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In February 1971 a disaster occurred at the Philadelphia plant when two inexperienced grease blenders allowed a batch of grease to reach the flash point during the cooking process. Rather than killing their fires to let the grease flash in the kettle, the grease was allowed to flow out to the cooling pans while still flashing. This resulted in a spectacular fire that essentially burned down the main building within about 20 minutes. The entire manufacturing plant and a majority of the office and laboratory were destroyed. Fortunately, no injuries were sustained. Adding to the devastating physical effect of the fire, it was discovered that due to a disagreement between Hagenbaugh and the company’s insurance carrier, all coverage had lapsed. The entire loss was estimated at over $350,000 (nearly $2 million today).
The decision was made to rebuild, retain all employees and continue marketing through the distributor network. Progress was hampered, in part, by the death of Higgins in August 1971. In October of the same year Patterson suffered a stroke and went into semi-retirement. In spite of these setbacks, Master Lubricants was almost back in full swing by November 1971. At the time of the fire, the company had 4 warehouses in Philadelphia stocked with product that helped in filling and shipping orders. Also, with a scaled down and rebuilt Mill Room, the company was able to actually produce a good amount of products to fulfill order requirements. At this time, Frank Iacovone became Vice President.
In late 1979, Iacovone was allowed to hire an assistant at which Kenneth Kunz was employed to assist in some administrative functions as well as sales development.
In May 1983, Joseph Sullivan, Esq., owner of Graphite Products in Brookfield, Ohio purchased Master Lubricants Company. As a division of Graphite Products, moderate growth continued and long overdue repairs were made at the office, plant and warehouses.
In 1985, the MOLY-XL Company, previously obtained by Sullivan, became an operating division of Master Lubricants Company. MOLY-XL provided the influx of a line of specialty lubricants designed for a specific end-user market heretofore unexplored by Master Lubricants. Additional sales personnel were hired to help market both the MOLY-XL product line as well as all LUBRIKO Products.
In January 1986 Graphite Products and Master Lubricants were sold to the Western Capital Corporation that later became the Sudbury Holding Company and subsequently known as Sudbury Inc. The setup within this holding company had Master Lubricants as an operating subsidy of Graphite Products.
In 1991, Master Lubricants was bought back by Sullivan and the entire operation was moved to a newer, more modern facility in Westville, New Jersey.
In February 1996, Iacovone and Kunz acquired the company from Sullivan. Iacovone became President and Chief Operating Officer while Kunz became Vice President and Corporate Secretary/Treasurer.
In April 2003, Master Lubricants sold the LUBRIKO brand to Dynamic Industrial Group, Inc. Dynamic Industrial Group is a holding company created for this acquisition. Dynamic Industrial Group President, Michael A. Schmidt and Vice President Bruce C. Moncrieff signed Acrotech Industries, Inc. as their exclusive marketing/sales agent for the newly acquired LUBRIKO product line.
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