About Us: Timeline
How We Got Here...
1937
Mel Yerkes, Morris Marrish and William Bartlet founded Arrow Overall. First major accounts were the GM Tech Center and DeVlieg Machine.
1951
Arrow Overall's Forest plant was victim to a fire bomb, . Medium amount of damages were repaired in a short time.
1966
Thomas R. Andris began his career at Clean Coverall.
1951-1968
Numerous small acquisitions were made with yearly revenues reaching $1100K by 1968. Barbara Andris ran the office with no pay during this period.
1969
The Andris family purchased Arrow Overall along with American Coverall, and combined with Clean Coverall under the name of Arrow Overall, which had the best name recognition. With this acquisition, yearly sales were $3600K with operations in SE Michigan.
1974-1983
Seventeen small acquisitions and internal growth in the Cleveland, Toledo, Flint and Battle Creek markets, as well as in SE Michigan, increased to yearly sales of $7800K in 1977 and $11,000K in 1983. One of the acquisitions was in Houston and one was in Hawaii, both of which were sold at the time of the Cadillac acquisition in 1983 so that all efforts could be devoted toward maximizing the benefits of this acquisition.
1995
Arrow purchased building in Cleveland area and turned it into a state-of-the-art facility. Revenues grew to $52,000K.
2001
Yearly volume of $60,000K was significantly reduced after 9/11 before picking up a few years later.
2011
Pete Raab returns to Arrow Uniform after a break of 17 years and takes the reigns as the company president.
1949
Tom G. Andris founded Clean Coverall after working with Cadillac Overall for many years. He purchased a small plant at 531 E. Forest in Detroit, previously a diaper laundry owned by his brother Fred, and converted it into an industrial laundry for operations.
1964
Robert Andris began his career at Clean Coverall.
1968
To handle the extra capacity, the Arrow facility on E. 7 Mile Road and Clean Coverall were sold, and the company moved into a larger renovated facility at 1469 East Grand Boulevard in Detroit.
1971
Industry-wide five month strike with the Teamsters, Arrow’s only strike in its history, reduced volume to $2600K per year.
1974
Thomas G. Andris passes away from a heart attack and Thomas R. Andris assumes the presidency.
1983
Arrow purchased Cadillac Overall, which increased Arrow’s presence throughout Michigan, Chicago and Northeast Indiana. Yearly revenues after acquisition increased to $16,000K.
1983-1989
Extremely rapid growth, mainly internally, had increased revenues to $36,000K per year in 1989. Operations expanded into most of Ohio, Northern Indiana and Southeast Wisconsin.
1997
Arrow purchased the current building in Taylor and turned into the largest state-of-the-art facility in America.
2006
John Caputo was named President; he is the third generation of the Andris family to be in that position.
2012
Arrow Uniform shipped $17 million in direct sales and $1 million respectively with our first aid and safety products. Total revenue for the year became a record high; exceeding $76 million – making Arrow Uniform one of the largest independently owned uniform companies.
Click here to view a slideshow of Arrow Uniform's history!
