The company would purchase in bulk various chemicals, primarily carbon black and coloring agents used in the printing industry, throughout the Midwest, and resell them in smaller batches in Chicago.
In 1922, the company acquired 20% interest in a carbon black manufacturing plant in Swartz, Louisiana and started to market their product on the commission basis.
However, within a short time Tumpeer got homesick and asked to return to the Chicago area, with Wishnick replacing him in New York.
1935 saw the Wishnick-Tumpeer’s expansion overseas, when first an interest was acquired in Harold A. Wilson & Company, a UK supplier of pigments to the United States.
[2][4] The first step in that direction was the expansion of the Chicago plant, which expanded its product line to manufacture metallic stearates.
Shortly after, the Franks Chemical Products Company in Brooklyn, also a producer of stearates, was acquired and then moved to Perth Amboy, New Jersey to reduce costs.
In 1953, Witco acquired a plant from the India Paint & Varnish Division of American Marietta in Los Angeles and retooled it to produce metallic stearates and driers.
In 1954, sales reached a $19.9 million mark, and a compounded synthetic and natural rubber manufacturing facility was acquired in England.
[5][2] Nevertheless, the company was committed to pursuing the manufacturing course, and by 1955 exited the distributing business altogether; a decision influenced in no small part by the Korean War and the resurgence of rationing and shortages it brought.
Additionally, with Julius Trumpeer retiring in 1947 and his brother David passing away in 1951, a major management reorganization was long overdue.
In 1955, Robert Wishnick became the chairman of the board, and Max Minning, a long-time employee, replaced him as company's president.
William Wishnick, Robert's son who joined the company back in 1938 as an office clerk and warehouse worker and gradually worked his way to the top, filled the executive vice-president position.
[2][6] The next acquisition happened in 1960, with the purchase of Sonneborn Chemical and Refining Company, at the time a leading manufacturer of petroleum-derived products.
The acquisition also brought a number of people into executive management, who would play major roles in Witco's subsequent growth, and boosted the sales volume to $100 million mark.
The final acquisition of 1966 was of the remainder of Witfield Chemical, makers of biodegradable detergent raw materials, who were the result of an earlier merger of Richfield Oil with the Atlantic Refining Company.
By then petroleum products overtook specialty chemicals as the bulk of company's business, with materials engineered for special applications accounting for only 6% of all output.
Henry Sonneborn retired, and the position of the president and passed onto William J. Ashe, who was in turn replaced by Thomas J. Bickett, a member of the board of directors, in 1986.