Our History

Tom Fleming, founder of Distribution Management, spent five years of his career selling typewriters for IBM in downtown St. Louis. Missouri. From this experience, Tom recognized the demand for replacement ribbons and in 1972, All-state Business Machines (ABM) was born as a reseller of typewriter ribbons. Tom, the only employee at the time, would go door-to-door among downtown businesses to take orders on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, would return with deliveries on Tuesdays and Thursdays and would prepare and mail invoices on Saturdays.

ABM proved to be a reliable partner within the industry and, with the rapid growth of desktop publishing and business printing, became a source of products for other resellers. This led to the evolution of what is known today as Distribution Management and its subsidiary Supplies Network. In 2010, Tom moved into the role of Chairman handing over the CEO reigns to Sean Fleming who championed the launch of DM Fulfillment Services, the company’s third-party fulfillment division.

It is with great pride that today Distribution Management still reflects the values-based approach set forth by our founder, Tom Fleming. Led by CEO Sean Fleming, President Greg Welchans and our leadership team, those values guide every decision to create a foundation of operational and distribution excellence and reinforce our company culture — agile, creative, collaborative, progressive, and customer-centric.