History–The ACCESSA Story

1979 | Paints & Solvents, Inc., was established as a manufacturer of wood stains, and a distributor of wood coatings. Its major supplier for these wood coatings was Lilly Industries, Inc., an Indianapolis, Indiana based chemical coatings manufacturing company.

1996 | (October) CourterCo, Inc., purchased Paints & Solvents. CourterCo needed Paints & Solvents to supplement their coatings division and have the ability to buy larger volumes of product and pour-down into smaller quantities to satisfy the needs of CourterCo’s customer base. In effect, CourterCo purchased an intermediate manufacturing company that was to be its own supplier. This also created a supply source that satisfied the needs of the 4,000 cabinet shops already doing business with CourterCo for their hardware needs.

1997 | (November) By the end of the year, CourterCo determined it had no cohesive long term business strategy and management was overwhelmed with the day-to-day operations which made it difficult to be anything but reactive. CourterCo management therefore hired Vincent
Todd as Vice President to manage its Coatings Division. Mr. Todd had years of experience with Lilly Industries and brought with him a very diverse background in coatings experience. It was Todd’s responsibility to create and direct a strategy to coincide with the CourterCo business plan. Later that year, through an alliance created with Lilly Industries, Paints and Solvents was further expanded by assuming the role of master distributor of Lilly’s Perfection Electrostatic Paint Division.

1998 | In approximately eighteen months, and under the direction of Vince Todd, Paints & Solvents had grown approximately 450 percent.

2001 | (April) Paints & Solvents was purchased by Coatings Solutions, LLC, owned by Vince Todd. The Company had grown from five employees and one location to 40 employees and 4 locations. They had expanded their product distribution line to include industrial finishes for wood, metal, and several plastics. These finishes represented 8-10 vendor partners for whom Paints & Solvents has become a major distribution partner.

2005 | (January) Paints & Solvents announced a name change to better reflect the company’s focus on providing expert coatings solutions for industry. Todd’s Company quickly became known as ACCESSA Coatings Solutions conveying what the company does best – fostering their customers’ access to coatings solutions.