Wednesday, April 22, 1998 | 10:30 a.m.
A merger between one of the leading chemical distribution companies in Southern California with J.B. Chemical Co. of North Las Vegas will give it a springboard to enter Southern Nevada's lucrative swimming pool maintenance chemical market.
Los Angeles Chemical Co., a privately held company founded in 1914, will keep J.B. Chemical President Paula Brown aboard for three years while it familiarizes itself with the Southern Nevada market.
Brown, who also serves on the North Las Vegas City Council and could face a recall election later this year due to a controversy involving J.B, said she was given a contract to stay on with the company, which will continue to be known as J.B. Chemical in Nevada.
Brown said she is uncertain what her title would be, but Los Angeles Chemical President David Miller would lead the company and would maintain his office in Southgate, an industrial community north of Los Angeles.
Brown said the merger, the financial details of which were not released, had been in the planning stages for about nine months and had nothing to do with her political career.
Los Angeles Chemical, a manufacturer and distributor of fertilizers and oil field chemicals, has annual revenues of about $26.5 million. J.B. Chemical, which deals in janitorial products, degreasers, car wash soap, water treatment chemicals and products for boilers and cooling towers and was founded in 1981, has annual sales of about $1.8 million.
"The fact that we are so diversified is what appealed to them," Brown said Tuesday of the deal.
Brown and Greg Bermosk, vice president of sales for Los Angeles Chemical, said the local office would retain the J.B. Chemical name and the corporate identity of both partners would appear on correspondence from the company.
Brown said 21 local employees would not be affected by the merger. She said she was approached by Los Angeles Chemical on the deal and looked at the plan as an opportunity for growth.
Both companies, she said, have been interested in getting into the swimming pool treatment chemical business and entry into the business would produce another revenue stream for the merged company.
Her husband James Brown, at the time an undercover informant for the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, sold chemicals that were later used in methamphetamine labs. Drug charges against him were suspended after he pleaded to the tax charges.
Paula Brown was never charged with any wrongdoing.
The citizens' group, however, says Paula Brown has compromised the city's image.
Paula Brown said her husband plans to retire from the chemical business, adding that his life was endangered by the drug informant disclosures.
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