Scott R Herndon

Scott Herndon and his family founded Herndon Products in 2003 as a defense and aerospace parts distribution company. The company has grown more than sevenfold in the past three years -- from revenue of $5.8 million in 2004 to projected revenue of $45 million in 2008. Herndon said he and other company executives -- his wife, Hope Herndon, chief executive; his brother, Craig "Skip" Herndon, vice president of corporate development; and Clark Hurrell, president of the company's Herndon Specialty Products unit -- had been in talks with Daniel Rodrigues for almost a year prior to bringing him on board as COO. Their expectation is that Rodrigues will bring Herndon Products the same kind of success he helped foster at ESSI, which grew from revenue of $408 million in 2002 to about $1.1 billion in 2005. Herndon Products was created from a business plan Scott Herndon drew up while studying for a bachelor's degree in organizational studies at Saint Louis University. He completed his degree when he was 44 years old, a few years after he and his family sold PB Herndon Co. to Banner Aerospace Inc. in January 1997 in a deal valued at about $14.7 million. PB Herndon, which the Herndons founded in 1980, was a parts distribution company. Its clients included Boeing Co., Lockheed Martin Corp. and Northrop Grumman Corp. Scott and Craig Herndon continued working at the company for six years after it was bought by Banner. The Herndons used about $150,000 of their own money and a loan of about $1 million from Clayton-based Enterprise Bank to start Herndon Products.