In this keynote‑style presentation, OTC CEO Bill Canady outlines the company’s evolution, strategic direction, and value proposition for partners and suppliers. He begins by crediting Genstar’s data‑driven Gibbs model for identifying growth opportunities and emphasizes that service is the core differentiator for OTC. Canady recounts the company’s history—from its 1963 founding, through a 2015 private‑equity sale, to the 2019 Genstar acquisition—and highlights the transformation from a $700 M business to a $1 B+ enterprise with roughly 2,000 associates, 40 brands, and 60 locations. He explains the re‑organization into three verticals—Air Supply, Automation & Finishing, and Pumps & Motors—driven by data‑based product clustering. The “Direct Air” model is presented as a flagship offering that lets factories outsource compressed‑air operations, a market growing >30 % annually as manufacturing reshores to the U.S. Canady projects each vertical could become a $1 B business, targeting $3 B total revenue within five years. He stresses the importance of partnership, noting that 40 % of revenue is recurring from parts and service, and that long‑term customer relationships (some >40 years) underpin this model. The talk concludes with an invitation to breakout sessions and a trade‑show demo, reinforcing the collaborative, service‑first culture that drives OTC’s growth.
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Well, it's been been so long since I saw you all. I thought the applause was more enthusiastic on the first one, though. Be perfectly candid with you. I'm not embarrassed to be a shameless shill for myself. Yeah, before I thought I'd get into our video, I just say a couple of words. You know, when you look at what Genstar has accomplished in all these companies, you have to ask yourself why, right? And I think it comes back to Rob and his team. around their model of Gibbs, right? And it's really about achieving results through data. It's really about making sure that we understand where the most opportunities are and how we're going to get there. And that's really why you're here, right? The data told us this is where the money's at, this is where the partnership's at, this is how we win. Getting all together is where we're, we're trying to really take our— all of us from where we are today to this next level. In fact, I believe so strongly in, as Rob was kind enough to point out, I actually wrote a book about it. So it's tied around how do we take data and really get out there and grow our organizations together. So with that, if you'll kick off the video, that'd be terrific.
OTC is a trusted one-stop shop for comprehensive industrial and manufacturing solutions. We're not just one of the largest product distributors in the US, We're also problem solvers, industry experts, and engineered solutions suppliers who keep our customers' operations running by providing guidance, repairs, service, and preventative maintenance for all our product lines. From the automotive, steel, and gas and oil industries to process and manufacturing and water treatment, OTC offers best-in-class technical and engineering knowledge, and superior service to ensure customers receive maximum efficiency from every purchase they make. Our extensive product lineup features compressed air systems and compressed air utility solutions, finishing, dispensing, and filtration equipment, automation solutions and robotics, and municipal and industrial pumps and motors. Our comprehensive service portfolio encompasses everything from repairs and engineering solutions to automation integration and preventative maintenance for the majority of products we sell. And our fleet of experienced engineers and OTC technicians keeps customers' operations running at peak performance and works tirelessly to minimize costly downtime. From our headquarters in Columbus, Ohio, We operate more than 60 locations and a nationwide network of industry-leading vendors, which allows us to get critical product where it needs to go in record time. When what's needed are custom and innovative solutions to industrial and manufacturing needs, it's easy to see that OTC is driving efficiency forward. Thank you.
That's a, I tell you, I think that sums up our company so well. What makes us special is we look after our customers in each and every way, each and every day. As Avitro said, it's 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. We make sure that they stay engaged with it. I've been fortunate enough to be with OTC now for 3 years. And under that time, we've seen an extremely, or an extraordinary amount of change. We've been able to take the company from just around $700 million to over $1 billion in that time, and we couldn't have done it without the help of our suppliers, our partners in Genstar, and the team that we have really making sure that we're able to take care of our customers each and every day. So what makes us special? What's our secret sauce? It comes down really to just one thing. It's service. It's the ability to take our customers and be there with them during their most trying times. You know, I think pumps and compressors and filters are really exciting. Maybe not everyone does, but I think they're exciting. But our customers don't buy them because of that. They buy them because they— it keeps their business up and going. Whatever they're doing, whatever, whatever makes them special, whether they're making paint or peanut butter, whether they're painting the next Escalade coming down the line, no matter what it is, they couldn't get done what they need to do without us. And many of these factories run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We can be out there and take care of them through that at any time. In order to do that, we have to have the proper parts, we have to have the proper team trained, and we have to be available for them out there. That's where you come in. Those products that you're giving, as I said earlier, price is important. It absolutely is to all of us, right? But ultimately, it's the quality of that product and having it in-house, ready to go, fit and feature for what our customers need, and the quality that stands behind it that makes the difference with us. The service for us is what makes our difference. And in doing so, we looked at it and our model is to own the factory floor. And what that means is we— every factory we go in every day has some or more of our products. In fact, not only our products, but many of our sister companies out there, whether it's Avijos company with Speakman or it's Clarion with the lights, and it goes on and on. Brenda's company's across all of them. It's interesting and amazing how all of these are intertwined together. So as our customers walk through, we can take and make their product we can make their situation better. So a little bit about where we came from. We were founded in 1963 by Dave Darryl. He turned the leadership over to his son Phil, and in 2015, he sold the business first time to private equity. We bought the business in 2019 under Genstar, and Genstar did something different that the ones before hadn't done, and that was we invested heavily in the business, and it's made all the difference. As I said earlier, We were able to take and grow this business during a time of great uncertainty, and it's on a stronger foundation and foothold today than it's ever been in its history. So what did we do, right? We took— we have about 30 companies, I think in fact over 40 different brands that we have. We put them all under one umbrella, the OTC umbrella. We did that for a couple of reasons. One is our customers like knowing that they have a billion-dollar brand standing behind them. That we can take care of them wherever they are. And many of our customers across many states, many different areas. Secondly, our employees. Employees typically like to come in, or a certain type of employee likes to come in where they can be part of a bigger organization. Maybe they want to go up in their career, maybe they want to move to different states. We can provide that to them by putting the OTC umbrella over it all. It really allowed us to take a big step forward and show our true face to, to the market. It's been a huge benefit for us. We took these companies and we segmented them into 3 primary markets, right? Compressed air supply, we call it the Air Supply Group. If you don't mean— if you don't hear music in your head when I say that, it just tells me you did not grow up in the '80s.
Right.
The second one was the Automation and Finishing Group, right? That group is focused around automotive side as well as woodworking, applying adhesives and so on with that. It's a very, very impressive group. And pumps and motors. We're one of the largest pumps and motors distributors out across the country, and we do everything from big skids to the pumps that move, move process pumps to rewiring motors out there. In fact, out west in our Phoenix facility, the room that they do some of these is bigger than this room here. So the motors are almost the size of a jet in some of these cases. It's quite, quite amazing to see. And we did that because they fit together. As I talked earlier about the Gibbs toolset, one of the heart of it, the brains, is the data. And the data tells us that you put like companies together for it. And what that's allowed us to do is that we're going faster now serving our customers by focusing on our best customers with our best products. And again, that's where you come in. We need the best products to go out. We need that innovation. We depend on you and your resources to help us get to that next generation. Without it, we're not serving our customers. Someone else will. So what did we get out of it? As I said, we started around $700 million. Today we're a little bit over $1 billion, 2,000 associates, 40 different brands across 60 different locations. You can see there as the, as the business lays itself out from a size-wise. When we look at our future, you know, when I first took the business over, I thought we could get it to $1.5 billion, right? And we're right on track for that. But today, with the way we reorganize it, with the help of our suppliers, with our customers and the way they support us, we now see ourselves with each one of those segments being a billion-dollar piece. So we think our pump group, which is almost half the way there, our air supply group, which is growing faster than anyone else out there, is absolutely amazing where that is going, and our finishing group, each one of those is a, is a potential billion-dollar piece, giving us $3 billion. We see ourselves getting there in the next 5 years or less. And if you're gonna be in this industry and if you wanna grow your business, you have to be with us, right? This is where the action is. Just to give you one little taste of what I'm talking about, we have a product that we call Direct Air and we do something very unique. So when you walk in a room today and you flip on a switch, light comes out, right? We expect it, it happens. I would suspect that none of us own a power plant, right? Well, when you go into a manufacturing facility, the one thing that keeps the whole thing running is air. Traditionally, those factories have owned the air themselves. They've owned the compressors, and there's some benefits to that, but the detractions to it is you have to keep it up, you have to know what you're doing, you have to be able to take and do 24-hour service on it. And candidly, most locations don't have the capabilities of that. Today, we are the largest sub-seller of air out there, I believe, in the world. We started 30 years ago with it. We have the most installed base, and it's growing at a rate of greater than 30% a year. And we happen to be the right time in the right place in history. Factories are coming back to the United States today, and those factories are looking a way to reduce their capital costs, and they can do it through us and get consistency and expertise so their factories are always up and going. Because again, remember, nobody wants air because it's cool, even though we think it is. They want the air because they're making that automotive or their— that automobile, or they're making that next battery, whatever it may be. They need air to do it. They can depend on us. We have over 30 years to do it. That type of scenario plays itself out again and again across each and every one of our 3 core verticals. We're the biggest in the industries in each one of those. We continue to grow. We can't wait to take and grow with you as we go forward. One of the things that we talk about in every meeting is our mission and vision and values. And the piece here that I want to highlight for us is partnership. You can see it down in the towards the bottom of the slide. And it's really how we go to market, right? We win when you win. We win when our customers win. Everyone has to be on it together. And the reason is our business is a repeating business, right? 40% of it's recurring revenue through parts and service of it. The rest of it is different projects and things that come in. What that means is we don't get to do it just one time. We do it time after time after time after time. If you look at our customer base, you would see that many of 'em we've had for customers over 40 years and they continue to grow with us just as we grow with them. We have to deliver our best every time. Partnership is the only way you do that. Having innovative products, having great folks out there, great trainers, great installers, it's what makes the difference. But it starts with and finishes with the products that we sell to them because when we go home, that product is still there. It's what keeps them up and running. Partnership is how you win. So as we look forward to it this afternoon around 2 o'clock, we're gonna be having another breakout session. As I mentioned earlier, Arrowhead will be right here. Across the hall will be OTC. We'll be taking questions and you'll really get to see the people who do all the work. And they're a fantastic team in both of these. I invite you to come by, ask questions, spend some time, come see our trade show. It's really, really exciting. So I wanna thank you all for your time. It's been an exciting journey. I can't wait to see where we go next. Thank you.
