Global Fastener News

December 9, 2013 FIN – As three emigrants from Czechoslovakia sailed toward the Statute of Liberty in New York Harbor in 1961, they didn’t know what they’d do in their new country. But they shook hands on a pledge of “Let’s do it together.”

The result is Metric & Multistandard Components Corp.
In the late 1940s, Alois Hacaj, Milan Peske and Joseph Voves met in Ethiopia. Hacaj and Peske were sent by the Czechoslovakian government to develop a showcase metal factory.
Voves had escaped Czechoslovakia and was operating the restaurant in the hotel where he met Hacaj and Peske.
Though “Ammunition” was in the factory name, the new plant produced everything from basketball hoops to bridges.
Foreign dignitaries, from ambassadors to the Queen of Greece, visited the factory.
In those “Iron Curtain” days Hacaj and Peskes began plotting how to avoid being returned to Czechoslovakia.
They eventually left everything, drove a Jeep across Africa and went on to the United States, where they settled in the Czech neighborhood in the Queens borough of New York City and began working at Zealand Machine Co.

On July 14, 1963, they opened Metric & Multistandard in Yonkers, NY.  Its first office was a 4,000 sq ft building.
As the new company’s only employees, the trio sold fasteners and tools by day and held other jobs in the evenings to support their families.

By 1971, they had built MMCC to a point of expanding to a 10,000 sq ft office in Elmsford, NY. Three years later they built the current office in Hawthorne, NY.

MMCC opened its first branch in 1975 in Chicago, followed by Dallas in 1977 and Atlanta in 1995. By opening in Reno, NV, in 2000, Metric & Multistandard set itself up for two-day delivery to all five regions in the U.S.  MMCC opened it’s own purchasing office in Germany.
The first generation built the company. The second generation is led by GM and president Ivo Peske and vice president Rosemary Hacaj.
The third generation has begun with Kevin Peske now in the IT department.
Rosemary Hacaj describes Ivo as “almost one of our founding fathers,” because of his family involvement dating back to his youth in Ethiopia.
National sales manager Rich Cavoto started in the warehouse during his college days 35 years ago.  He worked with the founders.
Cavoto recalled Voves as president explaining why money went back into inventory instead of founders’ pockets. “He told me he wanted this company to be still going strong after he is gone,” Cavoto recalled.
Cavoto has seen the transition from writing down phone orders, running back to the warehouse to check stock and then paging through the price book to instant online ordering.
It isn’t just the speed of ordering, Cavoto pointed out. “Orders are going out today,” he said.  “The West Coast branch can even process late orders.”

Today Metric & Multistandard is a wholesale distributor of metric fasteners and industrial components.  B2B accounts for 98% of sales.
MMCC emphasizes its continued commitment to customer service, product availability and technical knowledge.  The later includes technical training for sales staff, Hacaj said.

Metric & Multistandard stocks 48,000 products and is headquartered at 120 Old Saw Mill River Rd., Hawthorne, NY 10532. Tel: 914 769-5020 or 888 966-6622 Fax 914 769-5049 Web: metricmcc.com  ©2013/2014 GlobalFastenerNews.com

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