About the Mazel Company
Our Mission Statement:
Our Mission is to provide outstanding values to our customers. Our merchandise and service will always beat our competition and meet or exceed our customers and vendors expectations. Our employees will always say they are proud to work for our company.
Reuven Dessler and Jake Koval met during their school years and have been friends ever since. Their lives together have surrounded their work and their families, both of which have been central to their success.
In the early years Reuven worked for American Greetings in the marketing department and Jake worked for Troutman on the road selling blue jeans.
After leaving American Greetings to pursue his own business Reuven acquired 2 items, a Ziggy clock & Holly Hobby wallet. He of course looked to his friend Jake for help selling these items and asked him to take them with him to a customer in Kentucky. Jake was very hesitant since this wasn’t his area of expertise. However, when he awoke the next morning sitting on his car trunk was a box. Yes, it was from his friend Reuven.
He put the box in his trunk along with his other goodies and headed off to Kentucky. When he arrived at his appointment he presented them to the buyer who was interested and agreed to purchase 1,000 of each item. Returning from Kentucky he stopped in Columbus, Ohio for another sales call and once again the Buyer agreed to purchase 2,000 of each item. SUCCESS!
And so it was, the beginning — The Mazel Company
Reuven and Jake officially opened the doors of The Mazel Company in 1975 as a wholesaler of closeout merchandise. Nothing was turned down, they bought and sold merchandise in every category, no amount was too big or too small. In the early days The Mazel Company consisted of 4 employees, Nate Levitansky, David Lipins (warehouse manager), Jake Koval (salesman) & Reuven Dessler (buyer) and was located in the basement of a warehouse in Cleveland Ohio. Currently our staff has grown to 120 and we are now located in numerous locations around the country.
One of the company’s first sales was to Christmas Tree Shops at the Navy Pier Show in Chicago. They along with 1000 other retailers and wholesalers make up the Mazel of today.
Mazel remained in the Cleveland warehouse until 1987 when they relocated to Solon Ohio to an office and warehouse facility of over 1 Million square feet. This facility has been our home for the past 27 years and if walls could talk they would tell stories of our successes and failures but most importantly of: