Art Carr founded a small plastic fabrication and supply business, Burbank Plastics,
sometime during the late 1960’s. The business was located in a very small office
and back warehouse location in Hollywood, California. Art left his full time sales
position with the electrical insulation supply company EIS, Inc. to own and operate
his recent start-up company.
About two years later, Art purchased a small, ongoing retail store-front business,
Valley Plastics. The business was selling plastic sheets and supplies to the local
hobby and business communities. The storefront was located in Burbank, California.
Art consolidated and relocated Burbank Plastics and Valley Plastics under one roof
on Victory Blvd in Burbank.
After the move, Burbank Plastics became focused on the design and fabrication of
custom plastic sheets for business and retail customers, while Valley Plastics’
focus was on walk-in retail and business-to-business sales of plastics sheets, electrical
insulation and specialty plastic items. Art’s largest customer was Lockheed Aircraft,
located just down the street near Burbank Airport. In the mid-1970s, Art sold the
fabrication side of the business, Burbank Plastics, to one of his employees. After
the sale, Art continued to operate Valley Plastics from the same location.
Art and his longtime friend, Father John, founded Jaco Industrials in 1971. They
created the name, “Jaco” by using the first letter from their respective names:
“J” from John, “A” from Art, “CO” for company. John assisted Art with start-up funds
and office support. Since John was a full time Catholic priest, he did not care
to be involved in the actual legal ownership of the business. John would show up
one day each week to assist with office duties and operation of the company’s first
computer, an IBM 8088, using the DOS operating system.
After a number of years operating the retail business, Valley Plastics, and the
business-to-business or wholesale business, Jaco Industrials, it became apparent
to Art that Jaco Industrials was profitable and Valley Plastics was not. Art closed
down Valley Plastics in the mid 1980’s.
Due to declining health, Art Carr sold Jaco Industrials to Steve Coy on July 1,
1991. Steve relocated the business to Hacienda Heights, California as the new location
was a much shorter commute. (Sadly, Art Carr lost his battle with lung cancer nine
months after selling Jaco Industrials, and succumbed to its ill effects in early
1992.)
In early 2008, Freida Schusterman purchased Jaco Industrials Inc. Freida’s husband,
Berel, took over many of the day to day business operations while Freida continued
to provide oversight while guiding the course of the business. Upon purchasing Jaco
Industrials Inc., Berel expanded Jaco’s product lines to focus more on aerospace
supplies and began to watch the company grow.
In early 2009 Jaco Industrials Inc. acquired MTP Inc. Exporters located in Valencia,
California from the Legere family. MTP Inc. Exporters was an aerospace distribution
company heavily focused on chemicals, extrusions, fabrics, adhesives, and sealants.
For a short period of time Jaco Industrials Inc. became Jaco MTP Inc.
The time period from 2010 to 2013 saw a number of changes to the company, all focused
on our growth:
- In 2010, Jaco MTP Inc. formally changed its name to Jaco
Aerospace to focus on the fact that Jaco primarily serviced aerospace companies.
- In early 2011, Jaco Aerospace relocated to a new warehouse
in Pasadena, California that was twice the size of their former location.
- In 2012, Jaco Aerospace further expanded by acquiring Western
Manufacturing, a distributor of aerospace elbows and fittings located in Valencia,
California.
- In June of 2013, Jaco Aerospace moved up the block in Pasadena,
again doubling the size of its facility.
- In 2014 Jaco Aerospace acquired Tapes Plus Inc. of Torrance, CA - a well known, innovative and recognized leader in world wide distribution of aircraft and industrial tapes.
The acquisition essentially doubled the size of Jaco and as a result of the acquisition, Jaco increased their warehouse facilities to accommodate the Tapes Plus incoming stock and processing equipment.
- 2017 saw another move to a completely remodeled and larger 10,000 square foot facility in Pasadena, California.
- 2020 brought with it the Coronavirus Pandemic. Despite the challenges to the aerospace industry, Jaco maintained staffing due to our diversification of commercial aerospace, defense, Industrial, and Space customer base. 2020 also brought us the leadership of our new CEO, Solyman Omar. After more than two decades with Aviall and The Boeing Company, Solyman has brought his deep knowledge of the Aerospace industry to Jaco. Under Solyman's leadership, the organization has improved its organizational structure, order management process, sales processes, and export compliance along with improved throughput times and increased customer satisfaction.
- 2021 the growth that Solyman added to Jaco has led to the need to grow our infrastructure to meet our customers' needs. To this end, Jaco has moved our offices to a new state-of-the-art and distribution facility in Southern California's aerospace hub, Valencia, CA.
We see robust growth continuing to head our way and hope to continue to tell the
Jaco story as it develops.
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