Company Info

History

Wilbert Sylvester “Bill” Dodge was an oil salesmanin Los Angeles for over 45 years. Towards the end of his career his employerdecided to play games with Bill’s commission. Bill retaliated by starting hisown company, W.S. Dodge Oil. Jim Downs was Bill’s accountant. Since Bill waspast retirement age anyway, the fun of running his own business soon wore offand Bill was looking for a buyer. Jim saw the potential and in 1964 bought Dodge Oil for $3,000.00. At that time Dodge consisted of a telephone, a desk, alist of customers, and a list of formulas. All of the products were tollblended and delivered by an independent contractor.

The business grew rapidly. Jim modeled the companyafter the old A.C. Withrow Co., striving to provide matchless service and valueto his customers. In addition, Jim already had established his reputation as aprofoundly honest businessman. By 1975, when Dodge bought our Maywood plant,there were 2 additional employees and two trucks. Sales were near $750,000.00 annually, all of this without any outside financing. Even today, Dodge stillhas no long-term debt. The business continued to grow at a measured, organicpace. By 1990 sales were about $2.2 million annually, and there were 7 employees.

Today Dodge has 17 employees, and has grown into one of the largest independent manufacturers of metalworking fluids and lubricants west of the rockies. Dodge Oil owns two manufacturing facilities and 5 deliverytrucks. After the passing of Mr. Downs in 2000, the company is run by three his children who control 100% of the stock: Tom Downs, President; Anne MarieDowns, Vice President; and David Downs, Vice President. Each of them came to Dodge after college and between them have 34 years experience in the company.

Info

Our target market is metalworking shops, includingmetal removal, metal forming, and forging shops. We service the Los Angelesmarket. Our trucks make daily free deliveries from Ventura in the north to SanDiego County in the south and Palmdale to the east. Dodge Oil has the dominantshare of the straight oil metal removal market, and is the leading supplier ofmetal forming lubricants as well. Since Jim’s philosophy was to keep thingssimple, Dodge has relied on Franklin Oil Co. (later Fuchs Lubricants) forhigh-technology coolants and metal forming lubricants. Dodge also sellsspecialty metalworking oils to other distributors, and does warehousing anddelivery for a number of companies.

At Dodge Oil, we believe we are selling value andservice, not necessarily lubricants. We offer the following to our customers:

Integrity and honesty
Excellent value
Free next day delivery
The broadest range of products available in Los Angeles
The most experienced and knowledgeable sales force

We want long-term customers; we still sell to thefirst customer Bill Dodge brought to the company! Basically, we want to be theprime resource for all their lubricant product, and information, needs.

Location

As mentioned, Dodge owns two facilities. The Maywood, CA plant is our original plant. The building is approximately 40,000sq. feet. We share the building with Molecular Products. This plant has a totalof 48,000 gallons of external tank capacity. We have one blending vessel, and produce our metalworking fluids there. The Cudahy, CA plant is about 28,000 sq.ft, and is owned and used solely by Dodge. It has 70,000 gal. of tank capacity,and has three blending vessels up to 1,500 gal. capacity. We use this plant formanufacturing lube oils, and for the warehousing of our additives. We alsostore the various products that we warehouse and deliver for other companies.