About M-B Companies

The origins of M-B Companies, Inc.’s date to 1907. The company was formed by three German craftsmen, Old Tractorbrothers Otto and Fred Meili and Paul Blumberg. Not surprisingly they adopted the name "M-B". The Meili brothers were inventors and Blumberg was an expert metalworker. They started the company in a small shop in New Holstein, Wisconsin building agricultural implements.

Before long the three were inventing and building a wide variety of equipment from road graders to paint stripers. Over the years, M-B has designed and built everything from cannery conveyor systems to "junior cars". In fact, the firm was one of the first Ford dealerships in the state of Wisconsin. As the company evolved, its destiny as a broom and striper manufacturer became evident. M-B built its first broom (a horse drawn model) in 1922.

The Meili brothers and Blumberg sold the company in 1954 to Robert B. Evans, former Chairman of the Board of American Motors. Twenty years later, M-B was purchased by Terrence Cosgrove, who brought an engineering and marketing background to the company, and still retains ownership.

Since 1974, M-B has enjoyed steady growth by focusing on key niche markets and in so doing meeting the needs of independent contractors, governmental agencies, and other road and airport maintenance organizations around the world. With the focus of expanding those key markets, the Pro Chip family of wood and brush chippers was acquired in 2003. This acquisition allowed M-B to provide a diverse product offering to agricultural and landscaping organizations. Old Striper

In 2004, M-B acquired the assets of Lafarge Road Marking’s Pavement Marking Equipment division, formerly Linear Dynamics Inc. (LDI). Located in Montgomery, Pennsylvania, this company has its own rich history of success dating back to 1929. Through the years, the company was a key contributor to the pavement marking industry as a pioneer in reflective traffic paint manufacturing. During the 1970’s the Montgomery based company was among the top four manufacturers of highway paint and one of the largest paint equipment manufacturers in the country. In 1987, after years of restructuring and several changes in ownership, the company expanded its business to include a broad spectrum of striping vehicles and equipment and renamed itself Linear Dynamics. Lafarge S. A. Group, a French company and world leader in manufacturing construction materials, purchased LDI and several other pavement marking businesses in 1998. By 2002, LDI and the others were merged into its parent corporation, Lafarge Road Marking, Inc. M-B purchased the equipment division of Lafarge Road Marking in 2004 enhancing M-B’s pavement marking equipment division. M-B has since moved the production of its entire pavement marking equipment line to the Montgomery, PA location.

In December of 2006, M-B then acquired the equipment Division of Jackson Products of Salem, OR.  Years ago, the Norris Paint Company had a large paint manufacturing facility that first started with house paints and then moved into the traffic marking paint industry.  At the request of their customers, they began to build paint striping equipment.  They stared with small one pump spray units in a small garage next to the main traffic paint manufacturing facility.  In 1987, as the demand grew, they moved into the current building at 2490 Ewald Ave. in Salem.  They named this division TMT-Pathway.  TMT stands for Traffic Marking Technology.  The first truck mounted unit was built in 1988.  Through out the years, the business just kept expanding and eventually the business was sold to Morton International and then to Jackson Products. In December of M-B sign were put up at the Salem location.  Currently MB operates the Pavement Marking Equipment Division in both the Salem and Montgomery locations.

M-B will continue to grow to provide the products and services its customers demand. The company is dedicated to being the leader in performance, reliability and customer service as it has since 1907.