warehouses, spending $144 million to construct 16 major new facilities that dramatically cut down on delivery time. As a result of these investments, the company was well positioned to take advantage of a strong economy in the final years of the 1990s. In 1999 annual revenues topped $4.2 billion, while profits almost doubled during this period, improving from $36 million in 1995 to $64 million in 1999. The improvement in the comm/data sector was of particular importance. In 1991 it accounted for just 17 percent of Graybar sales, but by 1999 totaled 38 percent. Graybar engaged in some external growth, making several acquisitions in 1999 and 2000, the largest being Splane Electric Supply Co., a Detroit, Michigan, company with $30 million in annual sales, 70 employees, and six locations. In 2000 Graybar revenues improved to $5.2 billion, while net income topped $66.2 million. To support further expansion of its nationwide distribution centers, instrumental to the company's growth, Graybar placed a $100 million bond offering in the summer of 2001, the largest financing effort in its history. By this time nine of the 16 distribution centers started in 1997 were operational and the remaining seven were only months away from opening. Once the system was in place, Graybar was able to achieve its long-term aim of being able to ship to customers within 24 hours throughout the United States. A downturn in the economy, however, soon hurt business and forced management to fine-tune the company's strategy. In 2001 revenues fell to $4.8 billion and business continued to drop off in 2002 and 2003 to $3.99 billion and $3.78 billion, respectively. As it had done in the early 1990s, Graybar opted to invest in its infrastructure in order to be ready to take advantage of the economy when it ultimately rebounded. The company invested $90 million on new technology to provide customers with more detailed information on orders, deliveries, and payments. At the same time, it encouraged its 4,100 suppliers to implement a standardized bar code system to create an open, central database similar to that found in the retail industry. In this way, Graybar would distinguish itself from its rivals, graduating from the role of middleman to a supply chain expert capable of adding value to the process. Once the new system was functional, Graybar hoped to be able to sell detailed reports to both suppliers and customers in the then