Milhench Supply Company

On June 18, 1932, Clayton Russell, Joseph Milhench and James Harrison established Russell, Milhench & Harrison Co., a distributor of production supplies to the textile industry in New Bedford, MA. Rustoleum Paint was their key supplier. Joseph’s son, Arthur, became involved in the business in the 1950s, and expanded into sheet metal fabrication. Now Milhench, Inc., the business moved from downtown New Bedford to a new building in the city’s North End and was heavily involved in the fish processing and construction industries.

In the mid 1980s, the manufacturing side of the business was sold to a German company and Milhench Supply Company was established and moved to the New Bedford Business Park, where it is located today. In the 1990s Loren Milhench and Mark Milhench (Arthur’s children) came to work as sales people for the company. In 2001, Heike Milhench became president.

Today the company is a distributor of washroom products, cleaning and maintenance supplies, packaging supplies and equipment, safety and material handling supplies. The company remains 100% owned by the Milhench family and is managed by the third generation.