It all started many years ago when John Stone, the current owner of Superb Hardware,graduated from Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland, with an Applied Science degree specialising in maths and chemistry. From there he went to work as an industrial chemist in Exxon, analysing petrochemicals and lubricants. However, working in a laboratory doing routine analysis was not all it was cut out to be, so he took his first foray into technical sales as a product manager developing the chemistry for Perkin Elmer spectrometers and Metrohm electroanalytical equipment.

The chemical industry once againbeckoned with his next step as General Manager for Hays Chemicals, Ireland, a FTSE 100 company. This was a cut throat business, buying and selling commodity chemicals for industrial use. He worked here for 3 years on a month to month business such was the pressure to meet monthly targets and K.P.I’s.