In celebration of 20 years as a public company, executives and workers from Airgas Inc. rang the New York Stock Exchange's closing bell Dec. 19.

The company posted a 20 percent compounded annual growth rate since it went public Dec. 19, 1986.

Founder, chairman and CEO Peter McCausland said the milestone could not have been achieved without the hard work of Airgas' employees, several of whom joined him for the ceremony.

“At the time of our IPO, we were a company with just 850 employees at 40 locations in 14 states. Today, we have nearly 11,000 associates working in 900 locations nationwide. Their talent and determination has created value for our customers, our communities and our shareholders,” McCausland said.

Airgas went public five years after its founding in February 1982. A merger with Werco Inc. gave then-named U.S. Airgas enough scale to go public with a 600,000-share IPO.

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