ACQUISITION ANNOUNCEMENT, PINDER’S SECURITY PRODUCTS

Allmar was founded in 1957 in Winnipeg by Henry W. Redekopp who named the company after his two eldest children Albert and Margaret. Henry had emigrated to Canada in 1924 from the Ukraine. He was eleven years old and the youngest of six children. After graduating from high school in Winkler, Manitoba he settled in northeast Winnipeg where he purchased a small feed and grocery store in 1939 called the Roadside Store.

This small store with two employees eventually grew into a large general store and building material center called Redekopp Lumber and Supply. When selling a complete house package some products were difficult for customers to secure such as doors, windows and roofing, so Henry started expanding the product offering and selling these building products as well.

Traction with these product lines eventually led to the founding of Allmar as a wholesale distributor selling to lumberyards throughout Manitoba. In the early 60’s Allmar took on the architectural hardware product line and began supplying commercial projects such as schools and hospitals. Architectural hardware became the core of Allmar’s business, along with miscellaneous specialties products and doors and frames. Operations expanded to include branches across western Canada.

Allmar currently operates thirteen branches across Canada and is operated by Henry’s sons, Edwin and Arthur. Allmar continues to grow and innovate in order to deliver the latest in high quality products and services to its valued customers.

MISSION: To provide safety and security for all through innovative door, door automation, architectural hardware, integrated electronic access, security products, and accessories solutions.

VISION: Safe and secure buildings properly fitted with innovative and leading products supplied and serviced by the most knowledgeable people in the industry.

VALUE: Allmar values treating others as we would like to be treated, fostering respected relationships with our employees, our customers, and our vendors.

It all started with a man named Bennison Pinder, the youngest son of Stephen and Mary-Ann Pinder – a merchant farming couple that had immigrated to Canada from England with their two sons and three daughters, looking for a better life. For several years, Bennison lived on their small family farm in Luther Township in Wellington County, Ontario.

The farming life was all fine and well for his siblings. But like his father Stephen before him, Bennison dreamed of something more. In 1886, he decided to move to St. Catharines to search for greater business opportunities and put his technical skills to good use.

Things quickly fell into place. Bennison courted and married a local girl named Louisa Haynes. The young entrepreneur also bought a small parcel of land at 18 James Street for $500 and erected a brick building to house his new business – “B. Pinder, Gun & Locksmith.” Soon Louisa was raising their family in the modest apartment upstairs while Bennison spent his days working in the long narrow shop below.

In those early formative days, Bennison was a jack of all trades. Although he focused on lock and gunsmithing, he also sold push lawn mowers, hunting and fishing gear, and sporting goods. He even sharpened blades and did general repair work on everything from bicycles to tea kettles. Over time, Bennison began to grow his operation, and by the early 1900s, his son George Stephen Pinder had come on board to help run the family business.

By the 1940s, George had handed the business over to the third generation – his son Robert (Bob) and daughter June. During this time, the store stocked everything from bicycles, fishing rods and tennis racquets to lawn mowers, toboggans and hunting gear.

But the store was also in need of some restructuring so Bob and June came up with the idea to divide the business in half. Bob would take care of locksmithing, gunsmithing, and the service and repair work – June would dedicate her attentions to sporting goods.

An expert sportsfisher and marksman, June Pinder never married but was always considered one of the boys. Every fall, she and several of her male friends would travel north to hunt, and made the news when the five feet tall woman shot a 236-pound, 10-point buck during one trip in 1956. A charming but colourful character, June would often tell customers of her exploits with the rod and reel. Sometimes, she would even stand a willing participant against the back wall of Pinder’s store and snatch a cigarette out of their lips with a sharp cast of her fly fishing rod. If anyone needed sporting goods, June Pinder was clearly a name you could trust.

June continued to operate Pinder’s “Sportsman’s Center” in downtown St. Catharines for years, doing a brisk mail order business with customers throughout the U.S. and Canada and as far afield as New Zealand. By 1960, however, opportunity knocked, and June left the Garden City to manage a sporting goods distributing company in Toronto. But her brother Bob still had big plans for the Pinder’s business.

In the late 1950s, Bob purchased property at 300 Lake Street and built a new location to house the business. With his sister’s departure, Bob Pinder decided to focus on what the Pinders had always done best, namely locksmithing, saw sharpening, gunsmithing and gun sales, and lawn and garden supplies.

Change has always been a central core of the Pinder’s success story, adapting to shifts in the marketplace when the time is just right. In 1960, for instance, major hardware chains like Canadian Tire had begun to infringe on Bob’s gun business. Unable to compete in the larger arena, Bob liquidated his inventory of guns so he could focus on the lock and lawnmower trades exclusively.

Pinder’s continued to flourish as it entered the 1970s. But there were more changes in store for the company. Bob was getting older and looking to pass the management of the family business on to his sons – Robert Jr., Doug, Dave, Richard and Greg. But over the coming decade, the five of them all felt the pull of the fam

Although Robert Pinder & Sons continued to build on their strengths in locks and lawn and garden equipment, they also decided to test out a new area – skate sharpening. Bob Pinder had always been a big hockey fan, and even played professional hockey for a time. As a result, he had the notion to offer a skate sharpening service – all for a dollar. It wasn’t unusual to find Bob showing off his wrist shot to local kids in the back of the store while his sons were busy running the business up front.

The skate sharpening idea was a popular one, but not as popular as the rest of their flourishing operation. By the 1980s, their facility on 300 Lake Street had become far too small to accommodate the growth of their business. Bob and his sons built a brand new retail location at 25 Nihan Drive so they could serve their customers better.

But the 1980s were also a time for soul-searching and transition with the Pinders. By 1986, Bob had retired and the five Pinder brothers and their cousin, Norm Schwenker, continued their locksmithing operation on Nihan Drive with the newly-renamed “Pinder’s Lock & Security.”

Pinder’s is now the largest independent security company in Ontario with a staff of over 40 lock and electronic specialists, not to mention 10 fully-equipped service trucks. The bulk of their work is focused on the commercial, industrial and institutional markets – everything from universities, school boards, prisons and hospitals to hydro facilities, water treatment plants, military bases and heavy industries.

As a fully integrated security company, Pinder’s operates just like a design / build firm, developing, installing and integrating state-of-the-art security systems for their clients. Pinder’s has a number of experts on staff including security design consultants, network systems implementation specialists and electronic security systems trainers to make sure that each client has a properly-designed and implemented security program that meets all their requirements.