Our Philosophy

We believe that there are only a few ingredients in the recipe of success:

Specialization—focus on being the best at what you do

We focus on providing specialized storage solutions for very specific clientele who have very specialized needs

Commitment—we are very careful who we choose as our business partners, employees and even clients—we expect our extended team to keep the promises they keep

We choose to only work with vendors who offer the best solution for the task at hand

We hire smart passionate people, train them hard and empower them to provide superior customer care.

We pursue clients that we believe will benefit the most from our expertise.

We believe the best team will deliver the best results for our clients.

Execution—selling storage is easy, designing and implementing systems that deliver results is hard

We deliver on our promises—Bradford Systems has grown tremendously over the last 40-plus years. Today we are proud to say we have been chosen by thousands of clients as their preferred storage partner.

• The Harold Washington Library
• Clarian Health Partners
• The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library
• Indiana National Guard
• The Stroger Cook County Hospital
• Indiana Sate Museum
• The Chicago Field Museum
• Federal Bureau of Investigation
• The University of Illinois

Our approach to our work is what truly differentiates Bradford Systems. Our storage planners work as expert storage consultants for our clients. We’re truly dedicated to helping you improve your information and material handling processes. For us, it’s never been about simply selling some shelving.

While the core of our business is shelving and storage systems, we also supply custom cabinetry, mail sorting systems, document management software applications, and a complete line of filing supplies.

Of course, it’s not enough to store your files and artifacts—you also need to be able to keep track of them and access them quickly. To that end, we also assist our clients with information management services that allow them to access their stored items efficiently. We work in partnership with our clients to enable them to more effectively:

• Merge/purge files
• Relocate file (onsite or offsite)
• Convert files (paper to electronic, bar coding, color coding, etc.)

As our clients’ needs change, we’ll change with them. We’re dedicated not simply to storage—but to providing the solutions you need.

Our History

Our business was founded on January 1, 1968 and we started as a manufacturers’ representative working with the leading manufacturer of high quality shelving and distributing their products to dealers in Illinois. Originally, there were just two employees: Read Bradford and Maxine White.

Our first office was a room on the second floor of Read’s residence. After a short time, we added sales people, an installer, and additional manufacturers to our product line.

At the same time, a farmer named Maurice Staller developed a unique product designed to maximize the amount of storage in a given area. He named his product SpaceSaver.

A few years later, Bradford Systems saw the potential of SpaceSaver, and became one of the brand’s original dealers. This key decision early in our history proved to be a wise one, and it propelled our company’s growth to the national footprint we’ve established today.

Since then we have grown to a team of more than 80 people and we represent a much wider group of manufacturers but our focus remains the same as the day we opened for business: to provide the best designed and implemented storage system to help solve the problem at hand.

We invite you to start a relationship with Bradford Systems and find out why more than 6,000 clients have chosen us to help solve their storage problems.