Johnson Hardware Company Mission Statement

• Johnson Hardware Company will supply the Building Industry with the highest quality products, services and solutions

• Our customer service will be the most reliable and responsible available

• Each of our employees will be a certified expert in their field, able to consult with our customers to create the best solutions to the customer's problems

• Johnson Hardware Company will engage in a process of continuous improvement in order to bring the most innovative products and solutions to the market

• Johnson Hardware Company will be guided in all our efforts by our shared set of values

 

Johnson Hardware Company Shared Values

• Honesty / Integrity

  • Johnson Hardware Company will conduct all business and personal interactions with complete honesty and integrity regardless of the situation

• Quality

  • Johnson Hardware Company will only deal in quality products from quality companies. Our work will be of the highest quality and set the standard for our industry

• Customer Service

  • Johnson Hardware Company will supply the highest customer service to each customer that we interact with both internal and external

• Innovation

  • Johnson Hardware Company will constantly seek out the most innovative products and services to offer to our customers

• Solution Driven

  • Johnson Hardware Company will deal in solutions that fit the customers needs, not just parts

• Communication

  • Johnson Hardware Company will strive to keep all communications current, relevant and useful both to internal and external customers

• Reliable / Responsible

  • Johnson Hardware Company will be the most reliable company in the industry. If we make a commitment, we will keep it, no excuses. We will be accountable for all our actions and commitments

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Company History of Johnson Hardware

 

When F. A. Schneider founded Johnson Hardware in 1855, Franklin Pierce was President, Abe Lincoln was still practicing law in Illinois, and Omaha was a stopping point for provisioning wagon trains to head West on the long, arduous Oregon Trail. Johnson Hardware has hand-written ledgers to establish their pedigree as Omaha's oldest business. Ledger prices show that a coffee mill could be purchased for fifty cents, a gold scale for one dollar, and an ox bow for thirty-five cents. Johnson Hardware outfitted the U. S. Cavalry at Ft. Omaha, as well as the Western Stage Coach Company and served as an essential hardware supplier to help set the Western telegraph lines in place. The Creighton brothers, Kountze brothers and Union Pacific are all early entries in their sales ledger. Steamships docked and loaded their hardware to transport material up the Missouri River to miners in the Black Hills and south to Kansas City and St. Louis.

An axe head, symbolic of early-day settlers and the long-standing trademark of Johnson Hardware, has hung outside since opening their doors in 1855. The axe head now hangs at 1201 Pacific, a reminder to all that Johnson built their reputation for stability, quality, and service, one day at a time. Through the Civil War, the Great Depression, two World Wars, Korea, Vietnam and the Gulf War, Johnson Hardware has prospered. One cannot look at the Omaha skyline without seeing buildings constructed with Johnson doors and locks: Union Pacific, the OPPD Energy Plaza, Woodmen Tower, First National Bank, the ConAgra Campus, and the Omaha Convention Center, among many elite names.

With business booming in the mid-1980's, Johnson Hardware expanded, acquiring an IBM computer to process an inventory database of 40,000-plus items that had become almost unmanageable. (Today's inventory approaches 100,000 items.) Offices were opened in Lincoln and North Platte to better serve building contractors throughout Nebraska. Johnson Hardware has five divisions: the Contract Division focuses on commercial construction and architectural hardware such as hollow metal doors, locks and door accessories; the Installation Division sells, installs and maintains doors, frames and opening hardware; Wholesale Division, with a national presence, provides hardware to glass contractors, lumber yards, locksmiths, hotels and motels, distributors, and retail hardware dealers; the Industrial Division, headquartered in Omaha, which provides power/hand tools, various anchoring/fastening systems and safety equipment in addition to the above mentioned architectural hardware; and finally the Integrated Systems Division focuses on the design, integration, sale and installation of high quality access control, CCTV, intrusion detection, telephone entry and inter com systems. The ISD Division works in conjunction with the Contract Division to provide Johnson Hardware's customers a complete door hardware and electronic security solution.

In spite of the present-day era of competing hardware superstores, Johnson Hardware continues to prosper as a national, visionary leader in the architectural and security hardware business, selling and servicing a multitude of consumer, institutional and commercial customers. They have progressed from outfitting wagon trains and cavalry to retrofitting airports and controlled-access installations, providing high-tech security devices that utilize biometrics for fingerprints, palm readers, and retina scanners.

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Video History of Johnson Hardware

 

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