For over 80 years we’ve thrived by empowering creative, innovative people.

Brothers David Golden and Stephen Gould, with Leonard Beckerman, opened their packaging supply store in Manhattan’s Lower East Side at the outbreak of World War II. The three men banded together to build a business on a set of shared values: respect for its workers, integrity in business dealings, loyal customer service and entrepreneurship.

In the early war and post war years, the company bought and resold packing and shipping supplies — corrugated boxes, paper, twine, tape and bags. As customer needs changed, they adapted their offerings. The Principals primarily ran all aspects of the burgeoning company in this first decade out of their lower Manhattan warehouse building.

In the first post war decade, the Stephen Gould Paper Company was becoming an indispensable partner to many manufacturers in New York metropolitan area. With a goal to tailor services to the needs of local customers, the company began to strategically expand beyond NYC as opportunities presented themselves.

A unique profit-sharing commission model attracted pioneering packaging sales agents to service new local markets. It was an empowering model for its time that proved successful and remains in place today.

As the company grew, it began to design and manufacture corrugated containers. In the mid-1950s, Stephen Gould Paper Co purchased a facility in Bayonne, New Jersey to serve as a new plant and headquarters, manufacturing corrugated boxes and becoming a stocking distributor for shipping and packaging supplies.

Stephen Gould has always been a family enterprise, with trusted professional driving expansion. New offices opened throughout the East Coast, in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Florida and Ohio.

Geographic growth tested the strength of Stephen Gould’s values. As the company grew, David Golden and Stephen Gould began to codify the key attributes for new team members: an entrepreneurial spirit; the ability to empower others to succeed; and, first and foremost, a value for relationships.

A new generation of packaging professional sales agents began to expand the scope of the business and drive new growth. The second generation joined the company including our current CEO, Michael Golden and EVP John Golden. They were joined by family members Peter Van Slyke and Dale Golden.

The company began to move away from selling stock products and diversified its range of customized packaging capabilities to better serve growing retail client bases in pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, automotive, and technology with innovative engineered solutions.

To serve clients in the emerging electronics and calibrated instruments industries, Stephen Gould expanded beyond shipping containers to sophisticated foam cushioning applications to safeguard products requiring protective packaging.

Opening new markets geographically and adding new product lines led to substantial revenue growth, from $5 million annually at the start of the decade to $30 million at its close.

The next generation of leaders takes the reins, expanding their professional expertise through new initiatives and opening new offices. The executive management roles were transferred to Michael and John Golden.

In an acceleration of expansion, thirteen new branches opened, including the first California offices in the Bay Area and Los Angeles. Annual revenue grew from $30 million to $90 million by 1990.

As its workforce grew larger and more distributed, Stephen Gould invested in modernizing its internal technology and systems to better prepare for an increasingly apparent future: international expansion.

Stephen Gould opened its first overseas office in Dublin, Ireland to continue supporting its clients on a global scale with consistent customer service.

During this period, Stephen Gould built out a number of other services beyond packaging, with particular emphasis on supply chain efficiency and optimization through services like Kitting and Just-in-time (JIT) systems.

In 1991, annual revenue reached $100 million for the first time, fueled substantially by partnerships with consumer electronics clients. By the end of the decade, Stephen Gould exceeded $300 million in revenue. The number of clients grew into thousands. Professional proficiency was secured with addition of Anthony Lupo as CFO and Nanette Rosenbaum as the Director of Information Technology.

As the market began to value packaging as more central to the product experience, Stephen Gould expanded its services on the customer-facing side, building out its industrial and structural design capabilities along with its offerings in graphic design and product marketing. This enabled the company to successfully service consumer oriented clients as well as its traditional industrial base.

The company offered true end-to-end service for customers, delivering strong and cohesive solutions to clients at every step along the journey of bringing a product to market. Kitting, assembly and inventory management services expanded dramatically.

To support this full range of service offerings, an influx of new talent was brought aboard. These new designers, engineers, quality and operational experts diversified the company’s knowledge base and added value to service offerings across the board.

Stephen Gould opened new offices in Brazil, Mexico and Malaysia and increased its presence in China with offices in Shanghai, Jiangsu and Shenzhen. Advances in communication technology deepened Stephen Gould’s ability to collaborate across teams and continents, dramatically expanding the range of services and specialists available to clients. With its global presence including a sales force of more than 250 Sales Agents, revenue grew to over $700 million.

Justin Golden became the company’s newest president, representing the third generation of family leadership. Stephen Gould began to invest significantly in bringing in new leadership as well as developing future leaders through training and mentorship initiatives at all levels throughout the company.

As Stephen Gould celebrates eight decades of success across three generations of family leadership, one thing remains—the company’s business model. “Irrespective of the ever-changing environment around us, our business model will always be consistent—we are a solution provider, in an entrepreneurial environment, in service to our clients,” said CEO Michael Golden.

In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, resources were scarce and distribution channels stretched to their limits. Stephen Gould leveraged its vast network of resources to offer turnkey solutions to more of its customers, enabling them to bring their ideas to life and their products to market.

Stephen Gould has become an industry powerhouse that services more than 5,000 clients across the globe. Calling upon the agility, creativity, and innovative expertise of its people, the supply chain solutions provider eclipsed $1B in annual revenue for the first time in its illustrious 80+ year history.