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Rand McNally

Rand McNally & Company
Type	Private
Founded	Chicago (1856)
Founder	William Rand, Andrew McNally
Headquarters	Skokie, Illinois
Industry	publishing, education, travel, transportation
Products	maps, atlases, software
Website	randmcnally.com

Rand McNally & Company is the preeminent American publisher of maps, atlases, and globes for travel, reference, commercial, and educational uses. It also provides online consumer street maps and directions, as well as commercial transportation routing software and mileage data. The company is headquartered in the Chicago suburb of Skokie, Illinois with additional offices in Irvine, California and Markham, Ontario and a distribution center in Richmond, Kentucky.

Contents 1 History 1.1 Ownership 1.2 Presidents 1.3 Acquisitions 2 Humor and trivia 3 References 4 External links

History

In 1856, William Rand opened a printing shop in Chicago and two years later hired a newly-arrived Irish immigrant, Andrew McNally, to work in his shop. The shop did big business with the forerunner of the Chicago Tribune, and in 1859 Rand and McNally were hired to run the Tribune's entire printing operation. In 1868, the two men formally established Rand McNally & Co. and bought out the Tribune's printing business. The company initially focused on printing tickets and timetables for Chicago's booming railroad industry, and the following year supplemented that business by publishing complete railroad guides. In 1870, the company expanded into printing business directories and an illustrated newspaper, the People's Weekly. According to company lore, during the Great Chicago Fire in 1871, Rand McNally quickly had two of the company's printing machines buried in a sandy beach of Lake Michigan, and the company was up and running again only a few days later.

The very first Rand McNally map, created using a new cost-saving wax engraving method, appeared in the December 1872 edition of its Railroad Guide. Rand McNally became an incorporated business in 1873, with Rand as its president and McNally as vice president. The Business Atlas, containing maps and data pertinent to business planning, was first published in 1876. The atlas is still updated today, now titled the Commercial Atlas & Marketing Guide. The Trade Book department was established in 1877, publishing such titles as The Locust Plague in the United States. Rand McNally began publishing educational maps in 1880 with its first line of maps, globes, and geography textbooks, soon followed by a world atlas. The company began publishing general literature in 1884 with its first title, The Secret of Success, and the Textbook department was established in 1894 with The Rand McNally Primary School Geography. Also in 1894, the company opened an office in New York City headed by Caleb S. Hammond, who later started his own map company.

Rand McNally's first road map, the New Automobile Road Map of New York City & Vicinity, was published in 1904. In 1910, the company acquired the line of Photo-Auto Guides from G.S. Chapin, which provided photographs of routes and intersections with directions. Andrew McNally II (son of Frederick McNally) personally took photos on his honeymoon for the Chicago-to-Milwaukee edition. The company continued to expand its book publishing business, with best-selling children's books such as The Real Mother Goose (1916) and Kon-Tiki (1950).

Rand McNally was the first major map publisher to embrace a system of numbered highways. One of its cartographers, John Brink, invented a system that was first published in 1917 on a map of Peoria, Illinois. In addition to creating maps with numbered roads, Rand McNally also erected many of the actual roadside highway signs. This system was subsequently adopted by state and federal highway authorities. The oil industry quickly developed an interest in road maps, enticing Americans to explore and consume more gasoline. In 1920, Rand McNally began publishing road maps for the Gulf Oil Company, to be freely distributed at its service stations. By 1930, Rand McNally had two major road map competitors, General Drafting and Gousha, the latter of which was founded by a former Rand McNally sales representative. The Rand McNally Auto Chum, later to become the ubiquitous Rand McNally Road Atlas, was first published in 1924. The first full-color edition was published in 1960. It became fully digitized in 1993.

The Goode's School Atlas, named for its first editor, Dr. J. Paul Goode, was published in 1923. It became a standard text for high school and college geography curricula. Later retitled Goode's World Atlas, it is now in its 21^st edition.

The first Rand McNally Travel Store was opened in New York City in 1937. In the 1990s it was turned into a chain with 29 locations, but by 2005 all had been closed as a cost-saving measure.

Rand McNally moved its headquarters from Chicago to suburban Skokie, Illinois in 1952. The company opened its Versailles, Kentucky, book publishing plant in 1962 with 300,000 square feet and 23 employees. In 1994, the plant was the first to implement a new Kodak computer-to-plate printing system.^[1] When the plant was sold in 1997, it was over 1,000,000 square feet and employed 1,255 people.

In 1963, because the company was not satisfied with the ability of existing map projections to create intuitive depictions of the entire world, they commissioned Dr. Arthur H. Robinson to develop what became known as the Robinson projection, which became very popular and was used extensively for constructing maps of the entire world.^[2]

Rand McNally began creating maps digitally in 1982.

In 1989, Rand McNally donated its extensive collection of its maps to the Newberry Library. Now in possession of Gousha's archives as well, Rand McNally donated that map archive to the Newberry in late 2002.^[3]

With a string of acquisitions and growth throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Rand McNally employed over 4,000 people in four business groups.^[4] The company had been majority-owned by the McNally family since 1899, but by 1997 the family had decided to divest its interest in the company.

Ownership

Rand McNally has always been a privately-held or "pink sheet" company, with stock held by very few parties and very thinly traded.^[5] When Rand retired in 1899, he sold his shares in the company to McNally and the other company officers. The McNally family was the majority owner for nearly 100 years, from 1899 until 1997, at which time the family decided to divest its majority stake. The company was sold piecemeal; in January 1997, the company announced it was selling its Book Services Group, which employed 1,700 people in Versailles, Kentucky and Taunton, Massachusetts, to World Color Press for $155 million.^[6] In February 1997, the DocuSystems Group was sold to Code Hennessy & Simmons, a Chicago-based private equity firm.^[7][8] In April 1997, the Media Services Group, which employed 350 people with offices in Nashville, Tennessee; Fremont, California; Shannon, Ireland; and the Asia-Pacific region, was sold to McQueen, a Scottish software company.^[9][10]

The sole remaining group, publishing, represented the core mapmaking business of the company. In November 1997, the McNally family completed its divestiture by selling its majority ownership to AEA Investors for a reported $500 million.^[11] Much of the purchase price was leveraged, meaning the company took on significant debt hedging on future earnings. AEA intended to capitalize on Rand McNally's brand recognition by bringing digital mapping to the masses and attracting public investors during the dot-com boom. However, the company fell behind the technology curve of upstarts such as MapQuest and fell further into debt.^[12] AEA's stake in the company was acquired by Leonard Green & Partners through a prepackaged Chapter 11 restructuring deal on 15 January 2003.^[11] In December 2007, Patriarch Partners, which had previously been a minority owner, bought out Leonard Green and the other minority owners to become the sole owner of Rand McNally. The company's 283,008 sq ft (26,292 m²) building in Skokie, its home since 1952, was sold in February 2008 to Ida Crown Jewish Academy. The building originally housed a printing press and warehouse operations in addition to corporate offices, but had become underutilized. Rand's 280 employees will relocate to a smaller building nearby.^[13][14]

Presidents

William Rand founded his print shop in 1856 and "Rand, McNally & Co." was formally established in 1868. The company was incorporated in 1873 with Rand as the first president and McNally vice-president. When Rand retired in 1899, Andrew McNally assumed the role of president until his death in 1904. Rand died the following year. Andrew's son, Frederick McNally, became president upon his father's death, just as the age of the automobile was beginning. When Frederick McNally died in 1907, his sister's husband, Henry Beach Clow, became president. Andrew McNally II took over in 1933. He and his heirs, Andrew McNally III and IV, successively served as president until 1993.

1. 1873–1899: William Rand
2. 1899–1904: Andrew McNally
3. 1904–1907: Frederick McNally (Andrew's son)
4. 1907–1933: Henry Beach Clow (Andrew's son-in-law)
5. 1933–1948: Andrew McNally II (Andrew's grandson)
6. 1948–1974: Andrew McNally III (Andrew's great-grandson)
7. 1974–1993: Andrew McNally IV (Andrew's great-great-grandson)
8. 1993–1997: John S. Bakalar (former Rand McNally CFO)^[15]
9. 1997–1999: Henry J. Feinberg (former head of Rand McNally Publishing Group)^[16]
10. 1999–2000: Richard J. Davis (former executive at RR Donnelley and GeoSystems, forerunners of MapQuest)^[17]
11. 2000–2001: Norman E. Wells, Jr. (former Rand McNally COO)^[18]
12. 2001–2003: Michael Hehir (former head of McGraw-Hill Ventures)^[19]
13. 2003–present: Robert S. Apatoff (former head of Allstate marketing)^[20]

Acquisitions

Rand McNally has made many acquisitions over the years to consolidate the crowded map publishing industry or to extend its capabilities in new markets.

• 1980 — Transportation Data Management (TDM) — Makers of transportation mileage and routing software that continues to be used for Rand's commercial trucking products.^[21]

• 1984 — Denoyer-Geppert — Assets of the school map and globe publisher were assimilated into Rand's education product line.^[21]

• 1988 — Champion Map — Rand continued to use its facilities in Daytona Beach, Florida, until 2001. All Champion Map products had disappeared, but in 2007 Rand began using the brand on street maps for selected small markets.

• 1992 — Nicholstone Holdings — Subsidiary companies (Nicholstone Software Services, Nicholstone Looseleaf, and Nicholstone Bindery) were folded into Rand's Book Services Group, extending its printing and binding businesses and adding capabilities for manufacturing, packaging, and distributing computer software and documentation.^[22]

• 1993 — Allmaps Canada — Subsequently became a wholly-owned subsidiary company, Rand McNally Canada.^[21]

• 1996 — Gousha — One of Rand McNally's longtime rivals, its 82 employees unexpectedly found their Comfort, Texas, building locked up on the morning of 18 April with a note taped to the door stating that the company had been purchased by Rand McNally and all their jobs had been eliminated.^[23] Gousha's entire product line was discontinued.

• 1998 — Thomas Bros. Maps — The prominent Southern California mapmaker best known for its ubiquitous Thomas Guide^[24]. Rand McNally continues to brand its street guide products as "The Thomas Guide" in western U.S. markets.

• 1999 — King of the Road — Regional map publisher and distributor based in the Pacific Northwest, which had a previous partnership with Thomas Bros.^[25] King of the Road titles are no longer available.

• 2004 — Perly's — Maker of street maps for Toronto, Ontario and the surrounding areas. Assets were assimilated into Rand McNally Canada.^[26]

Humor and trivia

• The company has always been named "Rand McNally," but it has been jocularly referred to as "Rand and McNally," as in the opening to O. Henry's story, A Municipal Report: "...it is a rash one who will lay his finger on the map and say: 'In this town there can be no romance—what could happen here?' Yes, it is a bold and a rash deed to challenge in one sentence history, romance, and Rand and McNally."

• In an episode of The Simpsons, Bart vs. Australia, the Rand McNally logo on the globe was mistaken by Bart for a continent named Rand McNally; Lisa mocks him saying "In fact, in Rand McNally, people wear hats on their feet and hamburgers eat people."

• In an episode of ALF, Willie finds a map in Alf's spaceship, entitled "Rand McNally Map to Space".

• Bing Crosby used to tell of a fishing spot so secret that Rand would not tell McNally.

• Jason Mraz has a song titled "Dream Life Of Rand McNally" which can be heard on the album Live at Java Joe's as well as on fan traded audience recordings. It tells the story of a man who travels the world and experiences a bunch of crazy things.

• One of the drummers for American punk rock band The Dils called himself Rand McNally

References

• "Mapping A Life's Journey: The Legacy of Andrew McNally III" by Janice A. Petterchak, privately printed by Rand McNally, 1995. Library of Congress 95-068047
• Online digitized versions of Rand, McNally & Co's 1879 Business Atlas and 1897 Indexed Atlas of the World at DavidRumsey.com.

External links

• Rand McNally & Company
• Rand McNally Canada