Herb Hilton retires after 53 years in sales
More than 50 people attended a retirement party in November for McKesson Medical-Surgical salesman Herb Hilton. “There were many nice words spoken about Pop, plaques given out, and a nice lunch,” says son Dan Hilton, also with McKesson. “Not bad for a Wednesday afternoon.”
Hilton first got involved in medical distribution in 1959, working summers for Bischoff ’s Surgical Supply while attending California State University. After graduating in 1962, Hilton went to work full-time for Bischoff ’s, servicing hospitals, physician practices, nursing homes and industrial labs in California’s San Joaquin Valley. In the late 1960s, Fred Bischoff sold his company to Intermedco, a Houston-based distributor with ambitions of becoming national. Hilton opened a branch for Intermedco in Orlando, Fla., and later moved to Houston.
In 1980, he left Intermedco to form his own company, Hilton Surgical Supply, which serviced physicians in the Greater Houston area. All three of his sons – Brad, Dan and Doug – worked there at one time or another. In 1995, Hilton sold the company to Taylor Medical, which soon thereafter became part of PSS (now McKesson Medical-Surgical).