Family-owned Company Retools For the Future

The recent acquisition of WaterPik's laboratory- and occlusion-product lines and the launch of a milling center are just two of the many strategic changes made by Whip Mix Corp. in the past decade. LMT Associate Publishers Kelly Carr and Laurie Freddino traveled to Louisville, Kentucky for some Southern hospitality and to learn how third- and fourth-generation members of the Steinbock family—including siblings Anne, David, Andy and Allen plus his son, Stuart—are fulfilling their family legacy.

Whip Mix was born in 1919 with a modified egg beater and a metal bowl: a mechanical spatulator that whipped and mixed better than anything else on the market. The brainchild of Edmund Steinbock Sr., the spatulator took the market by storm. Now, 89 years later, Whip Mix is a 30-million-dollar company with an extensive product range marketed in 88 countries. Still headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky, the company also...