History Of Cesco
THE EARLY YEARS
The Cesco, Inc. specialty chemical services business was first established in the Gulf Coast region of the United States during the early 1960’s by R.W. (Dick) Krajicek, an entrepreneur and innovator. From the beginning, Cesco was devoted to developing newer/better and more efficient cleaning processes for refineries, petrochemical plants, heavy industry and pulp and paper mills. In 1967, Mr. Krajicek was named Louisiana’s “Outstanding Businessman of the Year” by the Governor. From the start, Cesco realized the universal need for safe and environmentally friendly products and services to address the cleaning and liquid waste challenges, becoming one of the fastest growing industrial firms in the nation during the time.
In 1972, the Board of Directors of Browning-Ferris Industries (BFI) agreed to acquire Cesco Inc. from the original founders, who had expanded the product and services business to include liquid waste processing. At the time, BFI had operations at 42-sites across the nation, Acquiring Cesco in a lucrative stock transaction. BFI would eventually grow into a multibillion-dollar waste management business, with many more operations across North America.
BIG CHANGES
As such, Cesco, Inc. was renamed Chemical Services Northwest, Inc. (while retaining the Cesco brand for its cleaning products and services provided to regional pulp and paper, petrochemical and food processing customers in Washington and Oregon). It was during the 1980’s that the company began to really expand with new products and services, most notably the Cesco BULK-CHEM program, which emphasized replacing chemical drums, totes and containers with strategically placed bulk tanks to improve worker safety, environmental impact, and cost-control.
In 1983, Karl Larsen was hired by Mr. Hadaway and in 1985 promoted to lead the sales efforts for the Cesco specialty chemical brand. Cesco chemical sales tripled during the next few years and Mr. Hadaway decided to sell off the service portion of the business (hydro-blasting, chemical cleaning and catalyst work) and retain only the specialty chemical business (Cesco). In 1988, Mr. Larsen was promoted to Vice President of Sales for Cesco and the Company became more focused on specialty chemistries for pulp and paper, petrochemical, food processing, transportation, water treatment and other heavy industries.
As VP of Sales, Mr. Larsen quickly recognized the need to go beyond the Cesco traditional product line to provide custom chemistry and service solutions that added measurable economic, safety and environmental gains for customers and their communities. To achieve these goals, Cesco partnered with its customers and various governmental regulators to improve or develop more effective chemistries and application control programs that resolved difficult industrial issues not being addressed by its big name brand competitors. This innovative approach spurred continuous product development and trust in Cesco as a valued business partner providing dependable, cost effective and environmentally friendly chemistry solutions for all stakeholders.
As such, Cesco, Inc. was renamed Chemical Services Northwest, Inc. (while retaining the Cesco brand for its cleaning products and services provided to regional pulp and paper, petrochemical and food processing customers in Washington and Oregon). It was during the 1980’s that the company began to really expand with new products and services, most notably the Cesco BULK-CHEM program, which emphasized replacing chemical drums, totes and containers with strategically placed bulk tanks to improve worker safety, environmental impact, and cost-control.
In 1985, Karl Larsen was hired by Mr. Hadaway to lead the sales efforts for the Cesco specialty chemical brand. Cesco chemical sales nearly tripled during the next few years and Mr. Hadaway decided to sell the service portion of the business (hydro-blasting, chemical cleaning and catalyst work) and retain only the specialty chemical business (Cesco). In 1988, Mr. Larsen was promoted to Vice President of Sales for Cesco and the Company became more focused on specialty chemistries for pulp and paper, petrochemical, food processing, transportation and water treatment.
1985
Karl Larsen
1990s – 2000s
In 1992, Mr. Larsen and his long-time friend and business partner Don McClary acquired Cesco, Inc. from Mr. Hadaway and renamed the company Cesco Solutions, Inc. (Cesco). Initially, Mr. Larsen (President) and Mr. McClary (Vice President) focused Cesco on providing innovative specialty chemical solutions from its Bellingham, Washington production and warehouse facility for a variety of its petrochemical, food plant, water treatment, heavy industry, pulp and paper, commercial and municipal customers located in the Northwest. Over the 1990’s years, Cesco expanded its business enterprise to include employees and customers located across the United States and Canada.
IMPROVING SAFETY AND THE ENVIRONMENT WITH INNOVATIVE CHEMISTRIES AND APPLICATION TECHNOLOGIES
With its own and contracted production and warehouse facilities, Cesco continued to provide specialty chemistry products and services to a well-established list of blue-chip companies and customers across the US and Canada. As the need to improve air and water quality has become more pressing during the past few decades with limited resources, global warming, oil spills and more, addressing major environmental concerns through more stringent environmental standards has been a financial challenge for most specialty chemical companies. Rather than disregard new regulatory standards, Cesco invested a significant amount of time and resources to re-work the entire product line, meeting and exceeding these new laws which were implemented to improve safety and the environment for everyone.
To further the research and manufacturing capabilities of our products and services, Cesco built a new state of the art Bellingham production and warehouse facility in 2013. About this time, Cesco acquired another chemical company specializing in providing various commercial and institutional chemistries for pool and spa facilities, schools, hospitals, and other long-standing commercial enterprises. Through the incorporation of this new consolidated business, the Cesco team has gained further incentive to improve safety and the environment through better chemistries that are designed to enhance water, soil and air quality for our customers and communities. In 2017 Cesco launched an eCommerce consumer brand with a small assortment of raw materials and cleaning solutions. Due to the tremendous success there are now over 20 different consumer products available on Amazon, ebay, and Walmart’s eCommerce platforms with a branded eCommerce website coming Spring 2021.
2010-Present
OUR SUCCESS CONTINUES
At Cesco, our efforts at continuous improvement are moving forward at a rapid pace to help protect the future for everyone. We have a sense of urgency to do better. In 2018, Cesco achieved ISO 9001:2015 Certification for providing the highest possible quality assurance to all customers and their stakeholders. In February of 2021, we completed our 3-year ISO 9001:2015 external audit with excellent results. There is a continued need to address environmental concerns, so we are developing products and services to meet the needs of the food industry, water treatment (fresh and wastewater), recycling (paper and plastics) and other industries, providing cost effective and environmentally sound chemistries that keep the food chain safe or even convert human-produced waste into high quality materials and products.
Since our inception, the entire Cesco team continues to work with customers in each industry to evaluate problems and to devise solutions that better address environmental regulations, productivity, and operational costs. If you would like to be a part of the Cesco success story, please give us a call at
1-800-241-9110 or select the above “Contact Us” button.