The Full Form of EBSCO is‍ Elton B. Stephens Co.

Elton Bryson Stephens Sr. was an American businessman and philanthropist from Alabama. He was the founder of EBSCO Industries. 

EBSCO, a family business conglomerate headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama, but with offices also located in Canada, Brazil, Australia, Germany, the Czech Republic, South Africa, Taiwan and England, to name a few places, constantly changes and grows due to the basic philosophies and principles passed down from generation to generation by the company’s owners, the Stephens family. EBSCO has built a financial empire based on the vision of one young door-to-door salesman with a strong work ethic.

In 1930 during the Great Depression, Elton B. Stephens of tiny Clio, Alabama, used his summer break from college to sell magazine subscriptions door-to-door in the upper peninsula of Michigan. At the end of the summer, he returned to Birmingham-Southern College in Birmingham, Alabama, with enough money to pay his full year’s expenses for college. Stephens came back not only with more money than he’d ever had in his life but with a burning desire to sell. And sell he did. After attaining a law degree, Stephens created a worldwide sales company that he started in 1943 that’s known today as EBSCO Industries, (Elton B. Stephens Company) Inc.

With annual sales that surpassed $1.3 billion in 2001, EBSCO owns 22 businesses around the world. The business’s include the world’s largest manufacturer of fishing lures; the publisher of journal article databases; the subscriptions provider for more than 250,000 journals serving more than 50,000 libraries worldwide; a steel joist and metal roof deck manufacturer; and a real-estate developer. The company employs 4,500 people including 2,400 employees in manufacturing, 1,300 in information services, 500 in general services and others.

EBSCO has navigated from the dark days of the Great Depression to the dynamic days of the Internet. What driving force has kept the family and the company strong through two generations, with a third generation waiting in the wings? Will this third generation of the Stephens family steer EBSCO in the future?