While American Container Net, Inc. (ACN) may be a new name, it is by no means a new company. Our concept is simple: acquire proven, established, owner-operated businesses and retain the managers who have made those businesses so successful. With a network of time-tested companies united under one banner, we offer customers, vendors and business associates an uncommon richness of experience, knowledge and business judgment.

Far from a "start-up," ACN is built on over two centuries of operating history in the wooden barrel and steel drum reconditioning industries. In some cases, the ACN management team's roots in the industry go back through several generations. For example, Vice President-Business Development Gary Brotsky's grandfather started the Brotsky family drum and barrel business in Ohio in 1918. Vice President-National Accounts Andy Smith is a second-generation drum reconditioner, and has spent his entire career in the industry - first, as an employee of his father's company, and then as the owner after purchasing the business. And even though company President Mike Murphy is a first-generation drum reconditioner, all of his 38 years since graduating from business school have been in the industry.

The management team members may have come from separate companies, but we are not strangers to working together. Most have been very active in the industry's trade group, the Reusable Industrial Packaging Association (RIPA) of Washington, D.C. Both Andy Smith and Mike Murphy have served as Chairman of the RIPA Board of Directors, and other ACN officers have sat on the RIPA Board and various committees. This shared experience is just one of the reasons why the integration of the formerly separate businesses into a single, coordinated company has proceeded smoothly and ahead of schedule.

In summary, American Container Net, Inc. is the integration and continuation of success - but with a new, dramatically increased ability to offer customers wide-ranging services over an extensive geographic area. As our acquired companies have done for years and years, ACN supplies quality industrial packaging and provides safe, responsible pick up and disposition of used, empty drums. Nowhere is that tradition of trustworthy operation better expressed than in our theme: There and back. Safe and sound.