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History
Over Half a Century Old
With 1,000 Years Combined
Knowledge & Experience
1955 - 2008
Ralph B. Brackett has been President & CEO of D&L for over 50 years. D&L
had its humble beginnings in June 1955 in a small building on Wilkinson
Blvd. in Charlotte, North Carolina. In December of that same year Clyde
Brackett (father of Ralph) bought out the original owners (Dellinger &
Link) for around $2,800.00. At that time, D&L only had two employees. In
1957, after graduating from Evans Business College and being honorably
discharged from the United States Air Force, Ralph joined D&L becoming
the company’s third employee. Shortly thereafter, Ralph went on the road
as an outside salesperson. In his first month the sales for entire
company were only about $2,000.00. By 1960 the business had grown to the
point that D&L needed more space so we moved to 708 S. Mint Street in
Charlotte. Then we opened our first branch in Greensboro in 1961 and
followed with the Raleigh branch in 1964.
In 1964 Ralph Brackett became president of the corporation. He recalls,
at that time D&L was selling mainly parts for wringer washers and ranges
and any other non-original part that we could sell. Then the original
appliance manufacturers at the time (like GE, Whirlpool, and Frigidaire)
started looking at us which allowed D&L to become an authorized parts
distributor for almost every appliance manufacturer in the country. In
1977 we moved our Corporate headquarters and the Charlotte branch to our
current location at 2100 Freedom Drive.
In the early 1980’s D&L was able to expand into the HVAC business when
General Electric appointed us an authorized distributor for their
residential heating and air conditioning equipment (The Trane Company
later purchased the General Electric residential division). Since that
time D&L has consistently been one of Trane’s largest residential and
light commercial parts distributors in the country. We are continually
expanding our HVAC offerings to the point that we now represent over 250
vendors giving us the ability to supply almost any part the HVAC
customer needs. Some of the HVAC lines we represent are Trane,
ServiceFirst, American Standard, Alco, Bristol, Emerson, Furnas,
Honeywell, Marathon Electric, Ranco, Rayovac, RefTec, Robinair, Steveco,
Tecumseh, White-Rodgers, and many more. We pride ourselves on being a
one-stop shopping facility for all our customers.
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