History of independent living aids, LLC

independent living aids (ila)is the oldest privately-held national distributor of its type in the United States, and this year we celebrated our 32nd birthday.

A lot of our customers have asked us about the history of our company, and there's probably no better time to tell you about our company, who we are, our company philosophy and our plans for the future.

ila was founded in 1977 as a division of a respected nationally known pharmaceutical distributor, as part of a program of expanding into other allied health areas. The idea of entering the field of blindness and visual impairment was given to us by a man named Milt Kaye, who many old timers will remember from his days at the American Foundation for the Blind, where he ran the aids and appliances division. Milt started ila for us and ran it from 1977 until 1981, at which time he left to pursue other endeavors.

From its inception, the president of ila has been Marvin Sandler and in 1986 he and his wife Mimi Berman-Sandler bought the company and have operated it ever since as a family-run business, with time-honored values of quality and service at competitive prices.

Marvin brings 50 years of business experience to ila and Mimi, who was formerly the Acting Dean of the College of Allied Health Professions at the Downstate Medical Center of the State University of New York (SUNY) brings more than 30 years of organizational and administrative skills to the company. We're a well balanced team almost akin to "Mr. Inside and Mr. Outside" - Glenn Davis and "Doc" Blanchard of the glory days of West Point football back in the 1940's. Mimi personally selects most of the items that are added to ila's product line each year and writes, edits and produces all of ila's catalogs and Marvin supervises bulk sales and is responsible for finances. What a team! What a team!

Many of our products are developed and produced outside of the United States, which has given us the opportunity to travel extensively. Additionally we exhibit at many international conferences, and have visited such varied countries as Australia, Singapore, Japan, China and Korea in Asia. On the other side of the globe we've gone to England, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Israel, Egypt, Austria and Sweden. To "top" it off and "bottom" it off on the planet, we've visited and exhibited in Russia in the North and South Africa in the South. These have been "win-win-win" trips, since we found items, sold products and visited interesting places as well. In South Africa we added on a 6-day safari, but found no elephants, hippos or zebras who needed our products. The business of selling items for those who are blind or visually impaired has been good to us, and we've tried to give back something to show our appreciation.

Through the years we've solicited advice from our customers and have incorporated many of your suggestions into our product line and have used your input to enhance our service and expand the range of products we supply. We added considerably to our catalog and web offerings with the February 2004 acquisition of Ann Morris Enterprises, a company well-known in the industry, with an 18-year history of providing aids and appliances for blind consumers. This was followed by the May 2005 purchase of SoundBytes, a hearing enhancement resource company, enabling us to increase the scope of services we offer our customers.

ila started life in a corner room in the warehouse of the pharmaceutical wholesaler mentioned at the beginning of this history. From there we've moved twice into ever-increasing office/warehouse locations, and our current facilities include a warehouse with over 300,000 cubic feet of storage space. Beginning with a staff of 3 people, we've now grown to more than 30, and all of our pictures will be printed in our next catalog, so that you can see the people with whom you're speaking when you call, as well as those who process, pick, pack and ship your orders. Mimi's picture always appears in our catalogs, accompanied by a welcoming greeting to our customers, and we feel it's time for you to see Marvin - and he'll be there with everyone else.

As we celebrate our 32nd anniversary and look back on our past accomplishments, we now look forward to the next 30 years and what is still to be done. Although the times and challenges have changed, and continue to change, our core business ethic and philosophy remain the same, and we are still committed to our old fashioned values of quality and service at competitive prices. We look forward to continuing to be of service to our customers for many, many years to come.