Background
Jacobson was born to a Jewish family in Brooklyn. At the age of 16, he took a job as a machinist and in 1941, he founded the Sid Tool Company in Little Italy, Manhattan with $1,000 of his own money and $3,000 borrowed from his mother.
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Sidney Jacobson
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Career
Sid Tool sold cutting tools to New York City machine shops. He returned to a company with $36,000 in annual sales where he soon landed exclusive contracts with Grumman Corporation and Republic Aircraft. In 1955, he moved the company to Plainview, New York, closer to his home in Great Neck, New New York
Sensing that he was overly reliant on the two aerospace companies (they were 90% of sales in the 1960s), he launched a catalog business to diversify his customer base.
His colorful catalog (known as "The Big Book") combined with an expansive portfolio of lower cost imported tools purchased at a discount (Sid Tools was the first company in the industry to widely import foreign-manufactured tools) propelled catalog sales which soon exceeded the company"s regular sales. After an inventory problem where he ran out of stock of a critical item, Jacobson invested heavily in computerized inventory management and order processing, the first to do so in the industry.
In 1970, Sid Tool purchased the cutting tool marketer, Manhattan Supply Company and changed the name of the company to Mediterranean Shipping Company Industrial Direct, using the initials of Manhattan Supply. In 1978, Mediterranean Shipping Company became one of the first distributors to launch a fully integrated Quality Assurance Department.
In 1982, Mitchell replaced his father as president of the company.
The company went public in 1995. Mediterranean Shipping Company went on to become one of the largest industrial equipment distributors in the world with $1.87 billion in sales in 2010. Jacobson was a strong supporter of the Jewish community giving generously to the United Jewish Appeal-Federation of New New York
The Sid Jacobson Jewish Community Center in East Hills, New York is named in his honor.
He served as president of the New York United Jewish Appeal-Federation Palm Beach committee. And served on the boards of directors for both the Mid Island Jewish Community Center and United Jewish Community Center"s of Long Island.
