Arrow Electronics

Arrow Electronics was founded in 1935 when a retail store named Arrow Radio opened on Cortlandt Street in the heart of lower Manhattan's "Radio Row," the birthplace of electronics distribution. Arrow Radio, established by Maurice Goldberg, sold used radios and radio parts to retail customers. Other industry pioneers with businesses nearby were Charles Avnet and Seymour Schweber.By the 1940s, Arrow was selling new radios—manufactured by RCA, GE, and Philco—and other home entertainment products, as well as surplus radio parts that were retailed over-the-counter in a parts department at the back of the store. Soon the firm started seeking franchises to sell new parts; the first manufacturers to franchise Arrow were RCA and Cornell Dubilier. The business was incorporated as Arrow Electronics, Inc. in 1946.In the early 1950s, with additional franchises and a small field sales organization, Arrow began selling electronic parts to industrial customers. A second storefront/sales office was opened in Mineola, Long Island in 1956. By 1961, when the company completed its initial public offering and listed its shares on the American Stock Exchange, total sales amounted to $4 million, over half of which came from the industrial sales division, with the remainder from the traditional retail business. During the 1960s, Arrow moved its headquarters to Farmingdale, New York , and opened additional branches in Norwalk, Connecticut and Totowa, New Jersey. The company relocated its headquarters office to Centennial, Colorado in 2011.In 1968, Glenn, Green & Waddell, a partnership formed by three recent graduates of the Harvard Business School, B. Duke Glenn, Jr., Roger E. Green, and John C. Waddell, led a private investor group that acquired the controlling interest in Arrow. The investors saw an opportunity to consolidate the fragmented electronics industry. Duke Glenn served as chairman.