Senior Vice-President Anne K. Roby talks to CryoGas International about the 25 year-rise of today’s Praxair, Inc. to a $12 billion global industrial gases major in 2014.
At the time of the birth of CryoGas International, the story of one of the biggest industrial gas majors was in the making. By 1992, Praxair, Inc. became a formally independent company, a brand derived from the Greek term ‘praxis’ (practical innovation) and the company’s fundamental raw material — air.
Under the leadership of Chairman and CEO H. William Lichtenberger, the newly founded Praxair made “tremendous progress” in its ability to better serve its customers while improving its profitability, and engaged in vigorous M&A activity along the way. This included one of the first significant mergers in the industrial gases industry, as Praxair acquired Liquid Carbonic, then the largest carbon dioxide producer worldwide.
The company has come a long way since then. Dennis H. Reilley picked up the baton of President and CEO from the retiring Lichtenberger in 2000 and continued its path of progression, seeing sales rise from $4.6 billion in 1999 to $9.4 billion in 2007 when he was succeeded by Praxair’s Chairman, President, and CEO today, Stephen (Steve) F. Angel. With 2014 sales of $12.3 billion and 27,000 employees in more than 50 countries, Angel presides over the largest industrial gases company in North and South America, and one of the largest worldwide.
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