Midlands-area office supply company founded Labor Day 1937
By W. Thomas Smith Jr.
LORICK OFFICE PRODUCTS will celebrate 85 years of serving the office-supply needs of Columbia businesses and customers nationwide, at the company’s 910 Washington Street showroom, Wednesday, September 14 from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.
State House leaders and other special VIP guests have been invited and have already confirmed their planned attendance. The public is also invited. “We’ll have food, drinks and lots of great door prizes for our loyal customers who have supported us all of these years,” says Jeanne Lorick Brutschy, president and co-owner of Lorick Office Products.
Lorick Office Products – a family owned company and a certified “Woman Owned Business” (cousins Jeanne Lorick Brutschy and Karen Lorick Broach, president and vice president respectively) – first opened its doors on Labor Day 1937. David Clarence Lorick, Sr., the Lorick cousins’ grandfather founded the business with three employees, himself included; partner W. Leo Couch; and a bicycling delivery boy.
Clarence’s sons, Harry G. “Jerry” Lorick (Jeanne’s father, now 90-years-old) and the late Dave Lorick (Karen’s father), were the follow-on generation of Lorick owner-operators.
Lorick Office Products, which began as Lorick-Couch Office Equipment, later Lorick Office Supply, began serving the Columbia area from its 924 Gervais Street location (today Motor Supply Company Bistro) in what would become known as the Congaree Vista district. Lorick then moved up the street to 1004 Gervais across from the old R.H. Clark Company at Park and Gervais. In 1995, Lorick Office Products purchased, remodeled, and moved into its expansive 15,000-square foot store-showroom and warehouse at 910 Washington Street still in the Vista. Lorick today serves businesses locally, regionally, and nationwide.
According to THE SOUTHERN EDGE MAGAZINE: “A wonderful piece of Columbia history and three generations – spanning nearly nine decades – of the Lorick family story: Again, congratulations Jeanne and Karen and all of the company’s 15 employees, its partners, and the loyal lifelong patrons of LORICK OFFICE PRODUCTS on 85 years in business.”
– Pictured (from left) are Karen Lorick Broach and Jeanne Lorick Brutschy.
