Great Lakes Rubber & Hydraulics Company was established April, 1977. The corporation presently occupies a one story brick structure at a heavily traveled intersection at the edge of the downtown area of Fort Wayne. After a period of approximately ten years, In 1999, The H J Schroeder Co, Inc., vacated our H J Schroeder Building. The building was returned to the family of it's founders, Herman J Schroeder and Fritz Mundinger. Our family continues to serve the Indiana, Ohio and Michigan customers of both Great Lakes Rubber & Hydraulics and the HJ Schroeder Co. We reacquired inventory at the time of the Industrial Belting and Supply Company (IBS) and H J Schroeder Company (HJS) liquidation. Since then we have consolidated much of our HJS inventory of Belts, Sheaves (Pulleys), hose, fittings and adapters at our 220 East Wallace Street location.
During the 1990's, IBS operated the H J Schroeder Co., Inc. as a wholly owned subsidiary. Our family never served on the board of directors of IBS. At the time of the sale of HJS, we resigned from the board of Directors of HJS. All Transactions with these legal corporations prior to the eviction of IBS/HJS from the H J Schroeder Building should be directed to the principals in Michigan. Many customers have asked us how we intend to operate our business and how should our customers maintain their vendor records for purchasing and payments.
We are happy to do business with our customers and suppliers in the way that is most convenient for their operations. Some customers prefer to just call us Great Lakes Rubber. Others who have historical purchasing records, part history etc. prefer to call us by the name HJ Schroeder-Great Lakes Rubber. (Or Schroeder, HJ-Great Lakes Rubber). This allows you to do alpha lookups for vendor name information. We really are happy that many have continued to honor us with their trade. Please do note that we do not have the legal right to use either the names IBS or Industrial Belting and Supply. So please change your vendor account to use names based upon Great Lakes Rubber & Hydraulics, Co., Inc. or HJ Schroeder Sales Company. Please also be certain that when you send us your payment that you remit to the Ft Wayne address shown on our invoices. Most of our H J Schroeder Co. customers are familiar with our traditional lines of industrial supplies that we have sold and serviced for years. While some changes in our Schroeder Co. product offerings have been made due to the practices of IBS during their time of operations, many of our core product lines remain intact. For information on some of our lines, see the traditional Great Lakes line card. It does not yet include the many HJ Schroeder Co. items in Conveyor Belting, Power Transmission and Industrial Supplies. We hope to have new line card information in the future.