B&D Industrial Inc., a Macon, Georgia-based industrial distributor, this week announced the retirement of CEO Andrew “Andy” Nations, effective Dec. 31.

Nations will remain chairman of the board of B&D Industrial while three of the company’s third-generation family members — Brian Davis, Ben Nations and Lauren Lanter — will step into the co-CEO position while continuing in their current operating roles.

All three were elected to the board at the annual shareholders meeting in December.

Nations began his career with B&D in 1965, working part-time in high school for his father, John D. Nations. He was named CEO in 1993 and, as the company said in its press release, “led B&D to the next level, from implementing the company’s first computer system in 1975 to managing various acquisitions and achieving record growth in the 1990s.”

Nations has received both the Warren Pike Award for lifetime achievement by the Power Transmission Distributors Association and the Bearing Specialists Association Lifetime Achievement Award.