Safety Supply Specialist Ritz Safety Acquires Slate Rock Safety
Ritz Safety LLC has acquired State Rock Safety in Medina, Ohio. Slate Rock Safety is an e-commerce retailer and distributor of flame-resistant work apparel and other personal protective equipment, serving local customers in the Cleveland area and a wide variety of national accounts across the country.
This marks the third strategic acquisition in the past year for Ritz Safety, having acquired Mobile, Ala.-based Safety Source in July of 2015 and Public Works Supply, Portland, Ore., on May 1, 2016.
“Continuing our nationwide expansion and offering additional safety-related products and services, equipment rental and repair, and training was a strategic value for Ritz Safety,” said Ken Fisher, Ritz president. “We are excited with our Midwest expansion and the added e-commerce capability Slate Rock Safety brings to Ritz Safety and its 5,000+ customers.”
Ritz Safety is further expanding its Midwest footprint with a new facility in Indianapolis, providing four times the warehouse and showroom space of the company’s previous Indianapolis facility.
Ritz Safety has corporate offices in Dayton, Ohio, and operates 10 retail/wholesale distribution centers: Pompano Beach, Tampa, and Jacksonville, Fla.; Medina, Ohio; Indianapolis; Mobile, Ala.; Houston; Las Vegas; and Portland, Ore.
About the Author
Michael Roth
Editor
Michael Roth has covered the equipment rental industry full time for RER since 1989 and has served as the magazine’s editor in chief since 1994. He has nearly 30 years experience as a professional journalist. Roth has visited hundreds of rental centers and industry manufacturers, written hundreds of feature stories for RER and thousands of news stories for the magazine and its electronic newsletter RER Reports. Roth has interviewed leading executives for most of the industry’s largest rental companies and manufacturers as well as hundreds of smaller independent companies. He has visited with and reported on rental companies and manufacturers in Europe, Central America and Asia as well as Mexico, Canada and the United States. Roth was co-founder of RER Reports, the industry’s first weekly newsletter, which began as a fax newsletter in 1996, and later became an online newsletter. Roth has spoken at conventions sponsored by the American Rental Association, Associated Equipment Distributors, California Rental Association and other industry events and has spoken before industry groups in several countries. He lives and works in Los Angeles when he’s not traveling to cover industry events.