

           

The Binkowsky family immigrated to the United States from Germany when I, Herb Binkowsky was only a few months old. I spent most of my life living in Sheboygan and have lived in Sheboygan Falls since 2005.

Originally, my older brother, Werner, owned Professional Cleaning and Supply. When I got out of the Army in 1975, I went to work for Werner for a couple of years in the cleaning end of the company before Werner got me started with supply side of the business. After I had been running the supply portion for a few years, Werner wanted to get completely out of the business in order to go onto something else. He sold the cleaning portion off to another buyer and in 1978 I purchased the supply company now known as Professional Supply.

The first of 3 locations for Professional Supply was a rented building at 1924 Calumet Drive. When I purchased the company, the customer base was virtually nonexistent. I was the only employee. I expanded the customer base, while functioning as salesman, delivery driver, bookkeeper, service technician and secretary.

Six years later in 1984, Professional Supply grew to include a part-time delivery driver and a part-time accountant. 4 years later, they both became full-time employees. The accountant Ralph Reineking, who is now the Secretary/Treasurer of the corporation, stayed with the company until his retirement in 2005. He came out of retirement in 2007 when we again needed his expertise.

On April 1st, 1985, Professional Supply became a corporation (Binkowsky, Inc.). By this time, Professional Supply also added a full-time service technician, John Roe, to the staff. John is among one of the many employees who has been with the company for well over two decades.

Later that year, after I established sound financial credit, Professional Supply was approved for a Small Business Association loan in 1986. I then purchased the second location for Professional Supply at 2145 Calumet Drive which was an approximately 10,000 sq ft, office/warehouse complex.

In 1987 after a lengthy recruitment period, I hired Mike Fick to be a full-time salesman. Due to his great talents, aggressive sales tactics and great business sense I promoted him to Vice President in 1990. Mike has been a big part of the growth and success of the company. He now resides in Merrill, WI and works from the Professional Supply north office heading up our c-store sales.

Within only a year, in 1989, the company grew to include 2 full-time service technicians, 1 full-time delivery driver, 1 full-time accountant, 2 full-time salespeople, and a full time secretary, Marcie Laurin. Marcie was the first full-time office person to be hired by Professional Supply. She is currently the Director of Operations. Her perseverance, hard work and dedication has been instrumental in the success of the company.

During the next 5 years Professional Supply grew approximately 20% per year. This expansion necessitated the decision to build a new office/warehouse complex, as we outgrew our facility. Construction on our current 35,000 sq ft building was started in the spring of 1993, and was completed in late December. On January 1, 1994, Professional Supply, and its 19 full-time employees began operating out of this building.

In addition to this facility, I also purchased 10 acres of surrounding land that I have sold off over the years. The largest piece of land was sold to Miesfeld’s Triangle Market. The profit from this sale was shared with my valuable employees.

In 1994, our sales staff heavily covered the area from Green Bay – Appleton – Oshkosh – Fond du Lac- West Bend – Milwaukee east to Lake Michigan. We also had customers as far as Michigan, Minnesota, Illinois, the Dakotas and Iowa. By 1995 our customer base included 15 states.

Toby Janke was hired as Warehouse Manager in 1997. He became our 22nd full-time employee. Toby runs the warehouse with great efficiency and devotion.

In 1999, Tim Winscher became the Service Department Manager. He was a salesman with Professional Supply for about 11 years before this promotion. This gives him a unique understanding of our customers aiding him in running this successful department.

Current Building Aerial ViewBy this time, we now have customers in 26 states. Due to this continued growth of Professional Supply, we again needed more room. In 2001 we built a 10,000 sq ft addition to the warehouse to handle our increased volume of shipping and receiving.

In 2007 Shawn Sizonen, a long-time employee, was promoted to sales manager. He was the top selling street salesmen for 10 years. He started in the warehouse as a teenager and worked his way up through hard work and commitment.

Today, we distribute nation-wide and our customer base includes 49 of the 50 states, Puerto Rico and Canada. We continue to grow and prosper through the continued efforts our employee team.

The company is constantly looking for new ways to improve the quality of service we give to our customers along with giving them top of the line products and new innovative ideas. I am continually reinvesting into the company to make sure that we stay on the leading edge of our industry.

We now have 30 employees at Professional Supply. Four of these employees: John Roe, Mike Fick, Marcie Laurin, and Tim Winscher have been employed for more than 20 years. Shawn Sizonen, Toby Jahnke, Cory Hierlmeier, Randy Reineking, Shawn Matzdorf, and Mary Greenwald have been with Professional Supply for over 10 years. Their continued service and dedication is truly our success story!

Our employees are truly the ‘people’ that take care of you after the sale.