In January of 1959, Lloyd L. Hanson began his career in the Yellow Page industry as a sales representative for a large directory company. Encouraged by some of the telephone companies that he worked with, Lloyd founded his own directory company in January of 1973. L.L. Hanson & Company began as a family endeavor in the basement of the Hanson home in Newton, Iowa. The original employees were Lloyd, his wife Valora, his son Dennis, his daughter Cheryl and his son-in-law Mike.  Within the first two years of operations, the company had contractual agreements with eleven telephone companies to publish phone directories.  Nine of these original companies continue to partner with Hanson Directory Service to serve their directory publishing needs.

In 1975, the company moved out of the family basement and into the Midtown Building in Newton. In July of 1978, the company incorporated and changed its name to Hanson Directory Service, Inc., as it remains to this day. In 1979, another son, William L. Hanson, joined the company. Upon Lloyd’s retirement, Bill became President and CEO of Hanson Directory Service, Inc.

Under Bill’s guidance, over the next twenty years Hanson Directory continued to steadily grow and expand. In January of 1999, moved to a new production facility. After additional growth and expansion, the company outgrew that facility and subsequently purchased some land in order to build a new, 25,000 square foot, state-of-the-art facility at our current location of 1501 North 15th Avenue East in Newton. Construction was completed at this location in February of 2007 and will hopefully suit our space needs for years to come.  As of April, 2008, Hanson Directory Service, Inc. represents over 140 telephone companies in 27 states, and employs over 85 people throughout the organization.

The shared goal of our staff for each directory that we publish is to produce a quality, user-friendly directory that both the telephone companies that we represent and the communities that they serve can truly be proud of.  The numerous telephone companies that we represent and the valued advertisers in our many markets have all experienced the attention to detail that helps us to consistently produce quality directories.

For information on directory publishing, career opportunities or advertising in any of our directories, please call us at 1-800-622-0034 or email us at hanson@hansondirectory.com.