Dow gets taste of Milwaukee

Tampa-based Dow Electronics already represents the Gulf Coast well, with consumer electronics distribution centers in 11 states across the South. But now it's adding a big name to its lineup.

Milwaukee Tools -- a professional and heavy-duty tools manufacturer founded in the early 1920s -- has picked Dow as its primary distributor in the south.

Although it's named after a hardworking American city, it's been a while since Milwaukee Tools has been American. Merrill Lynch acquired it in 1986, and in 1995 that firm sold it to Atlas Copco, a Swedish industrial equipment company that employs 44,000 people worldwide. Atlas sold Milwaukee 10 years later to Techtronic Industries, a Hong Kong-based manufacturing company that also makes products for Homelite Corp., Hoover and Dirt Devil.

Dow itself has a long history that dates back to 1960, with a territory stretching from Texas to Georgia and Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.