Utility Manufacturing

Westbury, N.Y. UTILITY, which was founded as The Utility Shops in 1926 by Jack Goldy in Staten Island, N.Y., has become one of the most favored and extensive chemical product lines in the plumbing and heating industries. Later known as The Utility Labs, the company continued expanding its product offering. When Goldy passed away in 1963, his nephew, Pete Tofte, merged UTILITY with Simplex Boiler Stand, a manufacturer of cast iron specialties. The business was relocated to Brooklyn, N.Y. Tofte, W. J. "Bill" Kranz and Morton Sadowsky became partners in the newly renamed Simplex-Utility Distributors. At that time, the company offered nearly 40 different chemical products and over 60 metal products (representing nearly 300 skus). To ensure continued growth, the three partners sold the company in 1968 to Embassy Industries of Farmingdale, N.Y., a baseboard radiation manufacturer. Although Embassy did not retain the cast iron specialties, which they sold to OEM, they enlarged the chemical product offering and automated many of the processes.