After selling directly to customers for 25 years, since the company's inception, Skil entered the wholesale business and began distributing its products through hardware distributors.

Imagineering Australia, a microcomputer software and hardware distributor founded by Australian businessman Jodee Rich.

His stepfather was until 2005 the controller and manager of accounts receivable at the Pleasants Group, a former hardware distributor in Winston-Salem.

Her father retired as the president of Seeco Supply, an architectural hardware distributor in Elmsford, N.Y.

He is an Australian entrepreneur who also founded Imagineering Ltd, a microcomputer software and hardware distributor and One.

American Hoist recently agreed to acquire the CoastAmerica Corporation for $110 million, a deal that would create the fifth-largest hardware distributor.

The group already controls about 17 percent of the Denver-based hardware distributor's shares.

Leading the Big Board losers was the Amdura Corporation of Denver, a hardware distributor and the country's largest distributor of automotive after-market products.

His father was the founder of the Southwest Fastener Corporation, a hardware distributor in Phoenix which the bridegroom's mother later owned.

Jensen Distribution Services, based in Spokane, Washington, is a wholesale hardware distributor that services over 2,000 customers in 11 western states.